The laundry detergent, the stash of bathroom tissue - that sort of thing.
So at the grocery store yesterday, I scanned the aisle with my favorite detergent to see if it was on sale. Because I live in a small condo, I buy the smaller bottle so that it fits in the little lockers we have in the community laundry room. It's nice to not have to lug it up and down three flights of stairs or take up precious space in my home.
Back to the price, it was impressively low. But upon reading the fine print, it indicated that the low price was offered only if I bought three bottles.
I instantly thought, "Where am I going to put three bottles of detergent during the 5 months it takes me to go through each bottle?!"
Sometimes I do buy the two for one... so maybe I could fit all three of them in the little locker but then there wouldn't be room for the other bottle of detergent for fine washables and dark colors.
Seriously, if I had that much room for detergent, I'd buy the big bottle and use one plastic jug instead of three. Wait a minute! Why are they encouraging people to buy three small bottles instead of one big jug!
Ack! I just left the laundry aisle... bemoaning our wasteful society.
Then I spotted my favorite brand of bath tissue. I could choose either 12 double rolls or 6 mega rolls. Yeesh.
I live in an old, charming, vintage building - my TP holder can't hold a mega roll, it wouldn't be able to turn over.
Why can't it just be normal sized? 
I hate that I could save money buying the 24 roll package. Where am I supposed to store that?!
I move down the next aisle and eventually make my way to checkout.
As I'm moving my produce purchases to the check stand, I make a little chitchat with the man checking out in front of me.
I place my mushrooms -for salad- on the conveyor and the man exclaims with disbelief, "What are you doing with just 2 mushrooms?!!!"
I am a bit startled but I look up to see him triumphantly, holding up a plastic wrapped container of white mushrooms.
I reached for my pat answer, which I have borrowed from Piglet, wise little critter that he is...
"Well, I'm a Very Small Animal. I only buy food I can eat before it goes bad."
The unspoken addition to that answer is - hey, I'm being optimistic that I'm even going to try to make salad - odds are it's all going to go bad before I eat it!!
And I think, "Why are you judging my food purchases?"
I realize, the stranger wants me to buy in bulk.
Whatever happened to just having what you need?
6 comments:
We have the same problem!! Everyone is always telling me to go to Costco, but how are 2 people going to eat all that produce in one week, or how I am I going to store 500 rolls of toilet paper in our house-with-no-closets?! Ridiculous!
ha! love this post!! so true about being optimistic that you'd even use the few items that you purchased - how many HALF-GALLONS of milk have i tossed because i didn't finish them before they got chunky?? yeah, way too many!
We have 6 people in our house and we still can't use up the milk before it goes bad. I can never find a 2 % half gallon though. Poor cows. I'm wasting all their hard work.
Ha! That's why I buy Lactaid. A) because I can't stomach milk anymore anyway and B) because it lasts for 2 weeks!!
It's good for cooking with... which I found Soy milk is not. Though I do like soy milk on my cereal. I just don't eat enough cereal (one bowl per day x 7) to use up a carton of anything that will go bad!!
I get where you're coming from here! Who has room to store all of that stuff? The 2 of us in my house can barely get through a whole loaf of bread! Oh, but I would need more than 2 mushrooms - I love 'em! :)
Thanks for the comment you left on my blog today. It was really sweet & I appreciate it so much. I sure don't feel very strong most days!
SF dweller here - I've have to completely let go of my costco card - because, darn it, my apartment just doesn't have room for 900 rolls of paper towels... even if they are 8 cents a roll. *sigh*. And I totally support your 2 mushroom purchase - waste not want not. :)
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