It's Too Much

I was in the supermarket the other day buying toothpaste and, staring at the shelf, it suddenly became clear why Western civilization is not going to hell in a handbasket but rather in an ultra-lightweight dual-grip handbasket manually woven from organic polyfibers harvested in the virgin Peruvian rainforest by a team of multilingual bio-farmers.

It's too much.

Things have gone too far.

My intention was to use currency to purchase toothpaste, drive it home in my automobile, unscrew the top, squeeze it onto a toothbrush and then move it up, over, across and around my teeth. Afterward I would spit.

Instead of a simple tube of toothpaste I wound up with Crest Whitening Expressions Cinnamon Rush! in a glistening red and blue metallic tube shaped like a Buck Rogers space ship. Other choices included Plaque Fighting Citrus Explosion! (I didn't like the idea of grapefruit blowing up in my mouth) and Wintermint Complete Oral Experience! which, living in Chicago, sounds like something you can get down on North Avenue for 50 bucks.

The toothpaste shelf, composed of hundreds of perfectly aligned rectangular multi-hued boxes, looked like an installation at MOMA. There was not a plain tube of toothpaste in sight.

At the checkout I used a combination credit, debit and ATM card which accrues points redeemable for hot-air balloon trips across Switzerland. I drove home in my car imported from Europe that has all-wheel drive, surround- sound, triple airbags, and little trays that fold down in the backseat should I feel the need for roadside tea and crumpets. At home, instead of unscrewing the tube, I flipped open the hinged top using the custom thumb-grip. I squeezed it onto my ribbed-handled, aerodynamically-designed toothbrush with alternating soft, medium and hard bristles designed to conform to the position and shape of my teeth. Afterward, I spit.

My teeth felt great.

It was the anxiety of whether I'd made the correct dental hygiene choice that was killing me.

*****

I make a point of brushing several times a day partly because I'm a coffee drinker. My preference is a medium-sized cup of black coffee. As far as I can tell, this ordering option is not readily available at most coffee places, of which there are about ten million, all in my neighborhood. There are franchises with themes ranging from the north woods of Canada to Moroccan bistros, places tricked out as beatnik havens and wifi nerd lairs, places meant to evoke Italian cafes from the '50s and American diners from the '30s.

And then there's Starbucks, where it's impossible to order a cup of coffee from the menu without blushing or sounding like a French auctioneer.

Going into Starbucks is akin to being in a foreign country where you have only a passing knowledge of the language and mentally rehearse what you say before you say it so you don't sound like a tool. I was in line once behind an old fellow who asked for a "small" coffee. The incubus at the register looked at him as if he'd spoken Old Church Slavonic until his co-worker whispered, "He means tall."

Tall...Small.

Does anyone but me see how these words have nothing to do with one another? Was it a conscious decision by Starbucks to exchange traditional words that indicate size (small, medium, large) for words that sound vaguely big and European (tall, grande, venti) in order to create the illusion of more choices? Are Americans at the point now where there is so much to choose from that we require more, different words to indicate our choices?

Maybe it's me, but there's something about a hipster in a beanie ordering a venti triple soy half skim latte one pump low fat caramel macchiato that makes me want to pry open a can of Folgers with my teeth and eat it plain. The only thing that grates me more is that there's now so much to choose from in every conceivable category of life that everything...kindergartens, pot stickers, cities, floss, shoes, booze, strollers, universities, condoms, sunglasses, hamburger joints, grappas, you name it...is constantly being compiled, ranked and listed.

Is it possible there's anything left in America that couldn't somehow comprise a Top Ten list?

Top Ten List of Things That Have Gone Too Far

1) Fast food options: Aren't people fat enough with having to evoke Tuscany? What are the words "Barbecue chicken," "Tuscan" and "Wrap" even doing in the same sentence anyway?

2) Television in general: Can you imagine having this conversation even 10 years ago? "Do you want to watch UPN, CNN, TNT, HBO, TNN, TCN, or TCN?" "Naw, I'd rather see what's on the Puppy Channel." (hint: small dogs)

3) Porn sites using the word "ass": Asian-Ass, Ebony-Ass, Bubble-Ass, Milf-Ass, Chunky-Asses, Muscle-Ass, Mature-Ass (yikes,) Ass-Outdoors, Army-Ass. When it reaches Gravy-Ass can we be done?

4) Celebrities kids' names: With mock-me monikers like Pilot-Inspektor, Apple, Sailor, Dixie-Dot, Coco, Pax, Peaches, Pixie, Zahara, Racer, Rebel, and Kal-El, what's left? Besides Gravy-Ass?

5) Political talking heads: It all started with one Hibernian gasbag and his point-counterpoint pinheads on public TV and now every doughy comb-over who ever licked stamps in the White House is an expert.

6) Exercise methods: Big balls, little balls, medicine balls, barbells, dumbbells, rowing machines, tubes, belts, boots, wraps, treadmills, bikes, climbing walls, kick-boxing, and yet, Chunky-Asses.

7) Cosmetic surgical procedures: Her: eyes like a Siberian tiger. Him: hairline of a pubescent Italian. Her: jugs like actual ceramic jugs. Him: enough lipo to fill a beanbag chair. Her: hands like Bela Lugosi. Him: knew Bela Lugosi personally.

8) The Weather Channel: I can take the Ted Baxter-ish hyperbole (it's not just snow and ice, it's a "deadly wintry mix!") and even the fact that an alarm goes off at the studio every time it rains, but really, at this point, the only place left for Jim Cantore to report from live is the volcanic center of Mars.

9) Ryan Seacrest: This professional smile-head either replaced Dick Clark as America's most cloying MC of made-up events that no one cares about or Dick Clark shed his old body and climbed inside a Ryan suit.

10) Smart-ass blog commentators

*****

Let me make something perfectly clear: I'm a proponent of innovation and technology. I want as many choices as possible when it comes to something I desire or need. In fact, I'm first in line for anything new and better. The problem is that there's not much that's new and better; there's just more.

I'm not referring to art, music or literature, of which there can never be enough, in every form. I mean the physical, mental, and emotional consumables which allow one to fold in on himself like a enormous self-absorbed burrito. There's so much to choose from and things have gone so far into the mode of hyper-detail and accessorization (Pam Anderson has hepatitis-B! My iPhone speaks French!) that people are distracted from important things that require attention and concentration.

Ray Bradbury predicted it in Fahrenheit 451; Patton Oswalt enunciated it brilliantly in his bit about Black Angus: daily life in America has become a blinding, gagging, deafening tidal wave of the same old crap that's been tarted up, now with biscuits on the side! There's so much noise, food, bodies, gossip, buttons to push, websites to visit, bullshit to parse, DVDs to buy, wines to sample, playgroups to compete for, and financial markets to invest in that in rare moments of reflection it becomes glaringly clear that while most of it is cheap and useless, the worst part is that, in general, most of it is condescending.

It's easier not to think about it.

Do some dip-stretch-crunches.

Have a grande spiced pumpkin skim latte.

I wonder what's on the Puppy Channel?

Comments

[mtonello]

it would actually be a triple venti soy 1 pump vanilla caramel macchiato.

cant be half skim OR low fat if its soy.

(just to set the record straight)

[Pippilangstrumpf]

Who was it that said that the longer your coffee order is, it's in direct proportion to how big of an asshole you are.

Maybe it was George Carlin? Sounds like George. I have not gotten with the program either. If I go to a coffee shop I order a small or medium plain black coffee because I'm not going to stand there and try to decipher the menu.

Can you imagine how difficult it is for people emigrating here from 3rd world countries? It's overwhelming for people who have been here for generations to make choices at the supermarket or cafes these days.

[earling]

I couldn't agree more. Make space on the bandwagon. I can't take it anymore, either. I used to live in a place with a small, rip-off grocery store (Martha's Vineyard). It was a total screw, but it didn't take up too much of your time. Now I live in the real world, and occasionally have to shop at Stop and Shop. Now, the only point of these five acre food stores SEEMs to be to create a visual analog to the corporate presence behind the store (huge=good/benevolent/the Right Choice), and to blow the customer away (oh, I'm sorry, I meant "consumer") with the astonishing width and depth and breadth of so-called choice, which amounts to, which brand of total crap do you want to purchase, out of a sixty foot row of equally egredious, nutritionally vacant crap. It's completely dehumanizing. I count steps: I'd forgotten to get soymilk last time I approached the register. 87 paces took me to the soymilk and back, which, I calculated, was about 217 feet, round trip. And we call this a "civilization."
Did I mention the stress of navigating the labyrinth that somebody with a correspondence degree in architecture calls a "parking lot"? And thank god for the 27 handicapped spots. Is the US preparing itself for the invasion of the wheel-chairs, or what?
What the hell has happened in this country?!!!??? OTHER PEOPLE DON'T LIVE LIKE THIS!!!!

[aaronhbridges]

Try Crest Pro-Health Night Clean Night Mint. Despite the redundancy in the name and stupid packaging it tastes like minty licorice and your mouth is actually fresh in the morning. Don't ask how. It just works. Seriously don't ask how. I don't want to know.

[robertzimmerman]

I know who you are! You're Andy Rooney's spiritual heir, aren't you?

[NicoleAnonymous]

Thank you for making me laugh. This was really funny!

[bmora]

I nearly had a nervous breakdown when I had to buy toothpaste for myself, so I can appreciate this article. Normal toothpaste has gone the way of the dinosaurs. I do not know what that portends...perhaps, civilization as we know it is near an end.

[dissolvethecorporation]

No way I could go back to Folger's. Also, Joe Pine was way before public TV and was orders of magnitude ahead of Limbaugh and Hannity; irregardless of his conservative views, he didn't need to be a rude, blathering idiot to make a point.

[CintiBlue]

Great post!

The toothpaste aisle hit me like this a number of years ago. That was soon followed by picking up a box of cereal for my Mom that had me going up and down the aisle for a ridiculous amount of time until I could spot her request.

One for your "too far" list: Americans' obsession with bright, white piano key teeth.

[KenHR]

Preach on! I agree with 100% of this post (and especially #10 on your top 10 list :) ).

The Starbucks thing, though...doesn't that have less to do with offering choices than in making Joe and Jane College Student feel sophisticated? I love that you pointed this out, though. I obstinately refuse to use Starbucks' idiotic Tall/Grande/Whatever terminology when ordering coffee there...precisely because of the Tall/Small thing.

[ORSunshine]

You're too late. Go to http://www.illwillpress.com/vault.html and click on "Small, Medium, Large" in the lower right-hand corner.