Today I bought the wrong relish. It’s the second time I’ve made that mistake. The first time I bought no sugar added relish. I didn’t notice it until weeks later when I made egg salad and my husband said, “next time don’t put so much relish in.” I made the egg salad the way I always make it, but it did taste funny. That’s when I looked at the jar and saw ‘no sugar added.’ It contained surculose, which was the funny taste we detected.
Determined not to make the same mistake a second time, l studied the relish jar and it had a blue strip noting no sugar added. At the condiments aisle, I browsed the jars – ah, finally one without a blue strip. I got my relish home and when I went to put it on the shelf I noticed the big print on the label: ‘Dill relish.’ I focused my attention to avoid buying no sugar added and I missed the obvious. At least I can take it back.
Nowadays there are just too many choices at the grocery store and many times the print is too small to distinguish among them. In the good old days, I’d make my list and zip through the store picking the list items off the shelf. Relish, soup, toothpaste, laundry detergent, Now I’ve made so many accidental purchases. I can blame part of it on my declining vision. But the rest I blame on the proliferation of product varieties.
At a time when my eyes and memory aren’t as good as they used to be, I need to study the label distinctions and remember those distinctions between grocery trips. I need a master’s degree in grocery products. Each trip to the grocery is like those ‘can you tell the difference’ games. I don’t do well on those either.
Take soup. I accidentally bought Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom Soup for my Thanksgiving green bean casserole. When I went back to get regular Cream of Mushroom, I noticed the word Cream of Mushroom is in red for regular, dark green for Healthy Request, light green for 98% fat-free, dark blue for 25% less salt, and light blue for unsalted. And many times these varieties aren’t next to each other on the shelf. I found regular Cream of Mushroom soup on the bottom shelf along with popular flavors like Cream of Rutabaga.
All of the Crest varieties wouldn't fit in the picture (ok there is a couple of other brands, but mostly Crest
Toothpaste is my real nemesis. I stare at the toothpaste selections for 30 minutes and can’t decide what to buy. I look at tube after tube. They look mostly alike. It’s easy to eliminate the kid’s toothpaste. The bubble gum flavor is pink. and the Pixar anticavity strawberry label is bright purple with a picture of Monsters, Inc. What was I looking for anyway? My list just says toothpaste. Do I want Pro-health or pro-health advanced? Did I want clean mint flavor or long-lasting mint? I know hubby hates one of them, but I can’t remember which. There are at least 15 varieties of Crest toothpaste. In the 60s there were fewer than 15 brands of toothpaste in total: Crest, Colgate, Ipana, Ultra Bright, and Gleem. It was an easy choice for me. I was from Indiana so I had to buy Crest because it contained fluoride and promoted the fluoride studies at the IU Dental School.
Next on my list is laundry detergent. Tide has 12 varieties and most of those come in either regular or high-efficiency. One of varieties is Sport Outdoor Defense which makes you wonder if indoor sports don’t also need defense (I presume from odor). After all, isn’t stink stinkier in enclosed spaces? I have to study each label making sure I get high efficiency and I don’t get some awful scent that will stay on my clothes through several washings, making me sneeze every time I move.
Any variety of Tide you can imagine
Personal products, like shampoo, change with fads. You have a favorite fragrance and next year it disappears. I used to love grapefruit-scented shampoo and body wash but I can’t find any products with a just grapefruit scent anymore. There’s always something added: white grapefruit and mosa mint (what is mosa mint?), pink grapefruit and peony, passion flower and grapefruit, and coconut lime grapefruit.
My body wash is Pink Lemon and Mint. Why pink lemon? I’m not making pink lemonade. And could I tell the difference between pink and regular lemon in a blind smell test?
Speaking of bad eyes, I looked at the label to see if there really was pink lemon in the shampoo. Above the recycle symbol my eyes read ‘Use a Can.’ My brain flashed back to the old days when the trash receptacle was an aluminum can. That’s odd I thought, why would they care where I recycled my shampoo bottle? Do they make trash cans anymore? I got my glasses. It read US and CAN (for Canada). See why grocery shopping is so hard for me?
They still sell these aluminum trash cans
That’s why my favorite store nowadays is Amazon. At least I can sit in my recliner with my bunny slippers on. I can enlarge the screen to see the fine print. I’m not alone when it comes to online shopping. Apparently, seniors are the largest group of online shoppers.(1) Chip Bergh, 63, chief executive of Levi Strauss & Co said, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a grocery store,” He stopped shopping in the store during the pandemic and said “It (online shopping) works well enough.”
But I guess I should still go to the grocery store, as stressful as it is. A study by Oregon State University found that people who still shop for themselves are less likely to be perceived as old. (2) Researcher Michelle Barnhart found that the ability to participate in certain activities, such as buying groceries or attending medical appointments, serves as a means of identifying whether someone is “old.”
I long for the good old days when going to the grocery was easy. When there was only one kind of pickle relish, mushroom soup, laundry soap, and shampoo, Now I’ll just muddle through the isles with my reading glasses and repeat, “I’m not old, I shop for myself!”
References
Abha Bhattarai Baby boomers, to retailers’ surprise, are dominating online shopping, Washington Post, January 21, 2021
Chad Brooks, When Does 'Old Age' Start? When You Stop Shopping, Yahoo News, November 14, 2012
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