Up with Choices

 Posted by at 09:14  Up With
Aug 272012
 

One of the delights of not having a job anymore is that I spend more time with my wife. To be honest, much of this time is spent in strange ways that I would never choose for myself but, these days, we do spend more time together than we used to. And one of those ways is grocery shopping. It’s given me a new perspective on life and made me wonder who buys all that stuff on the supermarket shelves. It certainly isn’t me.

The Modern Supermarket

I’ve done my share of grocery shopping in the past but when I go shopping by myself, it is different from shopping with my wife. While I shop with purpose and efficiency, my wife bips and bops all over the store and spends too much time waiting for service, like at the deli counter. These days,shopping with my wife, my mind drifts as I wander the supermarket aisles following her whims. I seldom have an agenda which leaves me free to ponder the wonders of all the products on the shelves. Who, I ask myself, buys this stuff?

 I’m a simple guy!

My wife and I have simple wants and needs, at least that’s how I see it. As we traverse the store to select our purchases we pass thousands of products that we never consider buying. There are at least ten laundry detergents not including the one we buy and who really believes that there is any difference? Some are brand names that you see advertised on TV. Others are generic. We don’t even buy detergent at the supermarket- saving that purchase for our once a month trip to Sam’s Club but somebody does and for some reason, the store’s customers want all those choices.

No real choice- just variety

Milk is another example. No commodity is more regulated than milk today. You can’t really have choice in milk because the government has set all the rules. You can’t have fresh, unpasteurized milk whatever you are willing to pay and the price is controlled. Still there are four or five brands of milk with slightly different prices. Somebody clearly cares about those brands or the store wouldn’t carry them yet I can’t believe that there is any difference. We pick the cheapest one and wonder why people buy the expensive. Once it is in the glass, who can tell?

 Do you really need canned peas?

There are aisles full of canned good. These days, we hardly ever buy anything in cans. The exceptions are soups and beans. Vegetables for emergencies will be frozen, not canned and we don’t buy many of those. We do buy canned tomatoes for the winter, I remember. Maybe there was some purpose to canned goods years ago but today, who needs them?

The produce section is a wonder but with all those choices, what we actually buy is limited. We usually buy zucchini, asparagus, broccoli and green beans. I’s nice to have the chilies, tomatillos, eggplant and so on but most of the time we leave them on the shelf. The organic section we ignore completely. Who needs that overpriced, feel good stuff. Strangely, we never see anybody actually buying it.

In the meat section, there are specialty products already breaded and stuffed for immediate preparation. While appealing, they actually taste stale when you get them home and fix them and the actual time it would take to stuff or bread something is marginal so we stay simple. We stick with the basics.

The list goes on

That is only a small inspection of the incredible range of products in our neighborhood supermarket. There are sauces and condiments that couldn’t have been imagined in an American grocery store fifty years ago. I peruse those shelves with wonder these days. Once in a great while, I’ll see a recipe that calls for fish sauce or coconut cream and it is nice to know that if I really want it, I can get it but I can’t help wondering who actually buys that stuff.

This is the modern, multicultural America with sushi shops almost as frequent as Starbucks and I’m not complaining. I love the variety and vitality of new ideas. I don’t really want to go back to the kinds of choices I saw on the supermarket shelves when I was a kid back in the 50’s. It is just when I see all those choices and the amount of expensive real estate devoted to displaying this vast array of products, I can’t help asking.

Who buys this stuff?

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Mar 092012
 

Bellisima!

I confess that the only thing that makes me cantankerous about Venice is having to leave.  Not that there aren’t some strange things going on here in Italy.  The Italians have their own way or doing things- and it isn’t all bad.  Just hard to get used to.

But once you do, you can never go back.

I apologize for being in such a mellow mood but it can’t last.  Next stop is NYC.

Meanwhile to make up for Justin’s branfreeze look at some pictures.  It’s all good.

San Marco the Basilica

Approaching Piazale Roma

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up With Stupidity

 Posted by at 08:26  Up With
Jan 042011
 
Dare to Be Stupid
Image via Wikipedia

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. Gustav Flaubert

I had a negative goal.

All my life, well meaning people have been telling me not to be stupid. I always assumed that it was for my own good. I believed that they wanted the best for me. Now I am beginning to wonder.

All this time, I have been seeking fulfillment and happiness, rarely achieving one or the other and never both at the same time. Mostly I remain unsatisfied with my status and progress and profoundly focused on me. I have been so intent on self examination that I never thought to look around me for examples of happiness. If I did take my eyes off myslef, it was only to examine my mentors- the ones urging me not to be stupid. As a result, I never knew any truly happy people. Everyone I knew was struggling just as hard as I not to be stupid and it wasn’t making them happy.

So where are the happy people?

I had to lower my horizon to find them. They were all around me but flying under the radar for people who’s only aim in life is not to be stupid. They were living their lives happily, unstressed by unnecessary knowledge of their limited abilities and accomplishments. They were loved and respected. They were important. They were comfortable with themselves. And they were stupid.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Sep 172010
 
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Image via Wikipedia

If you start thinking about pirates what comes to mind?  Those fools in Somalia that may be effective but ultimately are hunted by every Navy in the world including the British, French and the Good Old USA and then shot with pinpoint accuracy in high seas by the greatest fighting force the world has ever known?  Or do you think (as you should) about the so called Golden Age of Pirates, that time between 1650 and 1750 when pirates and privateers ravaged the Spanish fleets, all for gold stolen from the indigenous peoples of America.

That era holds a romance and fascination for this Coot that is for sure.  That is why this weekend will be so fun.  Today is my birthday as Ralph has so pointed out on Wednesday in this post, but contrary to his opinion the big celebration this weekend is for International Talk Like a Pirate Day!  If you have never heard of TLAPD, now is the time to amend your ways.  It is a day to celebrate pirates, and most things pirate.

Look at it this way, Pirates really were bad people.  Rape Pillage and Plunder was their Modus Operandi and stealling other peoples ships is not very nice.  But then again it was the Spanish….but I digress.  Many pirates were larger than life characters with reputations that would never hold up today with a quick google search and the AP following their every move on sattelite.  But over 300 years ago stories were spun and fear grew from the exploits of a few men.

Fast forward to a time where these stories are all that is left.  A time when Hollywood was just getting started and needed stories to capture imaginations.  Stars were born and pirates were movie stars.  See the Sea Hawk or Captain Blood with Errol Flynn, they are still great adventures.  Walt Disney loved pirates so much he made a whole ride dedicated to them.  And then came Treasure Island.  A movie based on Robert Louis Stevenson‘s book (go read it if you have not, it is great and the movie barely does it justice) that truly defined an imaginary world of pirates that we have all fallen in love with.

It was Robert Newton who played Long John Silver that has perpetuated much of how we think pirates were in the past.  They may have been nothing like that but here we are now and pirates are cool.  Look at the success Disney had with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, movies based on a freaking amusement park ride!  People love them so much they had to modify the ride to fit the movie that was based on the ride!

But that brief and only partially accurate history brings us to two guys who had a screw loose and decided not to tighten it but to talk like pirates on an international holiday.  John “ol Chumbucket” Baur and Mark “Capn Slappy” Summers created this fantastic lunacy and I have been celebrating faithfully for 5 years now.

Here is your assignment for this weekend.  Go watch a pirate movie.  Wear something black and Talk like a Pirate on Sunday!  It is a bunch of fun.  There are phrases and helpful hints over on the pirate guys website http://talklikeapirate.com.  Spend some time there, download some songs, especially Tom Smith’s talk like a pirate day anthem.  Oh and use this google address: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-pirate&q=&oe=UTF-8&tab=dw it will make google speak pirate at you…it’s pretty cool.

Be a pirate this weekend, you can be truly Cantankerous as a saltly sea dog!  Now I just have to figure out how to teach Sunday School in Pirate….

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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