JUNQUE
Don't count on it!
Just because a thing has been constant for many years does not mean it is going to be here tomorrow.
Quality is not the main thing in many cases, no is deception forbidden.
Entire categories of foodstuffs which used to be marketed by the pound or by the dozen are now available in same-sized packages or larger of eight or ten units. The price remains the same or is actually higher.
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y Never pull your car into the empty full-service bay at your local gas station and say “Fill 'er Up!” as you once did so casually and with confidence and pride, With gas in the present low range or $1.35 per, you will find trusted nostalgia a bit too readily.
Some people I understand, actually they read the nutritional charts on the packages of food they buy. What they mean to say is that they read one once while waiting for their toast to burn. Some of those charts have tiny footnotes below which explain why the carton is a bit less than full. They blame it on gravity. The box was full when they packaged it. They never explain how fluid containers on the next shelf and never subject o such natural shrinkage. Apparently it does occur because if you place a light behind a plastic or translucent glass container will often appear that he fluid level is somewhat below the plug than up there where it ought to be. They are legally correct, if course, but you bought the bottle which was a full inch higher than the puny thing beside it... You get a bigger bottle, box or carton, but the same amount of product.
The nutritional charts are flexible, as well. That fact has recently been dramatized effectively by the TV commercial for one bowl of cereal preparation which is contrasted to many bowls of competitive brands of like products and the number of bowls needed to equal their product in some, specifically named ingredient found in the competing product in a smaller amount.
Have you noticed how magazines have been downsized.? We used read big,, floppy, center-stapled issues of “The Saturday Evening Post” or “Life” which could be folded over and read in columns. No-more. They all look alike on the kiosk and other than the gallery of over models, they all bear all bear a price tag of around $2.00 or more per copy.
Nutritional charts are not printed on newspaper and magazine enrichments we get today. Check the actual reading material and compare it to the whole sections of Classified Ads, unclassified ads and just plain ads and if you find more than twenty percent reading materials you are lucky. The very first thing I do when I get a new magazine is to tear out all the cardboard inserts so the pages stay put when I turn them. In one popular home magazine this month,. I removed thirty-two such cards and heavy-paper inserts..
The concert of changed quality applies to so much of living today. Things are not what they used to be at all, and you cannot find anything which remains the the same..
And - in spite of my critical tone - I am not opposed to such modifications as they constantly evolve/ Such changes are indicative of growth and improvement. That's the only way we can stay above the level of generational debris. We will know we are near the end when all new homes are constructed solely of attics, basements, two-car, car-less garages, extra storage buildings in the back yard and paid-up membership cards to several nearby storage cubicle installations.
If you think everything is being sold on e-bay, think again! They have made but a small dent in the American treasure trove. They have merely made it movable - shifting it about - from one part of the country to another.
A.L.M. December 27, 2003 [c665wds]
