A New Low

I wouldn't have thought it possible that there would be something sadder and more useless than plastic bags with zippers, but that just shows the limits of my imagination. The depths to which the American public will sink to reward marketing breakthroughs and their own laziness and fondness for new may reach deeper than I'd allowed.

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It's evidently too much to ask people to turn their squeezable bottles over to dispense the product. I have no idea what, other than laziness, would make anyone think these mustard bottles with the label printed on upside-down are what the world's been waiting for, but I guess they're all the rage now. I bought this one because it was cheaper than the typical, upright, style, but I'm less than impressed.

Oh, sure, it saves me turning the bottle over, and if you add that one second to all the mustard used in this great country, I guess it adds up to a lot. Probably even enough for us to have time to cure cancer or resolve the homeless or health care issues.

I thought we'd reached our bottom when another marketing genius decided it was too much work to seal a plastic bag with our fingers, but I was wrong. I grew up with wax paper surrounding my sandwiches, then, later, those plastic bags that had a flap and were supposed to seal. I could never figure out the intricacies of those, but the later version, with the seal, were something I could manage.

Then, they came up with the colored ones so you could tell by the purple or green that you'd managed to correctly align the seal, but I found that less than helpful. Even if I left a gap, I still saw the mixed color. I always found it easier to see if I could press any more air out to determine if the bag was completely sealed.

Then, awhile ago, they decided that sealing the bag by hand was too pedestrian or something. In an effort to further discount any notion that there's benefits to manual work, they added built in zippers to the bags. Not only does the zipper require much more plastic than the bag itself and a few more steps in the production, from what I've seen they're just encouraging people to be lazy.

Yes, I know we live in a fast-paced society with much to do and those who can't keep up are relegated to sad, dismal lives of looking up and longing for what might have been, but if we weren't so quick to reward whatever's new, we may make some quality progress.

Or, maybe, we'll just hire more immigrants to do all of our mundane chores.