Do you know the acronym FOMO? I was reading about it in the context of the big hit in Apple's lineup of new products this fall: the cleaning cloth. Yours for $19, but you have to wait, because they're sold out all the way through the end of the year. Of course, this little square of microfibers is, in typical Apple fashion, overpriced. Nonetheless, people buy it. They know they're being fleeced, yet they buy it. Why? Pushed into it by FOMO. Fear of missing out.
Oh yeah, the idea of chasing something that other privileged souls have accessed. It's a mix of a sheep heard mentality along with a desire to keep up with the jones. Compete, conform, scramble to be better or at least as good as those around you. And, too, I saw plenty of FOMO while living under so called communist rule. Lack of access to consumer goods and services triggered this fear in the extreme. If you heard that a store got a shipment of a consumer item, you got in line for it. Not to compete with your neighbor, but to make sure you got some of it in case you needed it in the future. You did not want to miss out.
I have vestiges of this very particular form of FOMO festering in me. Get it now, while supplies last. I almost signed up for the Apple cloth until I came to my senses. And here's the thing: I live with a person who doesn't have a FOMO fiber in his entire large framed body. Indeed, if everyone is going after a super Apple cleaning cloth, he is sure to let me know that paper towels or his tshirt are equally capable of cleaning his computer screen. (To say nothing of the micro cloths we have lying around everywhere, because they come free with glasses and, too, when you fly Air France overseas.) Curbing your inner FOBO: it's such a good idea. And so hard to do.
In other news -- it is a typical late autumnal morning: wet and cold. I think these are the last days of the annual blooms, so I'm going to cast one last look at them now, with a nod of thanks for the color they have added to my gardens this late in the season!
Breakfast. The minimalist look. In the kitchen. Late.
And very soon after, I pick up Snowdrop and bring her back to... her favorite tree. It had been too wet to spend much time in it the past few days. Today -- dry enough.
(But honestly, it's indoor weather for us. With a lunch that she talked me into -- Culver's take out. Chicken tenders, cheese curds. She loves both. Happily for this gogs, she also loves the bowl of fruit I have ready for her.)
Once again we pick up Sparrow at the end of his school day.
(With leaves, at home now...)
And once again we greet a cheerful Sandpiper waiting for his sibs to come home.
In the evening, I drive to the next town to pick up my repaired (once again) camera. It's a common occurrence here: the Fed Ex guy comes with the delivery to our "front door." We don't use that door and there isn't a doorbell hooked up to it and so if a signature is needed -- we're out of luck. We get a note rather than a delivery.
I drive back when it's already dark. This before we jump back into daylight non-savings time. Ah, the months of meteorological winter! They really push you to snuggle early under a blanket. And we do! Every evening, on the couch, we do.
