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PAGE 6 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE Second Class Mail Registration Number 5540 The most frightening aspect of the 1980‘s economic mishâ€"mash is not that we are losing the swordfight with the almighty dollar. Although ... it is related. o _ What we are losing is our sanity when it comes to dealing with the dollar, specifically in the economic marketplace. _ A waitress in a local tavern comes up to a patron, drops down two drinks. "I only ordered one,"‘ he protests. ‘"‘Doesn‘t matter, this is Happy Hour, they‘re twoâ€"forâ€"one, you get two whether you want them or not." Sound thinking? An Orangeville gas bar attendant, in business a fortnight, slashes gas prices to oneâ€"tenth of a cent per litre Sunday in an effort to steal business from his competition â€" even though the move cost him thousands of dollars. With ploys like that, how long does he expect to be in business to accommodate his blossoming clientele? And how long will they stay around anyway, when his product returns to even cost levels? What price loyalty? Certainly not in fractions of cents per litre. A local furniture outlet wins hands down the "most aggravating fast sell" award however through its nonâ€"stop goingâ€"outâ€"ofâ€"business sale. At least a half dozen times in the new year, it has declared its intention to close its doors forever. Last Tuesday night, receivers claimed the joint would be sold to the floor in a matter of hours. Of course, four days later it was business as usual. Meaning very little, since an annoying market strategy is hardly key to inducing consumer traffic. In today‘s tough market, the best foot must always be put forward, yes. But in the long run, it will be those who do it with professionalism and class, as well as with smarts, who will survive to look back and laugh at the recession of the 1980‘s. books. No matter how hard you try to get rid of pennies, they just build up, and if you carry your loose change in your pants pocket. as 1 do. after a week you are listing heavily to the right. You pile your 18 pennies on the top of the dresser and start again, and a week later you have 22 pennies in the same pocket. Another multiplier is the single sock. Start out a new year with 12 pairs of socks. In three months you‘ll have six pairs and six odd socks. In six months, you‘ll have 12 single socks. After years of suffering this, I‘ve counterâ€"attacked. I now buy 12 pairs of identical socks, so that after six months, at least I have six pairs of socks. A newspaper article the other day reminded me of one of the inexorable laws of modern life: Things multiply in inverse proportion to their use. It is a simple fact, and we‘ve all been through it, that there are certain things in life that multiply like rabbits, and others that invariably disappear forever. Ladies used to have the same problem, before the invention of pantyâ€"hose. But this discovery hasn‘t lessened their problems. In the old days, if they got a run, they usually had a spare single to match the good one with. But now, if you get a hole in one leg of your pantyâ€"hose, you‘re scupâ€" pered. Out they go, the intact one with the bum one. At what cost? BILL SMILEY published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo Record Ltd., owner 225 fFairway Rd.S., Kitchener, Ont. Waterioo Chronicle otfice is located in the Harper. Haney and White Law Office Building (rear entrance. upper floor) Parking at the rear® of the building Open Monday to Friday. 9:00 a m to 5:00 p.m address correspondence to Waterioo office 45 Erb St. E.. Waterioo, Ont. N2J 1L7, telephone 886 2830 Women also have other multipliers in the singles division: earrings and gloves. How many women in this fair land have seven or eight exquisite single earrings and four or five superb single gloves? It‘s quite fashionable these days for a man to wear a single earring, and a practical chap who lost a glove would wear the other and put his bare hand in his pocket. But women don‘t think that way. and the gloves and earrings proliferate in their solitary glory. Old keys multiply at a fantastic rate, until cupboard drawers and plastic bowls are overflowing with them. We have a huge collection of car keys going back to our fifthâ€"last car, every key to the house before we changed the locks, and enough skeleton keys to outfit James Bond on one of his capers. New keys are diminishers. We have lost two sets of keys to our present car, and sometimes search for half an hour to find one of the new sets we had to order. The new keys to the new locks disappeared, and we had to take off the locks and go to the key man for new ones. I wonder where they are, at this moment? The new ones that is. Paper is definitely in the multiplier list, especially if you are a writer and/or teacher. As both, I sit to write this column in a sort of tunnel between two massive piles of paper higher than my head. When I sit down to mark papers !‘m in another Publisher: Paul Winkler Manager: Bill Karges Editor: Rick Campbell 16 established 1854 1983 ... in fishing there are no allâ€"stars, you may catch the big fish or you may not, but that doesn‘t make you any better than the next guy." It is written tunne! between essays and tests and bureaucratic bumph. Makes me feel like an old badger. Bottles, particularly those on which there is no deposit return, pile up about as fast as you can empty them. But prepare to take back your beerâ€"case of empties, and there are always two missing. Where did they go? Is there a guy, or a dame, hiding behind the furnace who sneaks up when you are beddyâ€"byes, drinks two of your beers, then eats the bottles? Wire coat hangers reproduce like rats. The other day, while attempting to get my coat out of the closet, I knocked down six empty hangers. I carefully fished them up from among the parts of the vacuum cleaner, took another 40 empty hangers off the pole, tied them all together with cord, marched calmly into the basement and hurled them into the woodpile. Two weeks later, 1 knocked down eight hangers while getting my coat, and sat down and wept tears of fury and frustration. For the ladies, the wrong shades of lipstick and halfâ€"empty bottles of nail polish multiply, along with saucers for which the cups have disappeared. Pencils multiply, but there‘s never one in the house when you are trying to take down a longâ€"distance phone message. _ Odd buttons multiply until it seems like a button factory. But when you need two the same size and color, forget it. You have six thousand buttons, no two alike. Shoes multiply. My wife has about thirtyâ€"six pairs, most of them out of style, just like that outfit she had to get the shoes to go with. She has to tear my comfortable old shoes out of my hands to put them in the garbage. I go to a halfâ€"price sale, buy three new pairs, and they sit there, stiff and stark, while I go on wearing the old shabby ones. You think you don‘t take many snapâ€" shots. Been to the attic lately? There are itweive boxes of them up there, right from your own baby pictures, through your courting days, into your own children at every stage, and about five hundred of the grandchildren. But just try to find that especially good one you wanted to send to Aunt Mabel. Completely vanished. Stamps run out; magazines pile up to the ceiling. Bills and receipts multiply while bank â€"accounts diminish, Pornography flourishes as sex drive diminishes. Televi sion channels multiply while their contents diminish in quality. Workmanship diminâ€" ishes as cost of it soars. _ And I‘ve just touched the surface. How about acid rain and fish? Or safe, salted highways and holes in your car? Was it always like this, or is it just a curse of the twentieth century? Make up your own list; two columns, one headed Multipliers, the other Diminishers. It will shake you. Argyle Communications Inc. Hook, Line and Sinker tackle shop operator Ken Gagne. â€" SEE PAGE 14 (Â¥]