Enough

I'm a terrible shopper. I suspect most men are. I don't say that willy-nilly. I have the proof. Sort of.

Years ago, during Deb's cancer treatments, I was tasked with grocery shopping. Having loaded up my cart and carefully splaying out the goods on the black rubber conveyor belt, the cashier spotted my wedding ring and said, "If you were my husband I wouldn't let you anywhere near the supermarket."

She laughed.

I didn't.

"What? Did I do something wrong?"

"Honey, you did everything wrong." 

With that, I scratched my chin and exited the Pavilions with a fridge's worth of food and thimble's worth of shattered ego.

Last week, while writing about the Worst World Series ever, I suggested the folks in the graphics department put together a package that delineates a 2-seam fastball from a backdoor slider, which I'm not sure is a kid friendly term. 

Today, I came across an infographic (see picture above) that demonstrates my point. 

Sadly, however it popped up in my social media feed. It would've been much better in the Produce Section of my local supermarket. Especially since six non-specific apples put me back about 8 bucks.

Now that the good fruit, peaches, plums, cherries, are unavailable I have to eat apples and oranges. But how am I supposed to know which ones to buy? Are there people out there that actually know the difference between their Braeburns and their Snapdragons?  When did a simple apple not become a simple apple? I must have missed that day in school.

I'm convinced this species stratification is nothing more than a marketing strategy to squeeze as much out of our wallets as possible. 

And it doesn't end where the aisle of fruits turns into the aisle of crackers. 

Wheat Thins, when I allow myself the luxury of carbohydrates, now come in 58 varieties: Sea Salt, Cracked Pepper, Salt and Vinegar, Gouda, 4 Cheese, 4 Cheese & Sea Salt, 4 Cheese and Cracked Pepper, etc. etc.

Nor does it end with the comestibles. Just this morning before I laid out an mortgage payment for my weekly groceries, I spotted this...

GOOD NIGHT NURSE!!!

It took me three weeks to sort through the Medicare maze. Now I need a menu of choices  that would rival a NYC deli just to keep my clothes clean?

There's too much information out there.

And not enough space in here (pointing to my head) to make sense of it all.

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Update: While on a weekend trip to crunchy Sebastopol in Northern California to visit my sister in law and to celebrate a birthday for a friend of Ms. Muse, we were checking in to a local inn. 

While putzing over the room selection and incidentals, an older women rolled into the lobby with two satchels of fresh picked apples. She offered us a few. They were Gravenstein apples. Which upon further inspection, aren't even on the chart. 

Amply proving my point IRL.