Mindless Rambling

The Story.

So, tonight I went to Wal-Mart. And I saw two old people there, a couple, seemingly somewhat well-off. And they were concentrating very deeply on the crucial issue of which paper-towel brand was the better buy—Brawny or Bounty. They had their reading glasses on, comparing the labels in order to see which brand would give them the more paper for their buck. And they kept recalling the past, hoping to determine which of these had proven the most absorbent in the disasters they could remember. I watched them a while; I had several products to pick up on the aisle. And by the time I left, they still hadn’t chosen. In fact, the Kleenex Vivo (or something like that) brand seemed to have suddenly caught the woman’s attention. I left.

My Initial Reaction. (To be read sort of in the voice of Lewis Black.)

I was shocked! Horrified! Really, really stunned. And a little depressed. I just kept thinking that that was the sort of decision this couple should have made thirty years ago. You know! You’re supposed to get into a routine that makes some of those smaller choices go away. I was feeling sort of Sartrean, I guess, weighted down by this that horrible load of freedom, and I was thinking that eventually that load would lessen. I was looking forward to having routine, to having fewer choices to have to make someday. You know. I was thinking that you’d eventually get to the point where you could just go to the store and buy Brawny because you are Brawny people. You decided that you were a Brawny person when you were twenty-eight (after a few years of experimentation and all), and now you’re eighty-two, and you go to the store, and you don’t even look at all of the other choices. You just buy Brawny. That’s it. No decision process. No having to remember your reading glasses so that you can see how dense each ply of paper is. The little decisions should be made already, so that you can focus on the big ones.

My Reaction Now.

I think I’m insane. So it goes.

They were probably Bounty people. That’s what they looked like. They had probably just forgotten. Because they’re old.