All Lost in the Supermarket

I can no longer shop happily: 'Course I don't know if I ever could.

I needed to buy a new toothbrush (yeah, I know, this has all the makings of a wonderful blog post, right? Stick with me). Usually I don't over think this - I run into the toothpaste/brush aisle, I grab a toothbrush and I run away. For some reason I didn't make the decision quick enough yesterday and ended up getting stuck in the quagmire that is the tooth care section of Carrefour. I was there for about 5 minutes and then started thinking about how ridiculous it was that I was taking so much time deciding. This only made the process worse, because I tried to force the issue, but couldn't decide between the name brand that looked just like the store brand that was 50% cheaper.

I'm all for choice. We live in [for the most part] capitalist societies, and we therefore have multiple choices. I'm sure the Russians didn't have this problem 20 years ago. They were have to have any toothbrush. Anyway, choice good, blah blah blah. But do we need 150 freaking choices? Ok, each brand has their own toothbrushes, fine, but do they each need 20 different types? Is the toothbrush that costs €2 half as good at cleaning my teeth as one that costs €4? Will it last half as long? Then you have the different names. Is "Professional" a higher grade than "Expert?" If it says diamond clean does that mean there's little diamond chips on the brush? I don't want that, I have a feeling that could damage my enamel.

After a while I started thinking, this is stupid. It's a damn toothbrush, it's not that important. Then I started thinking, yeah, but I really like my teeth where they are, notably in my jaw, I need the best tool available to do this. After a while, I basically closed my eyes and reached out and took the first one I touched. It's an "Expert" grade brush - I'm assuming that they mean it is the only toothbrush used by toothbrushing experts, and that this will thereby ascend me into their ranks.

I reached a couple of conclusions based on this: 1. I need a job so I don't have time on week day afternoons to linger in the food store - Saturdays are the best time to go because the entire population of France decided to cram into the same supermarket. Therefore you're just happy if you can get half the products you need, much less make a "choice" 2. Julie needs to do the shopping more often. She wouldn't have these problems and 3. I may need to seek professional help. Somehow it doesn't seem normal to spend 15 minutes trying to decide which toothbrush to buy.