It
seems to me that a number of years ago, our entire country started
looking at the possibility of working less and relaxing more. We
were besieged with so called…’labor saving’ devices of all sorts,
shapes and sizes. The basic concept as I recall was to make our
lives less stressful and more enjoyable. Look at how the computer
has changed our lives in just about every aspect. By now, we
should have at least 50% more free time on our hands than we did
years ago. But we don’t. In preparation for this weeks article, I
asked myself…”Self, why don’t we have more free time on our
hands?” Any myself answered and told me…”Because you have used up
all of the free time making choices that you didn’t have to make
years ago.” Now, bear with me here.
Thirty years ago, a man walks into a café and orders a cup of
coffee. What were his choices? He could have it black or with
cream or sugar. I don’t think we even had decaffeinated coffee
back then. Now, what happens? He has to choose from caffeine,
decaffeinated, latte, mocha, cappuccino, 2% fat, cream, half and
half, skim milk, non-dairy whitener, soy milk, real sugar, the
pink stuff, the blue stuff or raw sugar. Not to mention does he
want the coffee hot or cold. Oh, yes and is that for here or to
go?
Instead of being able to run in and grab a cup of coffee and then
be on his way, he has the pleasure of making about 25 choices in
10 minutes just to get a cup of something that would have taken
about 30 seconds not too many years ago. All of these decisions
require brainpower. All of these decisions take time. Do I really
want decaf? Do I have time to sit here and drink this or do I have
to get somewhere else because I’m running late due to having to
run through a litany of coffee choices? Try going to the store and
buying orange juice. I don’t normally buy orange juice and so
haven’t had to make a decision of this magnitude for a number of
years. In your friendly dairy case today you will find…not just
orange juice, but…pulp, some pulp, lots of pulp, no pulp, maybe
a little pulp, concentrate, no concentrate, calcium, no calcium
and I’m certain all pulp, no juice. I didn’t see that one, but I’m
almost certain it’s there somewhere.
How
about gallons that advertise themselves as being …”Home Squeezed”?
Are we to believe there are groups of folks sitting in some
factory with those little grass juice things patiently squeezing
one orange after another into a bucket then pouring it all into
gallon jugs so I can buy them? I find that hard to visualize. So
what’s an orange juice ingredient challenged male to do when
confronted with this dilemma? Well, in some stores you will
actually see big, burley grown men crying, discretely in the
corner over by the automobile products where they will likely
escape being noticed. They realize they lack the necessary
shopping skills to even go to the store and buy something as
simple as a gallon of OJ. You can see it in their eyes as they
look wildly around searching for help in any form or fashion.
Women tend to avoid men in this mode. They can sense fear and will
continue to shop the rest of the store and come back to the juice
section later. If you are foolish enough to ask for help, you
have reduced yourself to the level of asking for directions while
driving. Something most men refuse to do even if it means making
five more trips to the store to get it right. The bottom line of
this discussion is to prove that all of that extra time has been
taken away by the multitude of choices now available as a result
of those labor saving devices. For the record, I would like to say
that I am not in the least bit intimidated by something as trivial
as orange juice. I just buy them all and figure it out later. Now,
if I could just figure out how I can get these 7 gallons in the
refrigerator
