Cost vs. value

As you know, I am on ‘hiatus’. To most of you, this would mean I’m sipping piña coladas in a beach hut in some place that has a beach and a hut, where I can order a drink with less piña and more colada, or at the Sandbanks—which has a beach and portapotties, and so many rules, I can’t have access to either of them.

To most people, escaping from reality would be a dream come true. I blocked myself out from the outside world, so I could regain my own mind.

Trouble is, my mind is messed up, and, I suspect, has been messed up for a long time. Possibly since birth. So this turned out to be a bad idea.

The thing is: If you have all the time in the world to explore your own mind, it’s like deciding to pop the lid on your septic tank, to see what’s inside. In my experience, not a good thing. Same thing with my brain. If you pop the lid and look inside you might not like what you see.

This is all about perception. Let’s take a look at that.

PERCEPTION
Perception is about how we see things. We don’t actually assign ‘values’ to our perceptions. For example, compare our costs for water delivery to the price of gas. I can’t do that, because those prices change every day.

Costs are relative to our situation. If you don’t have a lot of money, you search for ways to save, like shopping the flyers for the best deals on tuna. If you’re okay on the money front, you can bitch about the price of water in your home, yet blow $150 on a fine County restaurant meal with wine you could have purchased for $14.95 at the LCBO, and pay $90. You could buy that wine, and take it to the restaurant, but they may have a $25 corking fee, because of the incredible effort it takes to remove a cork from a bottle. It requires the skill of the guy who just mopped the kitchen floor. Yet we pay it.

See where I’m heading here? Perception. Let me give you one of my weird examples: My late mother used to rag me when the price of County Magazine went to $5.75 (10 years ago). Obviously this was necessary as my print costs increased, but I tried to tell her: “You still think a cup of coffee costs 25¢. It does not. It depends on how many directives you add—‘low fat latté with a hint of cinnamon, one spoon of sugar from some country where they pretend to pay their workers fairly, hot but not overly hot, and a dash of goat milk’.” That’s going to cost you $5.75, and a load of hatred from your server, who hopes you lose your licence, and will be banned from the drive-thru, because they have better things to do with their time. And everyone else in the drive-thru lineup, secretly hates your guts, because you didn’t order a ‘coffee’. And they wait 15 minutes to get ‘a coffee to go’.

So here’s the thing. We change. Our perceptions haven’t. My mom thought any bread offered for more than a buck was outrageous. Funny thing is: So do we. Our perception is based on the past. In the now, we feel like we are losing ground. Prices go up and up. Assuming that readers of this column are not that young, and think that ‘WTF’ means ‘World Tiger Fighting’, let’s face it … we’ve been here before. Many times. So many times.

So we’ve been through this, and yet seem to be constantly surprised that prices are rising. What? You don’t have a rear view mirror in your brain? We have no input into controlling prices. They rise and fall according to rules we don’t know or understand.

CASE IN POINT
You may not remember the Gas Crisis of 1973. I drove a Triumph TR6, and I used to say, “Five bucks if it will take it.” [This was important, because the gas cap was conveniently located on the top of the car, just to the right of my head. Overfill, and I would be a travelling Zippo lighter.]

So there’s two things happening here: 1) Prices go up, and we are constantly surprised by that, though most of us who pay for stuff have watched this happen since 1890. Maybe we should have learned. 2) Price is relative to people who will pay the price. This is important to me, because some people will pay any price based on ‘experience’ and ‘atmosphere’.

‘Atmosphere’ has never been a saleable commodity; it now is. This is why it’s a stupid idea to bring your own cheap wine to a restaurant, and pay $25 to have someone open it. [Personally, I hide the wine bottle under my coat, and bring my own bottle opener. Sometimes I bring a ‘Box O’ Wine’ which requires no opening, and I don’t need anyone to pull up on the plastic tab to dispense it. Don’t try this—it makes the owners very unhappy, when you ask them, “I would like six empty wine glasses, please.”]

PUTTING IT BACK INTO PERSPECTIVE
We are changing. Marketers and our Council envision a New County. A lot of us don’t really need a New County—we were pretty happy with the Old County. I’m not saying, “Stop the Train!”

I’m just saying the Growth Train requires a good look around.

Growth builds communities like ours. It also destroys them. Look around. Muskoka went, “Yay.” Then they didn’t. Because their “C’mon in,” overwhelmed them. Then they were no longer the place for Toronto people to be. We were. So let’s push hard to bring in people who ruined Muskoka … sold their cottages, boats and float planes … to find another place. To ruin.

OUR PLAN IS MESSED UP
In the real estate business, the mantra is to sell, sell, sell. Location, location, location. There is no perception there, at least for us. Most of us can’t get our brains around places that sold for $60K in 1980, then $95K, and now cost $1.5 million. Our perspective says: “WTF!”

It seems to me that relating ‘cost’ to ‘value’ is a fool’s game now. For example, the cost of gas goes up, but not ending up on the side of the road with an empty tank has value. Your freaky cup of bizzaro coffee creation has cost, but little value, since it’s gone in five minutes.

You want to know why McDonald’s and Wendy’s do good business? Plain and simple: $18 hamburgers. I don’t care what qualified chef is required to create an $18 hamburger, I can’t find the value in it. The cost is clear, but I’ve never received a burger that made me say: “That’s great value for a burger on a bun with stuff on it!” I can’t get my head around that.

I’m not cheap, just frugal. A bottle of cheap (frugal) wine (I can uncork myself, or at least screw the cap off) and a McDonald’s kid’s meal, consumed in the warm ambience of the yellow parking lot lights? Cost and value then add up for me. It’s not the meal of kings, but I’m comfortable with that.

countymag@bellnet.ca