There’s no ‘free lunch’

To the editor:
    A recent Ziggy cartoon showed him looking at a big refrigerator-like box with “FREEBIES” in very big letters, and “50c” beneath it. Next to all this was the slot for inserting coins.
    Years ago, there were no freebies. The closest thing to free were items offered to kids by mail for a box top or label, plus a dime or quarter. These included a Captain Marvel ring with a special code, a Little Orphan Annie decoder, a small box of “sound effects,” and a Lone Ranger belt. At the time a good weekly allowance was 25 cents,
    Today freebies actually cost us quite a bit. Two-fer’s at the grocery store cost the price of the first one to get the second free. Double coupons saved money, but people got carried away. A man once showed me a big cabinet of drawers he had built to hold canned goods and other items he and his wife had gotten with coupons. It was overflowing and he said that they gave most of the cache to their kids and friends. When he offered me a big flashlight, I had to decline because I still had one at home which cost me the price of six D batteries; they died before I ever needed to use the flashlight.
    Samples of soap, detergent, and cereals that arrive at the door are passed on to a friend, but not medicine samples, such as Aleve. No way will I be involved in pushing drugs. Some say that what the pharmaceutical companies are doing is akin to what happens on street corners. Many drugs assumed to be nonaddictive become habit-forming for those who take them.
    Then there is the mail, with free stickers— address, flowers, animals; cheap jewelry; an occasional penny or nickel; inspirational booklets; pens, pencils, greeting cards and notepads. Feeling compelled to use them or give them away, I resent the time involved, even in opening the envelopes. Besides, I am deprived of the freedom to choose or express myself in picking out cards and notepads, or even creating my own.
    I must admit to partaking of a food sample once. I saw “Jerky” on the wrapper, remembered a friend saying he used to like beef jerky, and took a bite. Ecch! I spit it out, checked the wrapper again and saw “for your dog.”
    Some people welcome freebies, of course. A friend in Pennsylvania told me she would “take anything free they want to send me.” Later on she wrote, “Wanted to tell you about some of the freebies I have gotten. There were too many to count so I put them in a paper bag and set them on the bathroom scale. There were eight pounds of address labels alone, besides numerous umbrellas, T-shirts, several boxes of greeting cards, note cards, stuffed animals and 31 notepads, none of which I ever asked for. I have seldom contributed to any of the sending organizations. Now, that is really a waste of money for the fund-raisers.”
    For those who value their time and freedom to choose more than they value money, freebies are expensive. For the environment, they are very costly, using up precious resources in their manufacture, and energy required to transport them.
    An old adage still holds: There’s no free lunch.
Byrna Porter Weir
Rochester, N.Y.