I often hear people talking about feeling overwhelmed. There's too much to see, too much to do and the fear that we're going to miss something really good. If you haven't felt overwhelmed lately, you must not have been to the grocery store. A single stroll down the cereal aisle should prove my point. Send the kids down that aisle and you won't hear from them for thirty minutes as they pace up and down trying to decide on the one box they want to take home.
The choice I find frustrating of late is found a couple aisles over from the cereal in the paper products. When I was a child, my mother was rigid in her toilet paper choice. There was only a single brand that she would bring in the house. When I left home and started buying my own, I trusted her choice buying the same brand through my 20's.
In my 30's, I began to assert my independence both from my parents and from ex-husband #1. I tried several brands based on multiple factors including the cuteness of their ad campaign. Then, one day, the search was over. My daughter and I agreed that the latest purchase was the one and only paper we ever wanted to use. She was so committed that she refused to use the restrooms at school. I think we can all agree that institutional paper products are their own brand of torture but for her, the difference was too much to handle. She wasn't going to settle for anything less than what we now had at home. I was less rigid but did take great pleasure in the home experience.
Sometime, several years after we settled on our toilet paper brand, I was doing the regular shopping. Suddenly I noticed that there was more than one version of our brand. Today, there are multiple versions. My brand now comes in strong, soft and extra soft, double rolls, jumbo rolls, 16, 24 and 48 packs. While I don't deny anyone the right to diversify, I think they have gone a little too far. I've heard that companies believe we are always looking for the "new, improved" product and therefor strive to keep their products fresh but seriously. The jumbo rolls don't even fit on the typical dispenser. Bigger is not always better!
Most of all, I can't figure out why they insist on requiring us to buy a year's supply at a time. When you pick up that 48-roll package, the cart is instantly full. If you happen to drive a smart car, you may have to make two trips to get all the rolls home. And, once you get them home, where do you put them all? If you have an apartment, I suppose you could use the pack as an end table. What about older Americans trying to get those big packs in the house? That's clearly a safety risk.
My final issue with these huge packages of toilet paper is one of cost. Since I get paid once a month and am not very good at money management, things are often pretty tight that last week of the month. If we happen to be low on toilet paper, I would like to buy enough to get through to payday, maybe a 4-roll package. Unfortunately, that is a choice I don't have. The paper companies have decided that the average American family has three or more bathrooms, several household members with diarrhea and a need to stockpile paper in anticipation of a natural disaster. That's not me. I have a household of two people. Neither of us is home full-time. If I have $50 to supply us with food and other necessities that last week of the month, I don't want to shell out more than 20% on toilet paper!
This is clearly an example of too many choices but still too few. I want to purchase the excellent quality product I love in a quantity I can carry and store. Is that really too much to ask?
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