"Inflation Con$ternation" - An Archie and His Pals Tale

So, I decided to take advantage of some after Christmas sales online, and bought a few books from the Archie Comics website.  Among them were the Archie Holiday Colouring Book, the "Everything's Archie" collection, and this book.

For a major collector like myself, I surprisingly don't have a whole lot of the "Archie Americana Series" collections.  So, when I saw that the second book featuring the 1970s was available, I jumped at the chance to buy it.  It really does have a wide variety of stories that have some of the wackiest fads of the 1970s, as well as some of the major concerns that people were going through at that time.

One of these concerns was inflation.  Think the rising prices are a 2019 problem?  Think again.  Back in the 1970s, inflation of goods was a major concern in that decade.  Gas shortages in the mid-1970s meant that the cost of items skyrocketed, and it wasn't that uncommon for people in the 1970s to try and fight inflation as much as possible.

One of the stories that appeared in the Archie Americana Series book originally appeared in "PEP Comics #349", and it stars Archie and Jughead in their quest to fight rising prices.  It's a story that is called "Inflation Con$ternation".  And, yes.  That dollar sign is meant to be in that word.

See what I mean?

Anyway, Jughead meets up with Archie and shows off the brand new earmuffs he bought from a local department store.  They set him back three dollars (which doesn't sound like a lot now, but forty years ago was a nice chunk of change), but Jughead is satisfied with them.  I have to say, I like them.  They're bright red and look really warm.

Archie, on the other hand, is less than impressed.  He doesn't like that Jughead paid full price for the earmuffs and insists that the only way to fight inflation is to fight back.  Archie tells Jughead that he needs to get some earmuffs too, but instead of buying them at a store, he'll be scoping out the garage sales for some.  He figures that people will be charging less than a fraction of the price for them, and to be honest with you, you can find some interesting things at garage sales and yard sales.  But if you're looking for a specific item, you might have a hard time.

Archie certainly has some problems at first.  He hits up every garage sale within a two mile radius, and cannot find any earmuffs.  However, he does manage to find some other things, such as a tennis racket without any string, and other junk items.  It doesn't exactly specify how much money Archie spends on these useless trinkets, but I'm guessing that with a quarter spent here, and a dime spent there, it will quickly add up.  By the time Archie finally finds a pair of earmuffs, his jalopy is not only filled with junk, but Jughead makes an interesting point.

So after all of that shopping, Archie and Jughead are starving, and they both want to grab something to eat.  Jughead suggests that they stop at Pop's, but Archie has another idea.  There's another restaurant called Jill's that have a special deal on.  If they order a burger combo there, they can get a free glass.  A nice promotion, and certainly a lot of fast food places had free glass promotions (believe me, I have a couple of glasses from Burger King in my cupboard).  But the catch is that in order to get the glass, you have to buy a soda.  And sodas can be quite the expensive addition.

Besides, Jughead claims that he doesn't want a free glass, and that he doesn't even drink sodas with his burgers.  I'm guessing Jughead is more of a chocolate milkshake fan.  But Archie says that getting the glass is worth it because it's free.  And Archie is quite happy with his purchase, saying that the glass is really neat.  He makes an off the cuff remark that he should come back to collect the set.  But the waitress behind the counter has a proposition for him.

Wow.  Three dollars for eight glasses?  What a bargain!  Well, okay, I guess he has nine glasses, but he'll have two of the same one.  But still, Archie splurges on all of the glasses at once.  And after they eat their grub and leave Jill's, Jughead has one final point to make.  How much money does Archie have at the end of his "fighting inflation lesson"?

That's right.  Archie was so busy trying to fight inflation that he spent all of his money doing exactly that!  Jughead, on the other hand, paid for earmuffs and a couple of burgers, and only spent four dollars.  Now, you tell me who is the better saver?

Mind you, Jughead is also known for mooching off of others and running up a tab that is longer than his nose at Pop's...but still, in this case, Jughead was the victor.  And Archie?  Well, he has a broken tennis racket and a case of glasses.  Um, yay?