I do not know how the world actually works.

I am eating toast with mango jam. The guy next door has a big-ass mango tree which, when it fruits, drops mangoes by the score.

However, the jam I am eating, it seems, is not from next door, or even Waimanalo or a neighboring island.

This stuff was made in Egypt, imported to Turkey, jarred, labeled in English, a little paper hat on it, tied with a cute little string, shipped across Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean, across the North American continent, across the Pacific Ocean (close to nine thousand miles, as per Chat GPT), loaded and unloaded several times along the way, stevedored in Honolulu Harbor onto a truck, driven across town to the Ross store in Kahala, unloaded again, four-wheeled out to the skinny little food section by some $15 an hour guy, and shelved, to be sold to me for $3.99.

So I guess $3.99 covers all the ship captains, truck drivers, mango pickers, tariffs and fees, translators, cash register ladies, and import/export personnel.

That’s over my head.

Meanwhile, next door…

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