Four weeks in the past, cucumbers at Market Basket, my go-to retailer, have been two for a greenback, or 50 cents every.
Three weeks in the past, they have been 59 cents every.
Two weeks in the past, they have been 69 cents per cuke.
Last week the worth rose to a whopping 79 cents a cucumber. I will be the world’s worst shopper, however even I knew that one thing was occurring, and that it was not good.
The price of the cucumber, you see, is my barometer on inflation and the rising price of dwelling beneath President Biden. I store. He doesn’t.
In my previous life — previous to dwelling alone — I had a mate. So, I by no means did any grocery buying. Shopping malls and huge supermarkets have been international territory. I averted them in any respect prices.
The solely shops I frequented again then have been the bundle retailer and the ironmongery shop.
Since I used to be by no means good at fixing something that required a software, I gave up the ironmongery shop. That left the packy.
But someday, after I instantly discovered myself dwelling alone, I needed to store at shops that I had averted most of my life. Starving was the unacceptable various.
I traced my aversion to huge supermarkets to my youth. My first job, which I hated, was bagging groceries at an enormous grocery store. It was worse than highschool.
Years later, I feared that bagging could be my final job, too. I feared that I too may find yourself beside different outdated geezers bagging groceries on the finish of the checkout line simply to remain alive.
I additionally averted the large field shops out of worry and loathing over the strange-looking new drivers cruising up and down the large parking tons in tank-like vehicles in search of a combat over the proper parking spot.
That type of motion jogged my memory of a drunken VFW dialog over who of the 2 growing older U.S. Army veterans had seen extra fight. Said one to the opposite: “You haven’t seen combat until you’ve fought for a parking space at Market Basket on a Sunday morning. They take no prisoners.”
People can scoff at my concern over the price of the lowly cucumber. But as cucumbers go, so goes the nation.
And folks neglect, or don’t even know, that the cucumber, which originated in India 4 thousand years in the past, was as soon as, in contrast to at this time, extremely appreciated. Today cukes get no respect.
As it made manner out of India the cucumber was embraced by nearly everybody in Ancient Greece after which within the Roman Empire.
Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC to 37 AD) was mentioned to have eaten a cucumber each day of his life. He lived to be 77, which was fairly outdated for the time. And he would have lived longer had he not been smothered to loss of life on his sick mattress by a Praetorian guard.
Charlemagne of France was a champion of the cucumber even earlier than it arrived in England across the 14th Century. Christopher Columbus introduced cucumbers to the New World in 1492 when he landed in what’s now Haiti.
Native Americans later took to the cucumber after it was launched within the north by English and French trappers, fur merchants and settlers.
We will not be speaking about common greens right here like zucchini right here, or cabbage or lettuce. We are speaking about cucumbers, which, amongst different issues, stop dehydration, assist handle ldl cholesterol, diabetes, and good bone well being. Cucumbers are good in your pores and skin, too.
So, I used to be pleasantly stunned the opposite day when I discovered that the cucumbers at MB have been again at two for a greenback, or 50 cents every. What occurred?
I figured that both MB had come throughout an deserted freight automobile filled with Mexican cucumbers smuggled throughout the border, or that Joe Biden was proper when he mentioned all was good with the financial system.
“Take a look,” he informed reporters. “Start reporting it the right way.”
So, I did. I rechecked the cucumbers. The worth yesterday was again to 2 for a buck. History will report that lowering the worth of cucumbers was considered one of Joe Biden’s main accomplishments. He needs to be proud.
But every thing else within the Biden financial system remains to be simply squash.
Back to the packy.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”