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Pro (Too Many) Choices
by Mad Dog


The problem is, we have too many choices. Where at one time cars, telephones, and Oreos all came in one color selection, now we have, well, 45,000 choices.
If you’re shopping for a Rolls Royce Phantom be warned, it won’t be easy. It’s not the car payments that are the problem. After all, they won’t even allow you to step foot in the showroom without pulling your credit report. Even then, if you want to walk around without a security guard breathing down your neck you need to be on the Forbes 400 list. Near the top. Of course you could try casually flashing your wallet to show them the $328,750 in cash the car will set you back. That can work too. But the problem isn’t money, it’s deciding on a paint color. After all, they only offer 45,000 to choose from. Henry Ford must be laughing hysterically in his grave.

   Ford was, after all, reputed to have said about the Model T, “The customer can have any color he wants so long as it's black.” He was a smart guy, he knew his customers didn’t want to sit in a showroom flipping through a book of paint swatches that makes the Oxford English Dictionary look like CliffsNotes. Of course no one who would buy a Rolls Royce would do that. After all, that’s what hired help is for.

   I suspect the actual procedure is to bring in something to match — a shirt, a couch, a Matisse, a Pekinese — and they’ll duplicate the color for you. Or if you’re impulsive and need the car for a date that night, you take what they have on the showroom floor and have it repainted next week to suit your mood. Or to match your Pekinese after she’s been to the grooming parlor for a color, cut, and set.


There are now at least 17 types of Oreos, including peanut butter, mint, yellow cookie, fudge covered, double creme and the affirmative action role reversed version that has a white cookie and chocolate creme, the favorite of liberals everywhere. Good luck finding a regular old Oreo.
   I don’t have to worry about making this decision anytime soon — unfortunately — I’m just mentioning it in case you’re one of those people who have trouble making up their mind and you’re thinking about buying a car. If that’s the case you might want to stick with something like a Prius since it comes in just eight colors. At least then if you’re having trouble deciding you can tape the color samples to a wall and throw a dart, with a Rolls Royce you’d need to post them on the Great Wall of China.

   The problem is, we have too many choices. Where at one time cars, telephones, and Oreos all came in one color selection, now we have, well, 45,000 choices. For example, once upon a time there was mayonnaise. You had to choose which brand you liked, but that was it. Now there’s regular, light, fat-free, canola, with lime juice, and with mustard. Three kinds of mustard no less. It won’t be long before you can take home a jar of soy decaf shade grown fair trade dolphin-free mayonnaise. Then all you’ll need to do is decide whether you want a small jar, medium jar, large jar, or popcorn tub size. It makes ketchup sound better all the time.

   Then there are Oreos. There are now at least 17 types of Oreos, including peanut butter, mint, yellow cookie, fudge covered, double creme and the affirmative action role reversed version that has a white cookie and chocolate creme, the favorite of liberals everywhere. Good luck finding a regular old Oreo. I’d recommend buying some Oreo Cookie ice cream and piecing them together.


A menu shouldn’t be as long as a Stephen King book. Of course neither should a Stephen King book, but since I don’t need to read The Stand before I can eat, I’m not worried about it.
   All these choices make it difficult not only to decide what you want, but to actually make it home with the right thing. For reasons best known to the marketing department, manufacturers keep the labels the same and print the variant in small, unobtrusive letters using invisible ink. Right, like grocery shopping wasn’t enough fun before. At least half the time I get home and discover that I accidentally bought fat-free low-sodium tuna-flavored free range cream cheese by mistake. It’s not worth my time to take it back, and it sure isn’t worth my mental health to eat it. So I throw it out. (Here’s a handy shopping tip: look for the word “original” on the package. It won’t be prominent, and you’ll pick up four other kinds before you find it, but that’s the real stuff you want.)

   Restaurants are another place where we’re getting too many choices. A menu shouldn’t be as long as a Stephen King book. Of course neither should a Stephen King book, but since I don’t need to read The Stand before I can eat I’m not worried about it. Simply put, I don’t want to spend more time reading a menu than it will take me to eat my dinner. It’s a personal rule. I have enough trouble deciding what food ethnicity or style I want to eat, don’t make me go catatonic when the waitperson comes to the table for the fifth time to take my order.

   There is one place where we could use more choices — elections. We get two choices, three if we’re lucky and don’t care about the quality of the third candidate. And even with that it feels like there’s no choice at all. It’s like buying a rancid hot dog and being offered anchovies or peanut butter as a topping. It needs something desperately, but why are those my only choices? So I say stick with a simple black Rolls Royce. Go back to eating plain old Oreos and mayonnaise. But please, give us more choices where we need it — like the next presidential election.

©2006 Mad Dog Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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