New boots and foaming soap

Mam, these are the new boots I was telling you about. With rainy season fast approaching, I needed a work shoe that would be water proof and practical. This being Japan, where you take your shoes off all the time, having a zipper on the side as well as laces was a major motivator in buying this pair. Because they're hand-made, they come with this special service where they can be resoled at a discount within a certain period of time. I'm still a little hazy on the details. Needless to say, thinking about how much they cost actually makes me feel sick. I hope they'll be worth it.


I can be pretty stingy about personal finances, as many of you know. I think I will be reminded to my dying day of my money saving tip to 'let gravity do the work' when pouring out the washing up liquid. None of this frivolous 'squeezing the bottle' carry on. But I have a new one for you. 'Foaming' hand soap dispensers are all the rage over here. Of course the 'foam' refill is like twice as expensive as the regular hand soap refill. And you can't use the regular soap in the 'foaming' dispensers because it clogs them up. But do you know what I figured out - and this is why I think I may one day end up being some evil corporate master mind - the special 'foaming' refill is just the regular old refill watered down. That's right, get the customer to pay twice the price for a watered down version of your original product. Man, where would we be without the old capitalist profit motive.