Buy Nothing Day 1999:
Report from Boston (USA)

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Dec. 15 1999

Shout out from boston...
we had an excellent day here on Nov. 26.

My twin cousins, sports-car-obsessed-18-year old boys from L.A., were in town for thanksgiving. They were given the option on the 26th to either drive to maine with their parents to go to the L.L. Bean outlet

or

spend the day with cousin Amanda (yours truly) at some "hippy" parade that she was helping to organize.

they had no desire to spend all day in the car and at the L.L. Bean factroy outlet. They opted to come with me, figuring that anything was better. At the beginning, they just didn't know what to make of it. Here we were, painting our faces, distributing kazoos, greeting total strangers in solidarity. They stood back and said nothing. These guys watch alot of bad T.V. These guys had never been involved in anything remotely like this.

To make a long story short, by the end of the day they were kazzooing right along with us, passing out BND flyers, and cursing their own gap khaki pants. it was truly a beautiful sight. on the way home, they said: "That was the most amazing thing I've ever done. And the weidest." and "I can't wait to leave home and do this sort of thing at college."

You don't need to wait for college, I told them.

Sadly, at the big family dinner table that night, i watched their excitment slowly fizzling away as their dad patronized and mocked what they had done. My parents joined in. "Oh, you young people. We know you just want to have fun, but you don't even understand how the economy works." My cousins certainly couldn't defend themselves. It infuriated me, to watch their egos being deflated, after having seen a little light in their eyes. I said what I could, explained what we had been doing, but my explainations fell on deaf ears. "Silly kids."

That's my buy nothing day story.

As for this list, i'm pleased to see it happen. Since BND falls on but one day a year, and is somewhat limited in scope, I hope we're going to use this list as a platform to discuss the bigger issues that BND touches on....the american mindset, the economy, the WTO, etc etc etc...

good to meet y'all

amanda in boston

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