Well, the price of cat food has gone up.
I doubt National Public Radio — NPR — would be surprised to learn this.
But how is the higher price affecting me, personally? That’s a slightly different question. I still buy just as much cat food as I always did. For my cat. Things have not yet gotten so bad where I’m buying cat food for myself.
Might happen someday, the way things are headed. But for now, the cat food is only for my cat.
Now gas for my car, that’s a different story. I have stopped driving my car, as much as possible. I used to drive to City Market regularly and buy two or three cans of cat food — so that I knew the cans were fresh and not outdated. But lately, I’ve been buying three cases at a time, and that lasts me (or really, my cat) a whole month.
Saves on gas.
Of course, there’s a social impact to shopping only once a month. I used to run into friends and acquaintances in the City Market aisles and we’d chat about relatively meaningless things like sports, or the latest Netflix movies, or whether we’ll have snow this coming winter, and such.
Sometimes we would talk about the price of gas. It’s really just another thing to talk about, in the broader scheme of things.
But my point being, I don’t see my friends as often. I spend more time with my cat Roscoe, however. So it’s a balancing act.
For some reason, NPR wants to know how I feel about this stuff. And I had to wonder why.
They posted a survey on their website, asking for my name, address, phone number and email address, and then asking me to answer a number of questions, such as:
What is costing you more lately?
How are you coping with higher costs?
What purchases, decisions or milestones are you delaying because of higher costs, if anything?
One of the questions asked if the cost of living was going to affect my vote in the midterm elections in November.
Well, that’s a tough one. Like, am I really going to get that $5,000 check from the federal government if the Republicans hold on to the Senate and House? That would buy a lot of cat food.
But some people are saying that there’s no way we will actually get that money, after we’ve already spent $40 billion fighting the Iranians and it’s not over yet.
And now the rebels in Yemen and Iraq are getting into the fight, and blowing up oil pipelines and making other kinds of mischief.
Things seem sort of ‘up in the air’ at the moment. There’s the increase to the Federal Reserve interest rate, announced on Wednesday. Now the rate on my credit cards is probably going to go up.
Obviously, there are questions I can answer intelligently, like the milestones I am delaying. But November is a long ways away. Hard to predict how I will feel that far in the future.
However, there was an interesting sentence that introduced the survey:
Fill out the form below, and an NPR or Member station reporter may reach out for an upcoming story.
That explains why they want my email and phone number. Because I could, conceivably, be interviewed by a reporter and have my little sound-bite on the radio. Probably on a local station, but maybe on a national broadcast.
If I did get interviewed, would I make a good impression?
Probably I should talk about something other than cat food.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.