Gwen’s Blender Theory on Socioeconomic Unfairness

My part­ner and I love to read. Since mov­ing in togeth­er, we’ve been unpack­ing and arrang­ing all our books. We rec­om­mend books to each oth­er and laugh over the num­ber of dupli­cates lin­ing our shelves. 

One author I’ve not yet read is Ter­ry Pratch­ett. My part­ner HIGHLY rec­om­mends his books (as do many, many oth­ers). I’ll get around to read­ing them one day — espe­cial­ly because one of his books, Arms at Play, has a par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant quote.  (I was first intro­duced to this quote on Red­dit, where you see it pop up with alarm­ing frequency.)

“The rea­son that the rich were so rich, Vimes rea­soned, was because they man­aged to spend less mon­ey.

Take boots, for exam­ple. He earned thir­ty-eight dol­lars a month plus allowances. A real­ly good pair of leather boots cost fifty dol­lars. But an afford­able pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a sea­son or two and then leaked like hell when the card­board gave out, cost about ten dol­lars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Mor­pork on a fog­gy night by the feel of the cob­bles.

But the thing was that good boots last­ed for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dol­lars had a pair of boots that’d still be keep­ing his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hun­dred dol­lars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Cap­tain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ the­o­ry of socioe­co­nom­ic unfairness.”

Y’all — it is expen­sive to be poor. And while I am far from poor now, I remem­ber what it was like to have to pay more for crap­py items. It’s cheap­er to buy toi­let paper in the big packs — but what if you can’t afford the big pack­age? What if you have no room to store 30 rolls while you work through them? You go buy the small­er packs that cost less upfront, but are more expen­sive per unit. When I was a kid, we could only afford to get me a pair of off-brand sneak­ers from Pay­less which invari­ably fell apart faster, caus­ing my Mom to fork over more mon­ey on anoth­er pair of shoes. Oth­er kid’s par­ents could afford to get them well-con­struct­ed shoes that last­ed until they grew out of them. 

The cur­rent ver­sion of this dilem­ma I am fac­ing is with small appli­ances. Blenders, specif­i­cal­ly. In keep­ing with my roots and the Mus­tachi­an com­mu­ni­ty, I try to buy as many things pre-owned as pos­si­ble. New blenders are hor­rif­i­cal­ly expen­sive. So, I buy used. 

I scored a great deal on a blender last year at the “Mid­west­’s Largest Out­door Garage Sale” in the park­ing lot of Six Flags in March, right before the world shut down from Covid. Great tim­ing, right?! I bought a Wolf­gang Puck Com­mer­cial blender for $40. What a steal! I enjoyed smooth­ies galore all year. 

But then, I moved. And I did­n’t use the blender a whole lot. When I went to use it for a smooth­ie the first time in the new house, it made a low growl­ing noise and did­n’t real­ly blend much of any­thing. Kale chunks in smooth­ies are not opti­mal, btw. My diag­no­sis after search­ing on The Google was that the lubri­ca­tion on the inter­nal mech­a­nisms was gone. But there’s no way to crack open the unit and add more, so it was effec­tive­ly dead. 

$40 for one year of blending. 

I went online and searched the Mar­ket­place on Face­book for a dif­fer­ent smooth­ie. This time I found a KitchenAid blender (affil­i­ate link) for $45. (It might’ve been stolen goods, but that’s anoth­er sto­ry for anoth­er time.) Now I have a cool pur­ple blender to make my smooth­ies. Sor­ry, it’s “bosen­ber­ry”.

But how long is this one going to last? Am I going to be in need of anoth­er blender this time next year? At what point should I stop buy­ing pre-loved blenders and fork over the mon­ey for a new, qual­i­ty blender? 

I’m like Vimes now. I’ve paid $85 for two blenders. Some­one who pays $300 for a Vita­mix will have a work­ing blender for years to come, while I’ll be sur­round­ed by a grave­yard of bro­ken small appli­ances. Is it actu­al­ly less waste­ful and cheap­er to buy a high-qual­i­ty blender upfront? Where is the line in blender buying? 

(If you’re like me and have ques­tions over when to buy qual­i­ty items and when to cheap out, I high­ly rec­om­mend the Buy It For Life Sub­red­dit. They have great respons­es for peo­ple like me with ques­tions on opti­mal blender buying.)

Just for fun, here is my take on his theory:

“The rea­son that the rich were so rich, Gwen rea­soned, was because they man­aged to spend less mon­ey.

Take blenders, for exam­ple. She had one hun­dred dol­lars left­over in her bud­get each month. A real­ly good Vita­mix blender cost three hun­dred dol­lars. But an afford­able blender, which worked ok for a year or two before crap­ping out, cost about forty dol­lars. That was the kind of blender Gwen always bought, and used until her smooth­ies became increas­ing­ly full of chunks of kale.

But the thing was that a good Vita­mix blender last­ed for years and years. A per­son who could afford three hun­dred dol­lars had a blender that’d still be effort­less­ly churn­ing out smooth­ies in ten years’ time, while the poor per­son who could only afford used blenders would have spent four hun­dred dol­lars on blenders in the same time and would still have smooth­ies with chunks of kale in them.

This was Gwen’s ‘Blender’ the­o­ry of socioe­co­nom­ic unfairness.”

As always, thanks for read­ing! What is your “buy it for life” prod­uct rec­om­men­da­tion! Sound off in the com­ments below!