Well, we started 2022 out worried that 2020 won. It's still up in the air, but thanks to brave folks like the Freedom Convoy the pendulum is certainly starting to turn our way.
But that's not what I'm thinking about as we get ready to turn the calendar over...wait, nobody actually does that anymore, do they? In fact, they never did: 90% of the time you replaced the calendar in January rather than just tear off or turn over the December page. Anyways...
What I'm thinking about this time of year isn't silly top or bottom ten lists [uh, didn't we used to do those ourselves? -ed] or celebrities we lost over the past twelve months. No, instead I'm thinking about the things I didn't have to spend my hard earned cash on in 2022. So here it is, the list of items that I didn't have to purchase in the entire calendar year of 2022 (items in bold I didn't buy in 2021 either):
- Tea bags. I really had to double check my memory, but this is true. I didn't spend money on teabags in all of 2022. I still use tea bags, but I also for a large part use loose leaf tea, and more critically was using so much loose leaf tea in the first 6-9 months of the year that my tea bag stores from 2021 were still kicking around.
- Laundry detergent (2020). Like all good physicists, I keep a couple Geers on standby to help with menial tasks (like brewing loose leaf tea). One of them a few years ago mentioned that the average person uses eight times more laundry soap than is actually required (and the conspiratorial minded will note that things like Tide pods are designed to prevent you from using this information). Indeed, for much daily use (ie. jeans that you don't wipe food on, or overshirts that don't get directly exposed to your armpits) simply agitating water that the clothes are in is sufficient to clean them. This might be cheating, but I have two bottles of laundry detergent: one for darks and another for general use (I also have a box left of that sudsing crystals shit that I literally got while Paul Martin was the Prime Minister), and both of them were purchased in 2020. The dark one only has one load left, so I just snuck under the wire on that one, but the general purpose one (which was larger) might appear on this list again in January of 2024.
- Shampoo. This might be another cheating one since I have two bottles (one in each shower) and actually had a third bottle from maybe even 4 years ago I found in the back of the cabinet. Still you won't find shampoo on a receipt for anything I bought in the calendar year 2022.
- Conditioner (2019?). On a related note, as a guy I don't ever really need to use conditioner. I think I picked up a conditioner in Pittsburgh for some unfathomable reason, and that bottle is probably one of the half dozen I similarly have kicking around. This might appear on the 2025 list at the current rate. And no, smarmy people, it's not because I'm going bald. 15% less hair doesn't justify multiple years without haircare products.
- Soap/bodywash. This might be a 2020 purchase as well, try as I might I can't remember when I bought the pack of Irish Spring of which the first bar gave out in the summer and whose second and third bars have never been taken out of the package. What can I say, I subscribe to the man's cleaning method (and the scrubbing can be done with the leftover shampoo all lathered up in the hair).
- Gratuities (2018). Ever since the NDP gave waitresses a "living wage" I stopped tipping and have never looked back. These bitches vote for evil, I vote for me over them in my pocketbook.
- Firewood. I didn't go camping as often in 2022 as I did in 2021, but at least this time I was able to get access for firewood from a third party source ahead of time.
- Moisturizer (2019). Another thing I bought a nice package of in the States and it turns out I had one already that I haven't used yet. Whoops.
- Kleenex. The number of times I've used this product, rather than toilet paper or a pair of dirty boxers that needed to get washed anyways, means that the pack of 8 I bought in 2021 is still nowhere near exhaustion.
- Vermouth (1998). It's 4 parts gin and 1 part vermouth for a classic martini, not the other way around. 1998 me is still smarting from that, I think I used up the first of three bottles I bought last millennium sometime around 2014. On a related note, it turns out I also don't like the taste of martinis.
And just for fun, the things that surprised me I did buy in 2022:
- Books. Well, specifically, one physical book: one of those Lonely Planet translation guides for my trip overseas.
- Dish detergent. Two weeks ago I had to break down and buy more, after the two packages I've had since early 2021 gave up the ghost. So close!
- Drinks and dinner with a woman. For everything that feminism and the modern left is tearing down, isn't it interesting that this particular social construct is still going strong?
