LAKE COUNTY, FLA. – The line was backed up at Walgreen’s. An elderly man wanted to buy one pencil, not the package of six or eight that they come in.
“I only need one,” he politely explained.
The manager said no, and he went on his merry way.
It reminded me of the movie “Father of the Bride” when Steve Martin’s stressed out character started ripping open packages of hot dog buns at the supermarket because he only wanted eight buns to go with a package of eight hot dogs, but the buns came in packages of 12.
“Some big shot wiener company guy got together with some big shot at the bun company and decided to rip off the American public,” he told a bewildered supermarket clerk.
He ended up going to jail, and maybe he should have. Turns out he could have ruined the worldwide economic system.
The same day I witnessed the great pencil debate I happened to see part of an interview with famed conservative economist Milton Friedman on TikTok of all places. He held up a pencil and explained that the wood probably came from the state of Washington, the tin from Africa, the rubber from Malaysia, and the graphite from someplace else.
The pencil represented jobs all around the world, he explained, creating a strong economy across the globe.
I guess the drug store manager forgot to mention that, though you would think the elderly gentlemen might know about Friedman, who was 84 when he died in 2006.
Then again, maybe the father of the bride was onto something, too.