The Fastest Way To Cheat: Do It For The Kids

It happened again tonight.

For only the second time since July 1st, 2012, I stepped foot into a national chain and spent a small amount of my hard earned money.

Let me explain.  We were at a 93rd birthday party with the family, enjoying each other's company and good natured heckling.  After dinner and some lazing around, it was time to bring out the cake and ice cream.  (I'm allergic to milk- so, if my doctor is reading this, I did NOT eat ice cream.  PS- It's hard to type when your fingers are crossed.)

I noticed my youngest child was grimacing.  He's 6, so I assumed he ate his ice cream too fast and gave himself a healthy dose of brain freeze, so when he whimpered I didn't think much of it.  But by the time we were in the car and headed home, he was having one of those throbbing, rolling headaches that ebbs and flows, and when it flows, it HURTS.

I took a mental inventory of the medicine cabinet and realized two things:  The garlic salt was somehow in the medicine cabinet (remembered from the day before's chili making escapade), and we were totally out of children's ibuprofen or acetaminophen, which had previously been purchased at Mathes Pharmacy.  I quickly pulled out my phone and looked up their hours- and of course, they'd closed 45 minutes earlier.

I tried to think of anything local that would be open that would have children's pain medicine.  My oldest child can take an adult pill just fine, but not my boy.  I stopped in to one of the locally owned convenience stores, and struck out in any children's medicinal products.

I think there comes a point where a child's immediate pain trumps even the most valiant local buying efforts.  I wasted no time running into Walgreens and grabbing two bottles of children's ibuprofen (grape flavor).  After another 45 minutes, my son was sleeping peacefully.

But the experience brings up one of the important questions I hoped this journey would unearth.  What are we lacking in terms of availability locally?  Are there just some things that we cannot expect to get 24/7?  Or, should we reasonably be able to expect an independent drugstore/grocery store/department store to thrive in a town of our size? If not, what is the role of a national chain in this particular arena?

I don't have answers for these.  In an earlier day, parents would just have to wait until their local mom and pop opened up in the morning, if they'd run out of medicine the night before, and their kiddo would have spent the night miserable.  So, how can we help our towns sustain an option that's open late, late hours that also has a huge, diverse product offering?

Stumped? Maybe not.

Back on 10/4, I asked New Albany 365 readers to list items they didn't think I'd be able to source locally.  Between the post,  twitter , and facebook, I got requests for items of all sorts. There were some really silly requests that made me grin, and others that I had to do some searching to find.  There were some that were purposely impossible- but that's ok, because it brings up an interesting point that I'll expound upon at the end of the post.

So, without further ado- the Stump the Local Yokel results:

Roku :  For the uninitiated, a Roku is a device that allows you to stream movies and other content to your TV.  From what I can tell, there isn't a way to get one new locally;  but, if you're looking to put money into the local economy (hey, buying from someone else and giving them spending money counts!) there have been a few listed locally on Craigslist here.

Silly String:  Over the course of one year, silly string is bound to come up- thankfully, my good friend suggested that I couldn't find this locally.  As it turns out, you can- perhaps not in New Albany, but 6 miles away in Jeffersvonville, at Horner Novelty .

Kopi Luwak:  STUMPED.  Don't get me wrong- I love coffee.  However, coffee beans that are fed to the civet cat and harvested upon exiting the body and THEN made into coffee are a bit beyond my envelope of culinary safety.  It comes from Indonesia, and is extremely expensive and not very much is actually produced, so you'll pay about $60 for two ounces.  At any rate- STUMPED.  I have no idea where you'd get this locally.  I could attempt to feed the neighbor's cats some coffee beans and go 'harvest' them...

iPhone 5:  Most wireless stores are company owned stores, but not all.  We DO have several locally owned cell phone providers who are authorized to sell more than one brand:  Wireless Connection, Cellularworks, and Cellular Mobility are all listed on Google- though, admittedly, I've not called them to see if they have the iPhone 5.

Spinach:  Ah, spinach.  My nemesis/love.  You CAN actually get it at Rainbow Blossom , but they only get shipments a couple of times a week.  I seem to have a knack for visiting right after they've just run out.  In the spring, you can get it at the Farmer's Market as well.

Kids' Clothes/Dress Shoes:  This is an interesting one.  So far, I've been able to find plenty of kids' clothes through either donations, second hand stores, or Goodwill.  There are plenty of cute kids' boutiques in Louisville, but they tend to be pricey, as do kids' shoes.  Of course, you can also make the argument that someone somewhere bought the items new from a chain before either donating them or reselling them- and for that I don't have prepared response.  What I can offer is this:  Any time you accept donations, buy yard sale items, or consignment store items, you're still putting money back into someone's pocket that lives in your community, and that's money that is there to circulate again locally.

Sycamore Ice Cream: STUMPED.  Sycamore Ice Cream is found somewhere in North Central Indiana, so there's no way we're going to find it here.  It must be pretty good stuff- the reviews online are fantastic!

Now we're at the part of the post that I said I'd come back to, and that's this:  Perhaps I should have been more clear in that I didn't mean specific brands when I asked to be stumped. We may not have Sycamore Ice Cream, but we DO have Zesto's- a local, independent option.  We may not have cat poop coffee, but we DO have several independent, local coffee shops and roasters.  You'd be surprised to know how much we really do have right here in our local businesses that you don't have to hit a chain or the internet to find.

The motivations behind buying independently and locally have become a bit more refined for me in these first four months, and tend to boil down to these:  Great items, great service, unique options, and circulating more money where I live to make my community stronger.  As the community is injected with more money, maybe  one of our locally owned coffee shops will be able to afford to sell Kopi Luwak.  Until then, I'll have my beans without predigestion.