Home Is Where The Stimulus Is

Part One: Wherein a Dilemma is Perceived
We do most of our shopping outside of our hometown. Part of it is that we only recently moved here, so we're more familiar with the retail opportunities in the neighboring town we recently moved out of.

Another part of it is that the neighboring town on the other side of us is the one with all the major retail zoning. Which probably explains a lot about why they're doing so well, city budget-wise.

So when our own city council sent out a newsletter encouraging residents (like ourselves) to "buy local", it caused some distress at Chez Container. You see, explained the newsletter, our hometown budget depends a lot on sales tax revenue. And times being what they are, that revenue is more important to the city's fiscal health than ever.

In principle, Mrs. Container and I are all in favor of buying local--especially if it helps our community and our city stay in the black. As new homeowners, we were really excited about the opportunity to put our money where our mouths were, and vote in favor of a property tax increase to fund the local firefighting infrastructure. We figure, we want to live here, it's our responsibility to take care of ourselves. You'd be surprised how unpopular that sentiment seems to be--the region has a history of underfunding its fire departments.

Anyway, that's the principle. But in practice, our hometown doesn't really offer a lot of retail value to us. Not only that, but as children of the automobile, we often find ourselves in neighboring towns anyway. But we do have expenses. We do have a certain minimum consumption level to maintain. So how can we throw some of our business our own way, so to speak?

Her: Well, we buy our groceries here in town...

Me: That's true. And we buy our pizza here in town.

Her: We buy our gas here in town.

Me: Right, right. This is great. What else?

Her: ...

Me: ...


Part Two: Wherein One Hand Washes The Other
Meanwhile, we've been thinking very hard about buying a real camera. It's very hard to take good pictures of crows and containers when you don't have a good camera.

The first thing we did was consult with an amateur photograhper we know through a mutual friend. He'd recently consulted with us about shopping for a new computer, so we figured it was time to return the favor. "We're total camera noobs," we said. "We want a robot that takes awsome pictures for us," we said. "Help us, Obi-Wan," we said. "You are our only hope!"

So our friend looked carefully into the matter, gave it a lot of thought, and after several weeks of research, poured out a Santa Claus-sized goodie sack of advice for us. Included among the many gems were some thoughts about finding a good camera store to do business with. He really likes a store in New York, that's always done right by him. ("It's a Jewish establishment, so you can't place orders on Saturday." "What about Sunday? Are they open on Sunday?" "Yep, Sunday's fine.")

So that got us thinking. Turns out, there's a branch office of a reputable photography chain right here in our hometown. So, after a little bit of discussion, Mrs. Container and I agreed that for all our photography needs, we would "adopt" this store as our Official Buy Local Retailer.

Later, when the City Council finally gets around to fixing those potholes on Main Street, we'll drive by, point, look at each other, and say "see? We did that!"