Epitome

Another beautiful morning. On such a good autumn day, we need to do something suitable for the value of the day. Going on a hike? Not bad seeing autumn leaves tinged bloody red or shining yellow. No, no. Everyone must think the same. Everywhere must be crowded. Traffic is jammed.
High-ways are now almost toll-free on weekends however far you drive. People rush to sight-seeing spots. Only if you have an ETC. I don't... I am waiting for DPJ's promise that will abolish all the toll-gates on weekdays to be fulfilled. So I won't drive today.
Yesterday I drove to a kitchen showroom in Shinjuku. It was terrible. A female clerk showed us around and questioned our taste. We selected part by part of a kitchen unit; panel material, color, size, drawers, sink type, coating, tap, handle, ventilator and its hood... It never ends.
Our Q and A was like this.
"Which faucet do you like?" said the clerk.
"What's the difference?" said my mother.
"This one is water-saving type and that one is not."
"Oh we like to save water."
"And this type is water saving plus retractable faucet on and off without touching the handle."
"Oh, that's handy. we need this."
Then the clerk put down our choices on a sheet of paper. But my wife noticed one discussion was missing. She asked the clerk
"Then how much more does it cost us than the standard type?"
"Well, let me see." She checked the price. Hesitantly she said "Well... \75,000." meaning it's more than \100,000
We were surprised. It's just a faucet! Without our knowing we were on the verge of buying a faucet more expensive than my computer system which consists of more than 5,000 parts.
It took 2 hours to get through all the stupidity like this. My back pained as I stood by.
When we build a house our sense of money values gets easily paralyzed. Perhaps we may be in sort of condition of insanity. On the other hand, the shops try very hard to take advantage of this mentality to get money. Perhaps this is an epitome of the world of capitalism.