Friday, May 31, 2019
MMT conquers all
DW has a cute feature on the Trabi, with pix from a 25th anniversary meeting of the Trabi club. Most of the description is accurate, with one notable exception.
A habit inspired by the old pre-1961 VW, which had no fuel gauge. You were supposed to be Krautistically disciplined, filling the tank every 200.00 km on the dot. As a concession to sloppy non-Aryans the Bug had a little lever under the dashboard that gave you an extra 'Reserve Tank' to reach the next Official VW Petrol Station. (Actually there wasn't an extra tank; the lever simply switched from a high inlet pipe to a low inlet pipe so you could use the lowest gallon in the tank.) Needless to say, the device worked exactly once for us disorganized non-Aryans because we not only failed to track each kilometer in the Fahrenlogbuch, we also forgot to set the lever back to the normal high-inlet position after filling up.
Still, I liked the principle and formed the household habit of keeping one 'reserve' for necessaries like soap and toilet paper, in a non-obvious location so I won't just unconsciously pick it up and use it. Those samples were ideal for the purpose, and occasionally served their intended purpose of switching me to another brand.
Sometime in the last decade, consumer companies absolutely stopped all free samples, and charities stopped sending those little guilt-inducing free gifts. Those gifts worked: even though I knew the little gadget wasn't really made by the blind crippled orphans at St Sulphura's Home, my old midwestern ethic required me to pay for something received.
Was the loss of samples a result of 9/11? Heimatssicherheitsordnung? Seems like it would have to be a regulation, not just a postal rate hike; higher rates wouldn't cause total cessation.
Google doesn't have an answer to the question, at least with the phrases I can think of. = = = = = END REPRINT. It's not surprising that DEUTSCHE Welle no longer understands DEUTSCHE Schwabischkeit. Soros conquers all.
When you finally received your Trabant, you couldn't drive around as carefree as these guys at the Anklam convention. You had to keep track of how much gas was still in the tank — regular Trabis didn't have a fuel gauge. The only sign that the car was running out of fuel was when the engine started sputtering. That was the driver's cue to find a gas station, and fast.Not quite. Like the early VW, the Trabi had a two-way valve in the tank. In the normal setting, the fuel came from a couple inches above the bottom. When it started sputtering, you quickly turned the valve to 'Reserve', which opened up an inlet at the bottom. You then had about one gallon left, which would take you 30 or 40 miles. Unless you were way out in the wilderness, you had plenty of time to find a gas station. = = = = = In an MMT mood, this leads me to......... = = = = = START REPRINT: What happened to free samples in the mail? I used to enjoy getting those little one-use packets of soap or shampoo or aspirin, keeping them as 'reserve tanks'.
A habit inspired by the old pre-1961 VW, which had no fuel gauge. You were supposed to be Krautistically disciplined, filling the tank every 200.00 km on the dot. As a concession to sloppy non-Aryans the Bug had a little lever under the dashboard that gave you an extra 'Reserve Tank' to reach the next Official VW Petrol Station. (Actually there wasn't an extra tank; the lever simply switched from a high inlet pipe to a low inlet pipe so you could use the lowest gallon in the tank.) Needless to say, the device worked exactly once for us disorganized non-Aryans because we not only failed to track each kilometer in the Fahrenlogbuch, we also forgot to set the lever back to the normal high-inlet position after filling up.
Still, I liked the principle and formed the household habit of keeping one 'reserve' for necessaries like soap and toilet paper, in a non-obvious location so I won't just unconsciously pick it up and use it. Those samples were ideal for the purpose, and occasionally served their intended purpose of switching me to another brand.
Sometime in the last decade, consumer companies absolutely stopped all free samples, and charities stopped sending those little guilt-inducing free gifts. Those gifts worked: even though I knew the little gadget wasn't really made by the blind crippled orphans at St Sulphura's Home, my old midwestern ethic required me to pay for something received.
Was the loss of samples a result of 9/11? Heimatssicherheitsordnung? Seems like it would have to be a regulation, not just a postal rate hike; higher rates wouldn't cause total cessation.
Google doesn't have an answer to the question, at least with the phrases I can think of. = = = = = END REPRINT. It's not surprising that DEUTSCHE Welle no longer understands DEUTSCHE Schwabischkeit. Soros conquers all.
Labels: MMT
¶ 11:43 PM
