Everyday Economics

Colorado just made it legal to sell your grandma's tamales

Not yet known: did the little extra spice of doing something against the law improve the flavor?

Every single tamale I have ever purchased has been made by someone's abuela in a home kitchen. It's a holiday tradition! And if I'd been in Colorado, it would also have been illegal. Until now. The state just passed the gloriously named Tamale Act, making it legal for everyday people to cook food in their own kitchens and sell it, no commercial restaurant required.

Governor Jared Polis called it "a big win for Colorado cooking entrepreneurs," noting that some of the state's favorite restaurants started in somebody's home kitchen. And as Erik Barnes reports, the timing couldn't be better: with 77% of Americans too tired to cook after work and one in three leaning on a side hustle to cover the bills, this one law takes a swing at two problems at once, putting real dinners in some households and extra income in others. Thinking your famous chili deserves a customer base? There are a few hoops left to jump through, and the story has the roadmap.

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And what did we learn?

Yesterday, we shared a bit of research that shifts the blame for keeping you up at night away from your phone’s blue light and onto the content of your feed.

What ritual helps GOOD readers fall asleep? It warms my literary-nerd heart to see most of you turn to the pages of a book!

• A TV quietly playing something I've seen 100 times (26.7%)

• My phone. I just need one last scroll, or two, or three... (11.5%)

• A real paper book like my ancestors intended (35.1%)

• Nothing. Lights off, eyes closed, gone in 90 seconds (26.7%)

Though I love the answer, GOOD reader Louisa Dyer points out that it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s low-tech. “Actually, it's an E reader because that's easier with its own low light. But it's like ink on paper not a screen.”

Internet

They said the giant World Cup ball wasn't for sale, they were wrong

World Cup Fever is real, and there is no cure.

Apparently, the trick to getting to the World Cup and finally getting to buy the giant World Cup display ball you've been obsessed with for months is the same: perseverance. Just ask Kevin Cronin, aka Kickball Dad, who spotted a 31.5-inch Adidas Trionda Jumbo ball looming over a store display and declared, "We need one of those." The store's position: display only, not for sale, please stop asking. His position: no.

As Erik Barnes reports, Cronin returned month after month with the unshakable optimism of a true sports fan, asking the same question and collecting the same rejection like a punch card. Then one day, the stars aligned and a manager finally said yes. Cue his daughter giggling behind the camera as Dad hoisted his prize skyward: "I'm like Atlas... I got the World Cup on my shoulders!"

Of course, every epic quest has a final boss, and Cronin's was his very normal, very four-door car. His own kids started asking the obvious question. "Why did we buy this?" His answer? "We have W.C.F. World Cup Fever." The soccer internet, plus a few brands you've definitely heard of, showed up to salute him. As for whether the ball made it home, and what his wife's face did when it arrived? That's worth the click.

Society

The conversation you keep dodging might wind up being the best part of your day

Your inner social forecaster is due for a performance review.

You know the move. You see a chatty coworker by the coffee machine, suddenly remember an urgent email, and pivot like a ballroom dancer. We all do it, because we're all quietly certain that small talk is a tax on our time. A new study of 1,800 people suggests we've been confidently, consistently wrong. As Mark Wales reports, researchers ran nine experiments to find out what actually happens when we have the chats we dread.

A University of Michigan team assigned strangers to discuss topics the participants themselves had flagged as snoozers: the stock market, cats, vegan diets. Before talking, people predicted the worst. Afterward? Nearly everyone reported the same surprising thing, and it points to a simple misconception that keeps a lot of us lonelier than we need to be.

The researchers say that the quality of the chat has almost nothing to do with the topic. It's not charm, it's not body language, and it's definitely not having strong opinions about index funds. It's something every single one of us can already do, probably while standing in line.

On June 11, 1982, a small, big-eyed alien with a glowing fingertip wandered into American theaters and refused to leave the culture for the next four decades. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a deeply personal project for director Steven Spielberg, who drew on his own boyhood as an imaginative, often-lonely child of divorce, inventing the otherworldly friend he wished had turned up in his own backyard. Audiences felt it instantly, and the film became the highest-grossing movie of its era, a record it held until Spielberg dethroned himself with Jurassic Park in 1993.

Then there is the candy. The script first called for M&M's, but Mars passed, so Hershey gambled a reported one million dollars on its struggling newcomer, Reese's Pieces. That gamble became a marketing legend: sales surged, the candy was rescued, and modern product placement was basically born on the spot.

Four Academy Awards and one of John Williams' most beloved scores later, E.T. still does exactly what Spielberg built it to do. It makes you want to phone home.

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💬 From the group text…

What a piece of work is a man? Such an amazing performance of Hamlet’s monologue, you can almost forget that this was written 400 years ago!

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