Carey and I had to take a trip to town for some groceries, the laundry and to take the dog to the vet (don’t worry, she is fine!). We decided to stay the night and since we did we figured it would be great to go get some dinner. We have stopped at Turtle Mountain Brewery in Rio Rancho a few times, they have a great patio for Radar, great beer and we always get in great conversations with the patio people. Check them out on FB here and while your there make sure you check out Sahaleeoffgrid on FB also!!

So we go to the patio, Carey gets us a table and I walk in to grab a couple pints and some menus. As I come back out I see a group of people sitting at a table laughing, joking and just having a good time. One of them looks up as I am standing there with a dumb look on my face and two pints in my hand and says “you wanna shoot it”–Well, if you know me, you know that I don’t care what it is, if someone says “you wanna drive it” or “you wanna shoot it” the answer will ALWAYS be yup…and this is what he hands me!

Well, in New Mexico flies are a real problem. I solved that problem for the Turtle Mountain Patio—I massacred the flies to the point that about 10 of them grabbed a piece of napkin and started waving it in surrender. “What is this magical piece of plastic that with which I just add salt and destroy the flies”, I ask. They tell me that it is the Bug-A-Salt. Well I guess I need to by an assault rifle–a Bug-A-Salt rifle!!

Got back to the room, jumped on the laptop right away and got that thing on its way. $40 dollars is nothing for the amount of fun and value this could provide right?!?!?!

O man—It finally arrived, break that baby out and let’s kill some flies!! The first day was a blast—literally. Second day was still fun. Third day I set it down and just couldn’t be bothered with fly patrol. Had a buddy visit so I just had to show it to him and let him shoot a few flies, my dad visited so I just had to show it to him and let him shoot a few flies. Cool, now I’ve massacred some flies and impressed two people with my majestical salt filled piece of plastic.

Let me tell you all something—we came here to get out of our materialistic, impress the neighbor mind set. As I’m sitting here showing off this (no longer majestic) piece of plastic I have to question, “how far have I come in this journey”. Here I am spending my hard earned money on something I don’t need and here I am showing off something I don’t need to important people in my life. What the hell was I thinking? Yes, it was only $40 and we will not go broke over such a silly purchase. However, I got caught up in the moment. I got caught up in the mob excitement. I got caught up in the fact that I would be able to take it with me and show my friends. I got caught up in the consumerism mentality. The very same mentality that drove me to move here. The very same mentality that put us into the debt that we have had to pay off since we got here. The very same consumerism mentality that I have been fighting for 18 months now.

There is no do-over, I can’t (won’t) take that purchase back. It was a bad decision that I need to own. This silly piece of plastic will stay with me for a while to serve as a reminder, just how much is shooting a house fly with a blast of salt worth to me.

The paragraph that included the link for you to click to go buy a bug a salt for yourself and if I’m lucky I may even get a few pennies for contributing to your consumerism, is now deleted. I can’t do it, not this time. Don’t buy it, it’s not worth the money. It’s not worth the effort. It’s just a silly little piece of plastic that leaves salt all over your house!!

Thanks for letting me vent! Give us a like and a follow with the big follow button the right. We are sure that most of us have made a silly purchase like this and would love to hear your stories in the comment!