Monday, April 23, 2007

To Buy or Not To Buy...

At the Farragut North escalators where I emerge from Metro's tunnels every morning, there's a street vendor who sells for the seasons - umbrellas when it's raining, flowers on Valentine's Day, beanie caps and gloves in the winter and baseball caps on a Spring day like today. When I came up to the street level today, he was there again and I paused to look - among the regular Nationals and DC caps on display, there was a newcomerL "VT," Virginia Tech.

So I have mixed feelings about this... People are wearing Virginia Tech gear. It's a way to show support for what happened over there and the rebuilding that follows. And it's generally OK. You gotta figure that all these people didn't have Virginia Tech gear until recently - there was a story in the paper recently about the school's bookstore doing brisk business. You gotta figure there's someplace else that will sell it, right? Wal-Mart? Target? But the street vendor? C'mon. Really? But, hey, he provides it and people buy it. I guess that's the American Way, right? Supply and Demand. Seller and Buyer. Basic economics.

So why does it bother me?

On another note...
Happy Birthday today to Pop! And Happy Anniversary to him and Mom.
And a Happy Birthday to all of my cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. who are part of Birthday Week.

Today ends Birthday Week in my family. The eight days between April 15-23, there are a lot of birthdays in my family. There are like 4 or 5 on the 19th alone. But there's always been a gap - between me on the 15th and Tia Annie on the 17th. No birthdays on April 16. Until this year... Welcome cousin Devon, son of of cousin Daniel Lopez. Born April 16 and officially closes the gap. Tia Annie passed away several years ago - but I thought of her and smiled when I heard the news. She had always teased me about the gap and how she started Birthday Week, not me. It was silly. But it was our thing.

Happy Birthday, Bec...

1 comment:

liz said...

Happy Birthday everyone! Sammy, crank up Las Mananitas, for them, will you?
Not sure how I feel about the cap thing, either. I still have visions in my head of street vendors in New York selling any and everything twin towers after they fell. That seemed kind of morbid to me, but they also sold caps that said NYFD or NYPD, too. I'd go buy it from the school. They have a better variety anyway, and you'd show your support to the campus.