The Maritime Economy

I read once that the Grateful Dead spawned a perfect case study in Macro-economics among their millions of other contributions to society (ahem, cough cough, terrible music and smelly fanbase, cough cough). You see, it isn't possible to follow a band around the world 365 days a year and keep up a 9 to 5 simultaneously. So, they got creative.

One deadhead would have a shiny quarter in his pocket. He would give this quarter to the tie-dye guy for a shirt. The tie-dye guy would give the quarter to the pot dealer for a bud. The dealer would give the quarter to the burrito guy for a burrito. The burrito guy would give it back to the pot dealer for another bud. The burrito dealer would get stoned, lose the quarter, and the first deadhead would pick it back up to renew the circle of life. Le voila, the money multiplier principle at work.

And, believe it or not, this has a lot to do with my dockbox. Sitting at the bottom of my leaky musty dockbox for about nine months has been a pair of Lewmar 25 winches. I had no interest in dealing with Craigslist or Ebay or getting up early to go to a swap meet. But then, out of nowhere appears an ad for Blue Pelican Marine, a consignment shop over in Alameda.

So, I gathered up the winches, an old spinnaker pole, and a faucet that I had never used and dropped them off at the store with unreasonably low prices. Two days later I got a call that Blue Pelican Marine had an envelope full of cash waiting for me. But I knew I wouldn't spend it anywhere but Blue Pelican Marine itself for they also had a pair of snubbers that I really wanted and a bunch of miscellaneous boat crap that I needed.



So I bought the miscellaneous boat crap to recycle my envelope full of cash back into the marina with Blue Pelican Marine taking a cut to finance his sail repair business. As long as sailors stay away from the patchouli oil, I can hang with being compared to the Deadhead Economy.