A Small
Wickedness
This is a story about something trivial. I tell it only because it indicates a cheese paring stinginess and cupidity in Industry today that exemplifies a dearth of good sense and basic decency in every strata of society.
Believe it or not, I’m talking about dishwashing detergent –– or rather the packaging thereof.
I’m a bit stingy myself, but I prefer to call it thrifty. I like to save a buck whenever I can on the purchase of basic necessities, and I abhor waste. So, naturally I gravitate towards places like The Dollar Tree where every item in the store is a dollar –– no more –– no less. If you know what you’re doing, you can save a good deal buying there. If you don’t, you can wind up spending a dollar on something isn’t worth 10¢. That’s how they make their money.
They depend on a large segment of the population who “Don’t Know Shit from Shinola,” are proud of their ignorance, and have no desire to learn anything new, to continue happily to waste their money on out-and-out junk.
You might want to all that “wicked,” but I prefer to call it “stupid,” and leave it at that. There is no cure for stupidity, and it could never be legislated away.
What has me in a lather right now is the sudden change in the way dishwashing detergent is now bottled. Up until recently, you could unscrew the cap, add a little hot water to the contents stuck at the bottom of the bottle, and get enough suds to wash three or four more loads of dishes. It gave my thrifty nature a nice glow of satisfaction to be able to say I had used every last drop of the product before throwing the container away.
Well, guess what “they” must have read my mind, rubbed their hands together, chuckled demonically in unholy glee, and said to themselves, “We’ll fix THAT fellow. He won’t get the better of US anymore.”
And so they made the CAP stationary, and replaced the neat little pull out nipple with a cheesy plastic flap. The RESULT? We now are forced to WASTE that small-but-significant amount of the product.
Such cheese-paring practices not only frustrate and annoy canny consumers like me, when multiplied by the millions they also further damage the ecology by adding significantly to the toxic chemical waste that alarmists are always telling us will eventually make the earth unfit for human habitation.
“For want of a nail a shoe was lost ...”
A small wickedness like this might be nothing more than a trifling annoyance if it only bothered me, but once you realize it literally affects millions, I think it’s worth fussing about.
 |
| This familiar packaging is now obsolete. Take a good look next time you shop. |
Hold.
ReplyDeleteThe.
Phone.
You mean that I can no longer unscrew that cap and add 70% isopropyl alcohol to my dishwashing liquid? I add isopropyl alcohol as a matter of course for hygienic purposes.
Good morning, AOW.
DeleteYou may still be able to purchase removable caps in your part of the world, but where I live you no longer can. I've only checked The Dollar Tree, of course, but they carry the same name brands we find in the supermarkets, so I'm assuming the problem exists there too. Do check it out, and report your findings, please..
Frankly, I hope I'm wrong.
What number could we call to register a complaint? Would it do any good, if such a number were available, or would it be as futile as calling our congress creatures?
It does seem the Powers that Be seem determined to thwart every sign of cleverness and ingenuity on the part of shoppers just to be able to squeeze every last sixteenth of a cent out of the public.
With the current government's fierce hostility to Business and the constant push to eliminate small "Mom & Pop" businesses along every last vestige of Free Enterprise I can hardly blame Business for fighting back in these small ways, BUT guess who gets the shaft?
WE do. If we don't get it from Business, we get it from the government. The way things are today we're getting it from BOTH.
It is my belief that if the "Progressives" hadn't begun interfering with Business in an ever-increasing number of ways, products would be a great deal cheaper, and those who provide them might not feel such a desperate urge to squeeze us dry.
So just hack the cap off with a hacksaw. You'll be throwing the bottle away ANYWAYS!
ReplyDeleteEgg-Zack-Lee!
DeleteThank you, but that's IMPRACTICABLE!
DeleteJez gave a better suggestion.
It's only impracticable in the absence of a better solution (such as Jez's). The point is, instead of raging against the manufacturer's, ADAPT!
DeleteIt's a matter of PRINCIPLE. No one seems to understand the concept of principle anymore.
DeleteAt any rate one of my favorite mottos has always been "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT."
That's a very conservative attitude by the way. We abhor change for the sake of change –– especially when it makes things worse –– as it usually does DAMITALL.
If a penny can be saved in the manufacture of a product, it MUST be saved!
DeleteG_d Bless the "creative destruction" of capitalism. ;P
...so give me "Classic Coke", but make all the "New Coke" you want!
DeleteFree people want, need and deserve CHOICE.
DeleteDon't FORCE anything NEW in me that i do NOT want.
Like corkscrew lightbulbs, one gallon toilets, and these damnable FLAT SCREEN DIGITAL TV-JEEBEES.
try this:
ReplyDelete1) open the push-pull cap on a nearly-empty bottle
2) squeeze the bottle a little
3) flipping it upside down, submerge the cap into a cup or bowl of warm water
4) release your grip allowing the bottle to return to its cylindrical shape.
Hopefully, this will have sucked a little water into the bottle. Enjoy.
An excellent suggestion, Jez, thank you, but it makes a two-step process out of the one step process I formerly enjoyed. I shall try it, however, for the reasons outlined in today's "item." It always feels good when you can beat 'them." ;-)
DeleteUntested of course. Hopefully your detergent is viscous enough that it won't dribble out while you're drawing in the water.
DeleteBy the way, all the push pull caps I've seen can be unscrewed -- they're tight, but it can be done.
I guess I wasn't perfectly clear, Jez. It is the push-pull cap they seem to have done away with in favor of a flimsy awkward little FLAP of fleixible plastic.
DeleteI did say it was a SMALL wickedness and certainly a trivial matter in the great scheme, but to me it's another tiny fragment of a "mosaic" depicting an ugly, depressing scene.
As a greedy capitalist I suppose I ought to applaud money saving tactics, but the tendency to make everything cheap and disposable, and the idiotic notion that one must be a slave to very expensive changes in fashion in such things as kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures, wall and floor tile, and so-called "hardwood floors" which we are now urged to change as frequently as we used to change carpets sets my teeth in edge. It's evidence of more unprincipled manipuation from the advertising industry.
Anyway, it was just something to talk about besides Hillary Clinton, ISIS, political corruption and the ineptitude of RINOS, etc.
Yes Thersites. Be flexible, adapt.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a cost saving for manufacturer?
Or perhaps a market opportunity for a competitor...
DeleteYes of course.
DeleteWanna hear an even FUNNIER one? Pretend that governments can be a market "corrective". A "cure" for "Plutus" poor eyesight (Aristophanes).
DeleteTHAT joke is so funny, that the Left plays it over and over and over...
...it LITERALLY can't get ENOUGH of it!
DeleteIt gave my thrifty nature a nice glow of satisfaction to be able to say I had used every last drop of the product before throwing the container away.
ReplyDeleteI only do that with t'beer.
And you know you should really recycle, right? [cough]
Recycle This!
ReplyDeleteI've got a feeling that the electrons are already stuck on a some hardrive in this configuration, and they will now be copied and replicated by the world's Security services for all perpetuity until they fill a billion "blades".... :(
DeleteAnother small wickedness...
ReplyDeleteA very small wickedness, indeed, by today' standards. There was a certain charm and vivacity –– even a kind of elegance –– about the degenerate antics of the Roaring Twenties completely missing in the stultifying, stupefying, horrifying behavior and cynical change in outlook that occurred in the nineteen-SICK-sties.
DeleteWe recovered from the Twenties, improved and matured considerably during the Thirties, and achieved true greatness in the Forties. Sadly, it's been downhill all the way since the mid-Fifties.
We may now be at the nadir of our development as a people. Whether recovery is even possible at this stage of dissolution remains to be seen. I still hope for it, but don't expect it during my lifetime.
The Twenties were a natural reaction to the absurdities and hypocrisies of Victorian prudery coupled with the bloodshed and suffering of World War One.
There is no legitimate excuse for the depredations of the SICK-sties.
FT,
ReplyDeleteToday a friend of mine says that the Palmolive bottles have this same design.
**frown**.
Reminds me of the corporate board looking to improve detergent profits. They
ReplyDeletecame up with the idea to add water to the product and call it 'new and improved'.
This enabled a price raise, plus less product cost. Any wonder those in the know
think that MBA stands for Mediocre But Arrogant?