Label Fable

Labels used to be hidden under collars and were not to be seen. If a label happened to peep out, some kind soul would tuck it back inside. But in these times of what-really-counts-is-money, labels have come out. They have come out on clothing and accessories, vehicles and just about anything that can be touted on TV or sashayed down the street. I heard that one young woman whose parent sent her to a classy school in Southern California to advance in her sport, came home in tears because everyone laughed at her handbag that didn't have the current fashion label on it. Out of curiosity, I looked the label up on-line and the handbag began at five or six hundred dollars and went from there to something in the thousands. When I explored further into handbag prices, I was overwhelmed to learn that this "school bag" was among the less costly fashion-conscious woman's casual accessories. Her special ones were valued at the price of a  newish car. I won't get into the prices of scarves and key-rings. Let us  move into the cost of a fashion maven's clothing. A complete outfit including jewelry could snap up a nice little bachelor suite somewhere. In this day of natural disasters requiring great amounts of cash to offer relief, in these times of street people desperate for suitable shelter, in our need for cancer research to help millions, does spending this kind of money to drape on a body make sense? Of course not. It's unconscionable. Labels also flaunt on appliances in homes, baby clothing and accessories, sports goods, even food. "Oh, I don't shop for groceries in that place. Everything is too cheap there." Anyone who speaks like this is part of the problem, not the solution. When asked "why don't you shop there?", the answer is about the store's policies. If you are poor, you have no choice. You go where the prices dictate. Every penny counts. Every single one. And it is isn't just labels made of cloth. Another label that is becoming ridiculous is the "white teeth" label. One's teeth cannot be natural, they must hang out there in stark snow white whether it looks natural or not. The cost of bleach high but having the same teeth replaced with caps is horrendous.  I think of a certain media star - they become stars now simply by reading scripts and having pretty faces and plenty of hair pieces - whose teeth are what you see and all you see. The dazzle of white enamel blinds the message this poor woman purports to give. Jaws move over. That smile must crimp her mortgage payments. Labels come on everything, even dogs. You have to research the most popular dog breed if you want to visit the dog park with your canine. If your kids go to school, it has to be the best one "or you won't get the job you want when you grow up". Parents are very aware of labels. Their kids come home from school and educate their parents on that subject. We are label sick. But hope is not lost. Market gardens, trends to smaller domiciles, back to nature movements and sanity in family shopping and management, are gradually quelling the label avalanche that has sucked so many into its vortex. Certainly, we must buy with fairness in mind but if there are extra dollars, they can be spent on good sense and sharing rather than labels that advertise only greed.