![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
As an American, I believe firmly that if I am prepared to hand over good money for something, that thing should be available.
This does not seem like a difficult concept. You have something I want, I have money, we trade these things, and everyone goes home happy. I am not left trying to figure out who I have to kill to get what I want, and I certainly am not left lurking in dark alleys while some skeezy dude in a trench coat, who gets an oil change every month where the rest of us get haircuts, slimes up to me and says "Pst, lady, you wanna buy some clock parts? They're good, top quality. Swiss."
No. I am an American, for Christ's sake, and along with:
a) the most embarrassing tourists in the free world
b) the most embarrassing ex-president in the world, period
c) a tendency to bomb the shit out of places that did nothing to us other than be the home of lots of little brown people (slanty eyes optional)
d) meals and standard serving sizes so large that most people would rather hollow out a loaf of bread and use it for a house
I have the right to buy anything I want. Heroin, sex, as-seen-on-tv ways around the phone company, these things are child's play to buy in America. Politicians and police officers are only slightly more difficult, for god's sake.
I could probably buy a unicorn if I really fucking tried.
The right to buy may actually be in the Declaration of Independence, somewhere around life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
However. This is MY life we're talking about. And I have a variable-purpose Little Black Raincloud (It goes along with my Little Black Dress and my Not So Little Black Handbag That Conveniently Is Large Enough For An Assault Weapon Such As An H&K MP-5.) that, basically, shits on me when I want to buy things.
If you ever feel like figuring out that a) you are ahead of the trend curve, as ever, and b) that somehow, America has broken down, try to make an oversized clock. 1 craft and four lumber/hardware stores later (including, hilariously, recommendations to go to the ones I'd already been to, as well as commentary that Home Depot used to carry that - oh, and so did we, but not any more) I finally commissioned someone to cut a 24" round of mahogany plywood, at far more cost than I would have liked. Now I have to find hands for the damn thing.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO ONE HAS TWELVE INCH CLOCK HANDS. I MIGHT AS WELL SHOP FOR AN ELECTRIFIED WERE-CAMEL.
And yet, here I stand, cash in hand and need for instant gratification great - and no one has what I want. I should have bought a Target oversized clock and painted the dial, frankly. My artistic vision, it will not settle for compromise. Frankly, it's like someone cancelled Christmas and murdered the pony I was going to get. And, probably, left the liver in my bathtub, sort of as a cheery little "How ya doin'?" sort of gesture.
Also, the next person who tells me all about how they made some fantastic thing - let's say a ballgown - for fifty cents in thread because they happened to have 12 yards of perfect satin in the closet and then everything just fell into place from the stash, I will stab that person in the head. When I set out to make something, if it is not ridiculously expensive, time-consuming, and does not involve figuring out at least three workarounds and/or major sizing issues on the fly, I am doing it wrong. And if you have satin in the closet already? IT'S NOT FUCKING FREE. YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO IGNORE THAT YOU PAID FOR IT BACK IN THE YEAR DOT, FUCK YOU. IN STASH =/= FREE, FUCKHEAD.
Unless, of course, you stole it. In which case, you're a badass crafter, and I'm not going to argue with you. Like, ever. You probably have a leather jacket, tastefully art-weared into a garment that declares, in rhinestones and, like, feathers, "HELL'S CRAFTERS" or something. And my mama raised me to be smarter than to fuck with anyone that crazy.
This does not seem like a difficult concept. You have something I want, I have money, we trade these things, and everyone goes home happy. I am not left trying to figure out who I have to kill to get what I want, and I certainly am not left lurking in dark alleys while some skeezy dude in a trench coat, who gets an oil change every month where the rest of us get haircuts, slimes up to me and says "Pst, lady, you wanna buy some clock parts? They're good, top quality. Swiss."
No. I am an American, for Christ's sake, and along with:
a) the most embarrassing tourists in the free world
b) the most embarrassing ex-president in the world, period
c) a tendency to bomb the shit out of places that did nothing to us other than be the home of lots of little brown people (slanty eyes optional)
d) meals and standard serving sizes so large that most people would rather hollow out a loaf of bread and use it for a house
I have the right to buy anything I want. Heroin, sex, as-seen-on-tv ways around the phone company, these things are child's play to buy in America. Politicians and police officers are only slightly more difficult, for god's sake.
I could probably buy a unicorn if I really fucking tried.
The right to buy may actually be in the Declaration of Independence, somewhere around life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
However. This is MY life we're talking about. And I have a variable-purpose Little Black Raincloud (It goes along with my Little Black Dress and my Not So Little Black Handbag That Conveniently Is Large Enough For An Assault Weapon Such As An H&K MP-5.) that, basically, shits on me when I want to buy things.
If you ever feel like figuring out that a) you are ahead of the trend curve, as ever, and b) that somehow, America has broken down, try to make an oversized clock. 1 craft and four lumber/hardware stores later (including, hilariously, recommendations to go to the ones I'd already been to, as well as commentary that Home Depot used to carry that - oh, and so did we, but not any more) I finally commissioned someone to cut a 24" round of mahogany plywood, at far more cost than I would have liked. Now I have to find hands for the damn thing.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO ONE HAS TWELVE INCH CLOCK HANDS. I MIGHT AS WELL SHOP FOR AN ELECTRIFIED WERE-CAMEL.
And yet, here I stand, cash in hand and need for instant gratification great - and no one has what I want. I should have bought a Target oversized clock and painted the dial, frankly. My artistic vision, it will not settle for compromise. Frankly, it's like someone cancelled Christmas and murdered the pony I was going to get. And, probably, left the liver in my bathtub, sort of as a cheery little "How ya doin'?" sort of gesture.
Also, the next person who tells me all about how they made some fantastic thing - let's say a ballgown - for fifty cents in thread because they happened to have 12 yards of perfect satin in the closet and then everything just fell into place from the stash, I will stab that person in the head. When I set out to make something, if it is not ridiculously expensive, time-consuming, and does not involve figuring out at least three workarounds and/or major sizing issues on the fly, I am doing it wrong. And if you have satin in the closet already? IT'S NOT FUCKING FREE. YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO IGNORE THAT YOU PAID FOR IT BACK IN THE YEAR DOT, FUCK YOU. IN STASH =/= FREE, FUCKHEAD.
Unless, of course, you stole it. In which case, you're a badass crafter, and I'm not going to argue with you. Like, ever. You probably have a leather jacket, tastefully art-weared into a garment that declares, in rhinestones and, like, feathers, "HELL'S CRAFTERS" or something. And my mama raised me to be smarter than to fuck with anyone that crazy.