Buy nothing on Feb. 28

That's no-thing. All day.

On Feb. 28 (a Friday), let’s buy nothing unless it’s something from a small business.

If we are a capitalistic society (and hell yeah we are), then it’s time to show the corporations who do us dirty that American consumers actually have power. Already, we see people tanking Tesla, and snack food fans finding alternatives to Connecticut’s ironically-named LesserEvil snacks, whose heir is one of Elon Musk’s pimply incels stealing our data and staging a technological coup.

Let’s expand that boycott/economic blackout to an entire day.

I’ve been thinking about voting with my consumer dollars a lot lately as I shift my relatively laissez-faire means of acquiring goods and services into something more intentional. Here’s one example: During the pandemic, I let my Amazon Subscribe & Save list stretch from here to sundown without giving it much thought. I’d find a product I liked, and figure I’d just put it on the list so that it arrived next month, or the month after. That meant my actual trips to the grocery store were mostly to get fruit and vegetables because all my paper and cleaning goods (and a few assorted beauty products like all-essential cuticle cream) were brought to me on the regular by the blue Amazon van.

But what do you do when the owner of the company is an egregious person who has made a point of sucking up to the worst president ever — who is an oligarch, himself, or a wanna-be, anyway. I can always get my paper goods and cleaning supplies and all-essential beauty products elsewhere. This just means I have to pay a little attention to my pantry and that will not kill me.

And look, we all do what we can. Companies such as Amazon have rendered themselves stunningly easy and convenient, but for me, the convenience is more a matter of my own laziness. I understand this may not be your situation and believe me, you will not hear from me about that. I know for myself, this is something I can do. So I will.

Feb. 28 is not to be confused with the holiday Buy Nothing Day, the day after Thanksgiving. Consider the February date a practice.