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- Thinkin' Out Loud
by Nan Jacobs
Relative Excessivity
 So I jogged into the store the other day for toothpaste.
Holy baking soda, Batman! The multi-flavors! The whiteners! The
breath-fresheners! The breath-fresheners with whiteners, the
anti-gingivitis, the antibacterial, the "New! With baking
soda!" (woohoo!), "The Original Baking Soda" (huh?),
and the myriad combinations of all of the above and more. So
many more-everything but the one I've always used-that my eyes
crossed and I picked whatever my hand landed on. It's called
"citrus burst" but it looks and tastes like an icky-sweet
orange cream-sickle, which psychologically offsets the whole
anti-cavity claim, and if there's credence in the concept of
mind over matter, my teeth are doomed. Doomed, effectively, by
excess.
"Excess . . ." If you think Las
Vegas owns the word, look around. And it's not just about .072
MPG 890 horsepower SUVs and 327 inch, enough-energy-consumption-
during-one-rerun-of-STAR WARS, Episode Eighty-Seven-to-power-Las
Vegas- for-a-year plasma TVs.
The shampoo shelves have long since left
me closing my eyes and grabbing whatever my hand finds (inevitably
something claiming to be for the type of hair that mine isn't).
I'm sure my hair will fall out some day soon, since I realized
far too late in life (to understand and put into practice all
the nuances), that there's pre-shampoo conditioner, post-shampoo
conditioner, post-conditioner conditioner, pre-blow-drying conditioner,
post-blow-drying conditioner, and then the goop you run through
your hair to make it stay in place (and look fashionably wet
and messy) because all those conditioners made it so soft and
fluffy.
Canned chicken noodle soup? Let me count
the ways: Classic? Low fat? Low salt? Low fat and low salt? Chunkyhealthyoldfashionedhomestylethickandhealthythick
and full-of-chicken-byproducts-aieee! It's quicker to brew homemade
soup than to stand in the aisle hunting for the "right"
one.
Carrots: giant bag of "regular"
carrots (cheap, imported, covered with banned substances, probably
uprooted by all-but-slave labor)? Or medium bag of same? Or small
bag of organic carrots (eighty-seven times the cost of the giant
bag of toxic, un-PC carrots; maybe not imported-unless you consider
Texas to be a foreign entity-supposedly not slimed with toxic
substances, probably still picked by all-but-slave labor); carrots
with greens (see all of above parenthetical hypotheses)-also
in organic and regular. Baby carrots-ditto the parenthetical
stuff-big bag or small. Organic or classic? (All, thank the genome
gods, still orange.) Quicker to grow your own produce than to
put down roots in the store trying to decide how to safely and
frugally feed your family.
Have you explored recently the choices
of butter/margarine/whatever-they-call-it- this-month? I dare
you to come away without a headache-a headache that will have
you grabbing the first container your hand fumbles across, only
to bring home the one brand in the store that still offers free
cholesterol and trans fats and a discount coupon for the emergency
room.
And eggs. Oh my clucking chickens! Brown,
white, tan, spotted; small, medium, large, extra large, jumbo;
from caged hens, un-caged hens, omega-3 fed hens-or not-organic
omega-3-fed hens, free range hens, hormone fed-or not-whole grain
fed-or not. Makes ya wanna baaaawk.
It's pervasive, I tell you. At the local
hardware store, the outdoor grill choices put George Foreman
to shame. Some of them look like they should come with a complimentary
channeling of Escoffier
and a full kitchen makeover-for the patio. If a mere hardware
store presents such an array, my bladder shrivels at the thought
of stepping into a home improvement chain store. I've heard that
there now exists a clear plastic toilet seat and lid, in which
one may keep live fish. That'd be the one my hand would fall
on after five aisles of wooden (oak? maple? particle? balsa?),
plastic (what color? how heavy?), fiberglass, porcelain, marble
(Italian or Russian?), oval, round, square, triangle (cuuuuute),
flowered, lil-puppies-themed, horse-themed, dinosaur-with-dentures-themed,
hinged, unhinged (that would be me) or lidless seats.
Yeah and my luck, the aquarium seat'd come
with piranhas. Talk about a bite in the excess.
It could be worse, though. Mr. Las Vegas
Wayne Newton could be singing and dancing below my window in
the moonlight! With Marie Osmond! Now that is "Excess".
Note:
Nan would like to say "Donkey Chain" to Mr. Newton
for always being there (since, like, forever), and to Marie Osmond
for always having a giant smile on her face. And Nan would like
to clarify that she only picks on people whom she loves.
©July 2008
Nan Jacobs lives in Pennsylvania
with her husband and son, a menagerie of pets and a herd of tow
trucks. When not "thinkin' out loud", she's vying with
the cats for the nearest sunbeam, trying to ignore the call of
the wild dust bunnies. (Sloths are her heroes.) Nan's essay,
"Word Games", is published in "A Cup of Comfort
for Parents of Children with Autism" (Adams Media, 2007)
and a short story, "Twilight Whispers", will be available
for download from http://thewildrosepress.com
in time for the Christmas holidays in 2008. Please drop in and
visit Nan at http://nanjacobs.com
Send Nan a message either directly or using
the Word Catalyst feedback form.
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