Wanderings – Drawing lines in the sand with socks
I was on a mission Saturday – a mission for socks. Having larger feet, getting well-fitting socks at a good price is difficult. Many stores sell socks here in Canada, but a size 6-12 sock means my size 12 feet get to wear socks at the maximum of the sizing range – not something that is that comfortable to wear.
You can buy larger socks, but those come in smaller packages and that means the cost per sock value increases exponentially. Wanting to be as frugal as possible but also comfortable, I have bought my socks in the US at a super large chain. The chain’s Canadian division either cannot, or will not stock these socks on this side of the border. Saturday was my mission buy enough socks to last four years.
Just before the US presidential election last fall, I said to a group of friends that if Donald Trump is re-elected, I will not travel to the US during his time in office. One friend even has a paper I wrote and signed making that pledge. Personally, I find it difficult to accept that American voters would select such a candidate to be a nominee for President, let alone vote him into office twice. My respect for the democratic process in the US is sorely diminished – not that it will make much of a difference to most Americans or to Trump. But I have a moral compass and have the ability to draw a line in the sand. So I had a mission to get enough socks to last me four years.
I am not a big cross-border shopper, but I’d buy things I can’t get in Canada there. In the past 10 years, that has been less and less. But I needed socks.
I calculated the rate of how many pairs of these socks I go through in a year, and multiplied it by four years. One benefit of buying four years worth of socks at once is that if the price goes up in the next four years, I locked this price in now. I believe the financial term for this is an inflation hedge.
Armed with this knowledge, some expensive American currency, and satisfied that I am also fighting inflation, off I went. I won’t detail the next hour of my trip because I have written far too much about socks already. I also bought a coffee.
I returned to Canada barely an hour later, an uneventful trip overall. But I also now have enough socks to last me until 2029. My line in the sand drawn.
But why draw a line in the sand at all? Bullies.
Anyone who has dealt with bullies in their childhood, or as an adult, can spot what Trump and his minions are – bullies. Since being elected, Trump has pontificated that he is going to slap tariffs here, and deport people there. And look at what havoc it has wrought.
In Canada, government officials at the federal and provincial levels have scurried around under the threat of a 25 per cent tariff. That scurrying has resulted in many things:
The Prime Minister finally realized he was overdue for a walk in the snow – although that was also helped by a cabinet revolt and his deputy resigning;
Almost all the provincial leaders have backed a plan for retaliatory tariffs should the US strike – all except Alberta Premier Danielle Smith who said hands off her province’s oil;
Doug Ford has become the modern day Captain Canada, dusting off the cape from Brian Tobin’s turbot trawler;
Thousands of businesses worry if they will lose money should Trump put tariffs in place;
And many hundreds of thousands of employees worry if they will have a job because of those possible tariffs.
One statement from Trump not only can, but does, make an entire country worried – exactly how is that not considered bullying?
That power should be used for good, but given what we saw from his previous four years in power, and know from his 2024 campaign – it is best to prepare for the worst.
My friends laughed when I said I wasn’t going to the US if Trump was president. I am sure they will laugh reading this. In four years time, I will be the one laughing – and waiting for Trump’s successor. Hopefully the price of my socks will not have gone up too much by then.
This column was originally published in the January 22, 2025 print edition of the Morrisburg Leader.