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Pro (Too Many)
Choices
by Mad Dog
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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. |
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. |
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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.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Choose
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