Old Man River

A little more than 10 years ago I wrote that I hadn't had strega in years.  After an impromptu celebration  among friends, where we agreed we were all suitably safe from covid, and the numbers here in Alberta are low in terms of dire cases (though overall cases are distinctly up), I am a little the worse for wear of strega as I write this.  So I won't be writing long.  It was an excellent, generous Italian restaurant and I'm sure we helped the owners pay their bills somewhat this month.

The kickstarter is slightly hung up because to set one up, you must give supply the online bureaucrats with your bank account number and transit information.  I can't do this until I set up an account that has no contact whatsoever with my daily transactions, which has meant waiting until tomorrow to for an appointment to do so.  After that, I should be able to complete the requirements, but even then Kickstarter wants 8 business days before it goes active.

Having the Italian restaurant's posh menu in my hands this evening, I felt amused that my own menu is yet slightly upmarket.  I could scale the upfront cost to me downwards — purchasing a less expensive cover — but somehow, I feel disposed against it.  The providing company is in Massachusetts, near Fall River; it's rather whimsical that I'm buying the product from them not for a restaurant, but for a make-believe product that could, conceivably, continue to sell by the score for several years.  I imagine how the Fall River company might look on that: this strange fellow in Calgary buying a hundred covers, then another hundred, then another and another, as if I had a growing chain of high-class restaurants out here ... which obviously I haven't.

I can't wait for the company to ask about this and then to tell them the truth:  I've created a make-believe fantasy menu for a role-playing game.  What a lark.

There's a parallel, I think, to the restaurant my friends and I descended upon tonight.  Monday nights are notoriously quiet in the industry, but we made a reservation, then descended liberally upon the place and obviously gained the good will of the owners.  Much of the strega I drank tonight was free.  It was only a whim that I asked if they might have it; and the owner was both stunned and thrilled, exclaiming, "I haven't had anyone ask for it in years!"  She then proceeded to dust off a bottle (I don't think really, but makes a better story), which we polished off.  Except for myself, none of my friends had tasted it.

It's interesting how our decisions to do something nice for ourselves translates so plainly into the benefit it brings others.  Take this Fall River company.  I decide to invent something new; I need someone to provide the soft, faux-leather materials; I launch a kickstarter to help buy my first hundred, plus printing and shipping; and this company that knows nothing stands to gain every bit as much as my buyers will, as the "river" rolls from entity to entity.  Naturally it follows that the employees in Fall River will benefit as well, as their children will, and the local grocers and renters I suppose, and whoever else, because I decided, "Hm, I think I'll make something."

It's this "making something" that gets lost in the equation, where so much emphasis is put on selling it and buying it; or worse, on "trading" it; but let's not get into all of that.  Anyone can find it in Adam Smith and Marx, if they care to read.

Me, I'm merely sated, warmly happy, confident I'm on a good path and uncharacteristically optomistic.  It's a feeling I hope lasts well beyond tomorrow.