Tale of Two Toilet Paper Rolls

See anything unusual here? Besides the abnormality in the lower right hand corner, which I assure you is a result of marble's natural veining or pitting or surface imperfections brought on by etch marks. And not a splotch of toothbrushing spit that landed on the corner when I inadvertently sneezed. I don't know much about photography but I do know how important it is clean up around my house before publishing glimpses of my somewhat sloppy bachelor life.

Focus instead on the two rolls of toilet paper. Notice how the light and my careful composition captures the rather significant height difference? Ms. Muse pointed this out while I was at her beautiful mountain adjacent abode in Sierra Madre. 

Turns out this week, after an other outrageously expensive trip to the Grocery Store where they place "Groceries" (not a word you hear too often these days) in bags to take home,I noticed the same phenomena.

As I was placing my new TP, brought to you by the fine people at Signature Select, the generic house brand from Pavilion, a division of Safeway, on the toilet paper roller thigamajig, I had the nagging feeling that I had been shortchanged. 

And I had. By close to an inch.

This is not the Pentagon Papers or the Mueller Report. It's hardly news that Big Food or Big Grocery as it were, has been screwing over the American consumer for years. One pound packages of coffee are now 12 ounce packages of coffee. Jars of spaghetti sauce are the same size but they have less of that delicious machine made spaghetti sauce just like the one IBC Mega Masher 9000 used to make.

The IBC Mega Masher 9000 in action.

It's called Shrinkflation. As I quickly discovered it's omnipresent.

These microscopic examples of flim-flammery may not bother you that much. Or even at all. But know that a penny saved here and Triscuit shaved there, add up quite quickly. And voluminously. It's why CEOs are actively shopping for their 3rd or 4th yacht. And it's why the investor class hammers away at companies to cut costs and increase profitably.

In other words, it's why the rich get richer. 

And the poor, using poorly made toilet paper, get shit on their fingers.