Today, while making my daily grocery store run I decided I probably ought to purchase a new supply of toilet paper.  Our maid uses one roll per day.  Why, No idea.  However, I suddenly noticed that much of the wordage on the packaging was devoted to extolling the virtue of “ripples”.  I pride myself in my examination of such strange questions and thought that I had not given enough thought to this particular problem or virtue.  Do ripples really matter?  Plant leafs were the preferred product for several millennium and they are mostly slick as road ice, depending on which side of the leaf that is used.  I suddenly remembered that one brand of the product is represented by a family of blue bears who claim that the brand they represent leaves less paper residue on the back side of the small bears.  They even show the momma bear examining the baby bears for evidence of paper residue.  Is paper residue that big a problem that it should be a major portion of a company’s ad campaign?  I can only assume that each of these companies has been contacted by more than one retail purchaser and advised that these virtues are necessary for their product to be continued to be purchased.  I chide myself for not being one of those people who first reported the problem.

I guess I take a somewhat cavalier approach to many of the products I purchase.  If I buy ice cream bars I assume they are at the coldest possible temperature.  If I buy liquor I assume that it will make you drunk as a skunk if that is the reason you purchased such a product.  There is no need for the manufacturers to print on the side of the box that I am about to purchase the coldest ice cream bar known to the industry.  I can pretty much tell from the first drink of Everclear that things could go badly if this product is not properly used.  I don’t actually have to seek out the percentage of alcohol in the product.

I know that several of my readers will sigh and think that maybe ghomer ought to try to find other things to occupy his time.  However, somebody has to think about things like this and I have been chosen to be the one.  I don’t plan on trying to change the ad business, I simply want to be attentive to their ploy to get us to buy their product.  We aren’t going back to using castor bean leaves so it really doesn’t matter whether the one company has ripples or the other prevents bear butt lint.  Does it?

Chuy