I was walking through the store the other day when I realized what was once a known experience for me has become alien and strange. I have been a mom for 23 years, and within those two-decades and three-years I have been the sole grocery acquisition specialist. Oh the stories I could tell of my hours spent cross comparing brands to check for quality and value. The labels I have read, the boxes I have tossed atop a loaded basket, and the cookies I have used to bribe tired children in order to get through the check out and to the car before a total melt down ensued. Yes, I am the Royalty of Retail, the Mistress of the Market, the Vixen of Vending!
A couple of weeks ago I slid my feet into my favorite pumps, clasped on my best pearls and headed out to the grocery store in order to buy delicious and nutritious food for my troops, not to mention the need to replenish the wonderful supplies that sit under my kitchen sink that keep the entire household sanitized and smelling wonderful. Our clothes are white, bright and we smell like lavender-white-lily-roses -on-a-sunny-May-morning. I needed to get more of that liquid miracle maker that keeps the sheets of a potty training toddler smelling April fresh!
I arrive at the Kroger. I am in my zone. I crack my knuckles and wrap my limbered hands around the push bar on the grocery cart. I begin to guide my cart with the precision that only a seasoned shopper possesses. I started down the ethnic food aisle when I begin to notice that the really small changes I had noticed in shopping trips of the past were accumulating and changing my shopping experience. Sure, I had noticed the little “Eco” this and “Eco” that on bottles. It took a while, but the small, slow and subtle changes finally took full effect this past week. It looked like the Eco-Fairy had fluttered through the local Kroger and vomited a bunch of glittering eco-hype all over my once normal grocery store.
Oh geez! Where does a grocery-goddess go to get a real sized bottle of liquid detergent for a reasonable price? What is this new fad of shrinking bottles with price tags that go in the opposite direction of the size and volume of the product? I could only assume it was the work of the Eco-Fairy. Anytime there is a little hype put out about a particular subject we suddenly have a whole new media induced fad that winds up screwing up my grocery budget.
A bottle of my favorite detergent used to weigh more than my 7-month old baby, but it cost less than diapers for the tot. Now that same brand weighs as much as a loaf of bread, and it cost me as much as a month’s tuition at the now grown tot’s college. Thanks. Thanks a lot Eco-Fairy. I appreciate that. What has really changed in that detergent? Nothing really. They claim it is more “concentrated” now. Essentially they removed the extra water they used to dilute it with, put the same amount of product into a small Barbie sized bottle, slapped an “eco-friendly” label on it and raised the price so high that even Mr. Clean can’t afford to do his laundry these days.
What other products have I noted the same change in? Cleaners of course! Yep. Smaller bottles, bigger price tags. I did vomit a little when I walked by the soup isle and I saw a Campbell’s Soup can with an “eco friendly” label! So, how does a soup become more environmentally friendly? Simple. They change nothing at all, slap a green label on a can and then charge the poor sucker-consumer (a.k.a ME) the cost to be in on the trend. Oh, we can find eco-friendly popcorn, eco-friendly shampoo, conditioner, flour, sugar, mac and cheese, and just about any other product under the sun that could possibly be given a green label and a price hike. The company does not need to change the product. They only need to put on a fancy green label (I will let my husband a.k.a. “Polymer-Man” tell you why the green dyes used to make those labels are not good for the environment).
What will be held hostage next by the Eco-Fairy? I think that the recent hype around plastics in the media is a good hint. Now we have stores who are already jumping on the bandwagon so that they can claim to be a “BPA Free” store. Guess what? They were already, more than likely, a “mostly-BPA-free” store. Now, they will get to claim to be more “child and family friendly” than their competitor, and since the media has done such a good job scaring the crap out of people, the store can raise its prices since they have had to do, oh so much, to accommodate consumer fears. Baby bottles will now have new labels declaring them as “BPA FREE!” Even though they were already BPA Free before the hype. Of course the exact same bottle will wind up costing you three-times more now.
If you really want to get this domestic-doll all fired up then whisper sweet nothings in my ear about mercury laden light bulbs. I can see the ads now:
Save the environment! Kill your children by putting these light bulbs throughout your house! You too can now own the light bulbs that use less energy to burn! Of course mercury is a heavy metal that is a known hazard to humankind, it causes birth defects and permanent brain damage, but the environment will thank you for it! Well, not really because mercury is also bad for the envrionment — but it’s good for the company pushing this light bulb and Al Gore thinks it’s a pretty darn groovy idea too!
Every time I see Al Gore talk about “Carbon Credits” I have flashbacks of having the crap scared out of me as a kid while watching Return of the Living Dead. He may be proof positive that mercury light bulbs are a really bad idea!
By the way, did they ever establish the mortifying connection between cell phones and brain tumors? Lavender and breast development in boys? Power lines and three headed babies? The Achy-breaky heart dance and attention deficit disorder?
Funny isn’t it? These scare-driven fads “come on like a flame and then turn a cold shoulder.” Why is that? Maybe because past the hype there is not much substance or evidence. Or, maybe we get bored with it when we begin to realize the green can of soup only made a difference in how much we paid and not a single thing more. So we anxiously wait for the next wave of hype so we hang ten - or just pay ten-dollars more.
I could have had a V-8! Only with this current hype, put a lot of Vodka in mine. Make that Skyy Vodka, please.
Tags: EcoHype, family life, looney leftists, politics by Claire
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