Posted by Martin R on April 13, 2009 
There is a genre of complaints that I usually find a little silly: the Starbucks breakdown, which occurs when somebody’s offered too many options. But now I’ve run into the problem myself. Yoghurt diversification.
I buy most of our milk & yoghurt to save my wife some carrying. And the damn yoghurt, that was a single product when I was a kid, now presents me with a four-parameter choice! I need to make sure I get:
then you have the newest rage her in NA – probiotic (wth does probiotic even mean?) or not, sweetened with sugar, aspartame or sucralose, fruit on the bottom or stirred, It’s crazy 
LOL.
Up in the mountains I used to drop by a little country store. It was a general store/grocery/post office and one of three major structures that made up the ‘downtown’, such as it was. There was the store, a small church, and a phone booth.
The owner of the store, and postmaster, was quite proud of his selection. He only stocked things he would use and he always gave you a choice. So he had two different toothpastes. Two brands of soap. Two flavors of milk.
I got a chuckle at the time but increasingly I see the deep wisdom in this. I go to the store to pick up toothpaste and there are scores of different ones. Many variations or sub-variations on a theme. All of them touting their superiority.
This is needlessly stressful. Having to decide to try to sort through all the choices or just pick one and hope it isn’t the “Spring Surprise or Crunchy Frog” (Monty Python) of toothpastes. And what does this or that choice say about my lifestyle or personality. Will I lose my job it I chose the one representing a lifestyle incompatible with my bosses and his wife sees me in the checkout line or he spots it when he visits my house?
If I shopped at the country store I would grab one of two, both have been found acceptable by the owner and if I grab the one with evil lifestyle mojo I can say I didn’t have much of a choice. I just want a something that works reasonably well. Preferably a product presented in a situation which won’t demand detailed analysis or induce undue anxiety. Less is more in this case.
A choice between two, perhaps three, options is sufficient.
Just be thankful you have yet to delve into ALLERGY analysis, in which the wrong choice sends someone near and dear into anaphylactic shock or, in a less catastophic option, becomes covered in itchy hives. That’s when choice becomes REALLY exciting.
when we first arrived in the US, and went grocery shopping: my wife burst into tears in the spaghetti aisle, confronted with 50 different kinds of sphag.
now we’ve developed selective vision so we can only see the brands we usually buy.
for yogurt (see I’m American now), luckily there is a Greek variety available – full or low fat; absolutely no sugar, crystallized cane juice, aspartame, sucralose, stevia, high or low fructose corn syrup, gelatin, pigs’ trotters, etc added; all the good bugs. Makes it easy..
A lot of US yogurt is just a kind of candy.
April 13, 2009
April 13, 2009
April 13, 2009
April 14, 2009
April 14, 2009
