Pink Friday.

I have an aversion to buying stuff I don’t need and a slightly less difficult time buying stuff I do need. Black Friday was going to have to survive without me.

Except I forgot about Black Friday until Yann reminded me when we were five minutes away from Canadian Tire.

Wonderful. Elbowing my way through a crowd of bargain hunters wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day off.

I had just gotten over a three-day headache, which was likely exacerbated by the dryness of our place. Yann and I were both waking up with cottonmouth. Boiling a pot of water on the stovetop was working but didn’t seem to be the safest idea, so there we were at Canadian Tire, looking for a machine that would make us and the cats dewy.

Before this, Yann bestowed on me the responsibility of comparing humidifiers online, which I warned was a mistake. As much as hearing people act as if being deaf is the worst thing in the world, they FUCKING HATE NOISY HOME APPLIANCES. They’ll bitch relentlessly about the noise, even to me. It’s as if they’re annoyed at how the noise doesn’t annoy me and want to compensate by being annoying.

We haven’t even owned the humidifier for 48 hours, and already we’re in love with our boring adult purchase. How does it sound, according to Yann?

“It’s quiet. It’s like white noise.”

“White noise? Does noise come in other colours?”

“Hmm… pink noise.”

So, we’ve got white and pink noise (also brown noise, if you watch South Park), Black Friday, white lies, and grey areas. Is this culturally imposed synesthesia?

While my right wrist was out of service, thanks to a tendinitis flare-up, I considered recycling an old blog post but didn’t find anything I felt like sharing. Besides, my throwback posts don’t generally get as many views: people aren’t interested in young Laura. For the most part, I enjoy rereading my ancient (2000-2010) tales and rants. Then, I’ll come across an embarrassing mishmash of words that I once believed was a good idea to share publicly.

Ignorant people don’t deserve to be opinionated. For example, while I was still living under my parents’ roof, I was a proponent of capitalism. Yeesh. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could end up living in poverty as long as they worked hard enough. Teen me was sure that it was poor personal decisions that put people on the path to poverty.

These posts now hide on an external hard drive. There are enough soulless monsters out there who freely share their bad takes on subjects like drug addiction, subsidized housing, raising the minimum wage, et cetera. It’s such a gut-punch knowing that these people think they have a valuable place in society.

I currently work retail (as a bike mechanic, but it’s still retail): according to Boomer-types, who probably can’t fix their own bikes, this means I do not deserve a living wage.

Oprah has shown us that it’s possible to find success without help from our family or friends, but most of us have had to do a little hand-holding. Did your parents let you live at home while you went to school? (No.) Were any of the jobs you’ve had a result of having the right connections? (Yes!)

I have been able to afford to take risks such as moving across the country, which I realize is not a gamble anybody can take. Before I moved to Montréal, my then-partner agreed to support me financially if I couldn’t find work. And, when I moved back to BC with Yann, our last resort was to live with my dad in Maple Ridge and not in our Jetta down by the Fraser River.

Let’s say my lowest paying job, working at a thrift store, would now match my current wage, I would still not go back to that job! I don’t know how working such a horrible job could be considered easy. Most people work these jobs out of absolute necessity, rather than because they’re so lazy that they wish to spend their days inspecting donated underwear for stains. Yes, I did this for a year and a half.

Then there’s the belief that increasing the minimum wage would cause the cost of goods to go up. Why, though, are we completely ignoring how much the bosses are hoarding?

Here’s my updated opinion on capitalism: with universal health care, no individual needs an extra $10,000 on top of their $100,000 a year salary. How can those who say $100,000 a year isn’t too much, also say that a minimum wage of $30,000 a year is too much?

If I ever were to find mega-success, I would have a self-imposed salary cap. I’m thinking that if I already have everything needed to live comfortably, I’d be happier to see others get what they need rather than asking for more. To think otherwise is immoral. To argue in favour of keeping those who haven’t been as lucky in life down is pathetic.

With all that said, the purchase of our humidifier turned out to be a necessity. I am glad I had that $40 to spare.