Moon Marble

My kids are, I know, too old for Santa. One of them is almost old enough to join the military, spooky notion that.

I still like shopping for stocking stuffers at Moon Marble, though.

We'd gone too much for a while, and we'd all burned out on the joint. But a few months off, and Mo had been asking to go back.

We did our usual routine, me and Mo watch Bruce make a marble, Em shops alone and wants to leave early.

I made them park their keisters in the car while I did some Santa business. Got Mo a rubber chicken who won't live to see Boxing Day (but she ever so much loves receiving rubber chickens, even if she destroys them).

I was going to get 'faux hawks' for me and Corinna, fake mohawks with an adhesive strip. They'd be good helmet mohawks, and the price was right, two bucks per. Until I got to the register and found out I'd mis-read it, they were twenty bucks each. A bit much when you figure the tulle to make our own is more like a buck apiece and these feathery things seemed way more flimsy than tulle.

When we'd been watching the marble demo come up, the economics of handmade art came up. Bruce said he'd been to marble shows where he had some marbles that took considerable hours of effort priced at $100, then had people pass by the booth, read the label thinking it said one dollar and then balk.

But the marble guy needs to eat, too, right? So why would anyone think they should get the fruits of several hours of his labor for less than it would cost him to eat lunch?

I heard a piece on the radio the other night about the car industry, first focusing on Ypsilanti, MI, a Ford worker who retired with a good pension back when that was still possible. His grandson spent eight years working up to the wage he retired at (but without the pension), some $18 an hour. Then the report went to the Mexican town that does a lot of what used to get done in Michigan—in twelve hour shifts worked by guys to get about $60 a week.

The pity is, when it comes to handmade art, in a wealthy country we can decide to pay more to get something of actual value. But when it comes to consumer electronics, automobiles, etc., how many of us are willing to step up and pay more for something like factory workers being able to feed their families and educate their children?