May be the best thing Walmart has ever done

Of course, I'd love to have a Birkin bag.

Of course, I wouldn't pay $28K for it (on top of the $100K or so I'd have to spend at Hermès for lurid-colored scarves with gold stirrups on them in order to be allowed to purchase a Birkin bag).

But a Walmart knockoff for short money? Now you're talking.

If only you could get your hands on one of them. And you probably can't, because they instantly sold out.

In case you're not familiar with the Birkin, it's a luxury, iconic handbag/tote originally designed by Hermès in the 1980's for British-French actress-singer Jane Birkin.

Walmart's version, the KAMUGO, is, like the real Birkin, made of leather, but is not available in options like crocodile or ostrich. (Birkin does have a canvas with leather bag.) And the KAMUGO only comes in a few colors. (The colors are Birkin-esque, however.) But the major difference is hand-craftedness and price. Birkins range from $10K-ish to over $400K. The Walmart version was priced from $78 to $102. That's dollars, not K's.

The bag, also being called the "Wirkin," is described as a "large-capacity lychee pattern Kelly platinum bag," and has a "classic temperament, noble European and American style," according to the manufacturer's description. It is made with genuine leather, with the first layer made with cowhide. Akin to the real Birkin, the Wirkin, also features a gold lock button, which the manufacturer says is to "increase the security of bag anti-theft."

The bag... is being seen as a budget-friendly alternative to the Hermès Birkin. However, the manufacturers of the bag have not marketed it or referred to it as a Birkin dupe.(Source: USA Today) 

Why would marketing need to refer to it as "a Birkin dupe?" Isn't that what the Internet is for? (Birkin bag warriors, assemble!)

Of course, the Wirkins aren't artisanally created. They don't have fancy hardware. Or secret numbers stamped on the inside leather. 

But who cares, if it looks enough like the real deal?

Will I try to acquire one? Not likely, even at the supposed low, low price of $40 - a price that's reputedly out there and somewhat available. But I love, love, love the idea of women swanning around with Wirkins slung over their shoulders - and no one getting close enough to see if it's a Birkin or not. This just may be the bet thing that Walmart has ever done!

Take me riding in the car, car

I'm someone who has always enjoyed driving - at least once I got my license nearly 60 years ago. Or I used to enjoy driving.

In the past five years or so, the only time I've driven was to schlepp my sister Trish home from her colonscopy.

I used to say that, if I had all the money in the world, I'd own a car and pay to garage it. That way, I could drive to the places I wanted and/or needed to get to. Having my own car, I would tell myself, eliminated the major reason why I stopped enjoying driving which was that when I rented a car, or more often, took out a ride-share car from Zipcar, I had to learn how everything worked. Where's the trunk pop? Which side's the gas tank on? Just how do you operate a hybrid? It's starting to rain: where are the wipers? How do those side mirrors work? It's starting to fog: where's the defroster? Etc. It became a total PITA to have to get used to a car I was going to drive for a day (or an hour) or so.

Plus I realized that I just plain no longer enjoyed driving as much as I used to. Which made me a tiny bit sad, but not all that much sad.

So I switched to Uber. I still take public transpo a lot. But I really like Ubering. And that's because I like yacking with strangers and hearing their stories - or at least what chapters of their stories they're willing to share with a nosy old lady. And it's also because I really like taking a ride.

I always have liked going to a ride.

My father liked to drive, and every weekend - in the summer, maybe on a weeknight, too - he took the family out for a spin. We drove all over Worcester County, all over the city. We visited "our" cemeteries - where my baby sister and one set of great-grandparents were buried out in Cherry Valley, where my grandfather and another set of great-grandparents were buried out in god-forsaken Barre, Mass. We'd stop for ice cream at the Cherry Bowl. At Verna's. At Smithfield's. At the Dairy Delite. At Jack's.

My father loved driving; I loved riding. Always.

A lot of my Uber rides are familiar routes. But sometimes they're new and sometimes they're surpising. Recently, I was Ubering out to the the bucolic suburb where my cousin is in a rehab facility. We were tootling along, and I realized that this driver was taking a different route than the previous driver had. We stopped for a red light. I looked out the window and saw that we were smack dab in front of St. Bernard's in West Newton, where my cousin had been married nearly 60 years ago, and where I'd attended the funerals of both of her parents. (There was really no reason for the driver to have gone through West Newton on our way to Medfield, but there we were.)

While I have had a (now-ended) love affair with driving, and a never-ending love affair with going for rides, I have never been all that big on car ownership. 

I have owned only three cars in my life - each time because I needed a car to get to a job in the 'burbs. In the late 1980's I had a used, rusted out Honda Civic. When that collapsed, I got a snappy dark red Mercury Tracer, which I ditched the minute I no longer needed to to get to work. In the late 1990's, I again needed a car and bought the one and only car I can say that I almost loved: a New Beetle, the first year it came out. (That's not my car in the picture, but it's the right color.) And, of course, I went whole Beetle hog: daisy in the flower vase. (If ever there were a car built for an aging Boomer...)

But then I no longer worked in the 'burbs. I hung onto my Beetle for a while, but when I broke my right shoulder and could no longer shift gears - my three cars had one thing in common: all had manual transmissions - it was sayonara, cutie-pie blue Beetle! Volunteers of America, schlepp it away. (Back in the day, it was point of pride among my friends and family to drive a standard rather than an automatic.) 

As a non-car owner, I'm well aware that I am distinctly un-American. Here in the USA:

The car is firmly entrenched as the default, and often only, mode of transport for the vast majority of Americans, with more than nine in 10 households having at least one vehicle and 87% of people using their cars daily. Last year, a record 290m vehicles were operated on US streets and highways. (Source: The Guardian)

A record 290m vehicles? That's a lot. Why it's only about 100m fewer than we have guns!

As it turns out, living in a car culture is a mixed blessing, and:

...this extreme car dependence is affecting Americans’ quality of life, with a new study finding there is a tipping point at which more driving leads to deeper unhappiness. [A recent survey] found that while having a car is better than not for overall life satisfaction, having to drive for more than 50% of the time for out-of-home activities is linked to a decrease in life satisfaction.

When the tipping point is reached, the downside of our dependence on the car clicks in. There's:

The stress of continually navigating roads and traffic, the loss of physical activity from not walking anywhere, a reduced engagement with other people and the growing financial burden of owning and maintaining a vehicle.

Yet, as a nation, we remain stuck in neutral (maybe even in reverse) when it comes to car dependency. Historically, we've likely overinvested in highways, and underinvested in public transportation. As Joni Mitchell once told us, "they paved paradise, put up a parking lot." 

Anyway, when it comes to non-car ownership, I'm in a privileged minority:

A small sliver of the American public actively chooses to live without a car because they are able to live in the few remaining walkable communities in the US, but for most of those without a car it is a forced deprivation due to poverty or disability.

And we don't have a great track record when it comes to meeting the needs of the poor and the disabled. Two hours to get to work or healthcare on a crappy bus with a measly schedule? Suck it up!

I can't see any circumstances under which I will ever own another car. And other than my purposeful Uber journeys and the occasional trip to somewhere with a family member or friend, I probably won't ever take a ride for pure pleasure. (Does anyone just go out for a spin anymore?)

But when it comes to cars, I'm still with Woody Guthrie. You can always take me riding in the car, car. 

Something to be said for dying doing that you love

Well, there I was, just the other day, excoriating the parents who took their eye off their toddler while they were volcano-touristing at Kilauea and last-minute managed to save their kiddo when he was one foot away from plummeting into the four-hundred foot deep lava-bubbling calderon. 

So why am I not excoriating the two guys who died in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the great state o' Washington? Especially when their disappearance resulted in a three-day search that started on Christmas Day and involved drones, Coast Guard helicopters, and on-the-ground human and canine searchers, through treacherous terrain, snowy-rainy weather, raging rivers, downed trees, and bitter cold conditions (which may not have bothered the drones, but likely bothered the humans and the doggos)? And especially since their deaths were the result of a combo of their very own credulity, stupidity, and lack of preparedness?

I guess because, when I thought about it, I suspect that these grown men - aged 59 and 37, so maybe even a father-son duo - were doing something that may seem dumb-arsed and silly to most of us, but may well have been something they loved. Like looking for Sasquatch.

Hey, I'd like to believe as much as the next guy does in the existence of Loch Ness Monster (rather than the more likely explanation that it's just a large fish or a floating log).  That DB Cooper is an old coot alive and living off the land in the forests of Washington (rather than the more likely scenario that he's part of the humus). That Sasquatch, a.k.a. Bigfoot, exists - maybe even that he/she/it is a hirsute D.B. Cooper (rather than the more likely situation that he/she/it is a figment of a lot of credulous, overactive imaginations. Or maybe even a big-footed guy in a gorilla costume.

Anyway, the two fellows who were out hunting Sasquatch, only to die of exposure, were probably out for a purposeful adventure or a lark (perhaps an alcohol or drug-fueld lark). I hope they had a fun time on their drive from their home in Portland, Oregan, to the Gifford Pinchot National Park. I hope they got out of their car and tackled their search in hopes of finding the mythic creature. I hope that, as the trekked along, they kept asking each other "wouldn't it be something if..." I hope they just kind of drifted off in hypothermia-induced bliss, with or without having experienced a brief "holy shit, we really f'd up" moment.

Anyway, I'm guessing/hoping that these fellows, maroons though they may be, were out having fun, doing something dopey, but something they loved. Or at least liked.

Me? While I'd be fine if Sasquatch turned out to be for real, there's no evidence - despite all the supposed sightings - that there is such a creature. The rational belief is that it's a bear walking upright (although that picture looks more like a human in a gorilla costume).

Although there's likely no such thing as Sasquatch, some communities have taken steps to kinda-sorta protect he/she/it:

In Skamania County, harming a Sasquatch carries of fine of $1,000 (£797) and one year in prison. The law, initially passed in 1969, was intended to protect both Sasquatch and elk hunters with particularly large beards, according to the Skamania Chamber of Commerce. (Source: BBC)

No protection possible for doofuses that are just doing something dumb. But there is something to be said for dying while doing something you love.

Which leaves me hoping that I die while reading, watching baseball, or just hanging out with fam and friends (although that might not be so much fun for fam and friends).