Same Price, Crappier Product

Okay, so it’s been a long time since the last time I posted, but that’s because I’ve been busy! With the economy the way it is, even grumpy old people have to figure out how to make some bucks. Know why? Because it takes more and more money to buy crappier and cheaper junk in the stores!

I like to cook (because I like to eat), and I have recipes dating back to the Civil War. They don’t make food the way they used to, so I keep track of old ways of doing things. Those recipes call for things like 1 lb of lasagna noodles, or 16 oz of such and such a can. Can I get them in the stores? Nope. It’s now 12 oz of noodles, or 14-1/2 oz of canned stuff.

Apparently, food companies are so afraid that customers won’t buy their crap if the prices go up, they’ve decided to make the sizes smaller. We’ve seen it with candy bars for decades, and now those candy bars are so small they’re like peanuts! That would okay if I could still buy a regular, old-style candy bar by paying extra. But I can’t!

Food companies have all consolidated into one or two gigantic conglomerates. They go for economics of scale, and rather than offer individual options, they go for the bulk and the cheapest. The logic is: “Hey, we’re not selling any of those bigger candy bars, so let’s quit making them.”

They’re not selling them BECAUSE they’re not making them!

Remember when American companies grew their markets by making new stuff? By making better stuff? It was all about product and development, research and invention. Nowadays, it’s mostly about costs and “operations.” Companies make their money (profits) by cutting costs, firing people, reducing sizes, and doing everything other than making new products!

Bounty paper towels used to be decent. Now there are fewer pieces on a roll, and each towel is smaller. I had an old roll I found, and by accident compared the sheets with a new roll. Have the new sheets shrunk? Of course they have! All so Bounty can keep the price “almost” the same.

Pretty soon we’ll be living in Canada! Up there, everything is half the size of its counterpart here in the USA. At least it was, until recently. Can we do anything about it? Of course not! We’re only consumers! We have no say in the matter. That’s why we need a galactic lobbying group, like the ISOC!

Toilet Paper – Yet Again!

This is really getting ridiculous! You think I want to talk about toilet paper all the time? This is, what…fun? Of course it isn’t! But toilet paper is an example of the world going to hell in a handbasket, by gum! The latest fiasco is that you can’t buy colored toilet paper anymore!

Why? Because some idiot of a scientist came out with a “test” that demonstrated colored toilet paper is bad for you! Imagine that! Who would test such a thing? It turns out that according to this supposed test, the dye used to make the colors is irritating to that delicate area usually involved in the application of the product.

The result? Customers (also often being idiots) decided that God forbid we should have any more irritations! And so people stopped choosing color-coordinated toilet paper. Why I remember when decorating a home and a bathroom was fun! I remember when you could burn leaves in the fall! I remember when toys could kill you! Not today, though. No sirree! Colored toilet paper might kill you.

Scott used to sell colors; they were the last remaining company that sold colored toilet paper. Their paper is worthless, really, but hey, if you have to have a color-coordinated bathroom, what’cha gonna do, right? (Or is that doo? I dunno…just sayin’.) Anyway, at least Scott had the good sense to still sell various colors. And then they stopped!

We did some research, called in many people, and asked both of them what was going on. We couldn’t get an answer worth sh*t, so we resorted to the On Line. That’s when we found out about this conspiracy to eliminate all colors except for white toilet paper. To save the children, to save the whales, to save the trees, or some other such stupidity.

Net result? We’re screwed. That’s all she wrote, as far as color-coordinated bathrooms. Oddly enough, you can still get “tissues” (I’m talking snot-rag paper tissues) in various colors. Even those are getting harder to find, though, presumably because they’ll make you blind, or kill you, or wreck the planet.

It just costs too much. That’s the story. Apparently EVERYthing costs too much, nowadays! That’s probably why every single store in America now carries exactly the same products, the same brands, and the same junk. Do you think we get our toilet paper from China too? Probably. I wish life were simpler, like in the Good Old Days. Back when you could get your toilet paper in whatever color you liked. Back when you could get a rare hamburger, too, before they found out that’ll kill you even faster than the dye in toilet paper!

Bah Humbug Holiday Season for Curmudgeons

I see that we haven’t posted in awhile but when you are as grumpy as us we save it up for one monster post. There are so many things to discuss that it’s hard to pick just a few.

First off has to be the lack of trained help in any store that you go too.  They walk around in a daze and ask you if they can help but you know they can’t.  Here is a prime example.  Most people know that it does tend to get cold here in the upper mid-west.  Stupid us thought it might be possible to get a parka in the winter.  I probably should have started looking around my birthday in July.  Hard to think of parka’s in the middle of a heat wave.  The other day we went to a department store and said that we were looking for a “down” parka. The clerk asked us if that was a brand name. He had never heard of a down jacket or even a down pillow and when we tried to explain that it was a great warm filler he had no clue.  At this point we wouldn’t have been surprised if he had never heard of a goose or duck!  Maybe we are just getting too old.

Secondly the traffic is horrendous this time of year. People that only drive once a year are out so beware of them.  Apparently their cars or trucks don’t come equipped with turn signals and you have to read their mind. Also 9 out of 10 times they have a phone stuck to their ear and think of actually looking around at other cars as an option.

In spite of this we wish all fellow Curmudgeons a Very Grumpy Christmas with plenty of food and lots to complain about!!

Toilet Paper Disaster Solved!

As many people know, we’ve been focusing national attention on the great toilet paper problem. Not long ago, we discovered through careful analysis that Northern toilet paper was going right down the damn toilet! What used to be the thickest paper, with more sheets and extra big rolls has turned to crap. That’s right, I said it! Northern toilet paper is full of crap!

And not in a good way!

So we brought together a commission to go forth across America on a quest. We wanted to find better toilet paper. We studied the situation and discovered that Charmin kicks ass! In a good way!

Remember all those “don’t squeeze the Charmin” commercials with Mr. Wipple? We thought he was an asshole, but in fact, he knew what he was talking about. Charmin offers several sized rolls, but if you look at the actual sheets per roll you’ll discover that their ultra-super-maxi-fantastic- extra-gigantic- massive rolls have only a few sheets less than Northern.

Ah, but here’s the thing: The Charmin toilet paper is the original width! It fits on a standard toilet-paper roll. The company hasn’t shaved off part of an inch like those people at Northern have done. Plus (But wait…there’s more!), Charmin is thicker (they call it softer) than Northern. At least now it is.

Northern “bathroom tissue” used to be nice and thick. They had great commercials about using it as a bumper for kids and things like that. Now, of course, Northern, as we said above, is full of crap. The company, not the toilet paper. They’ve thinned it down, shaved the width, all in the name of saving us money!

But we don’t save money! We end up using more sheets just to stay even!

That’s why we here at the Curmudgeon Central Laboratories now recommend Charmin. If you want cheap-ass thin crap, buy Northern. Or, you can get a much better deal with Scot toilet paper. There’s that old saying, “Sears…where America used to shop,” remember? Well now we can say, “Northern…when you don’t give a shit.”

We Need to Fix This Word!

Most of the words in the English language are fairly okay. There are a lot of ridiculous spellings, and nobody really knows how a lot of words ended up the way they are. But consider the word “language.” Note that after the “lan” comes the “guage.” And we say “gwidge.” So we have “lang-gwidge.” Right? Right.

Now think about the thingie that tells you how much gas you have in your car. That wattchamacallit with the needle. It’s a gauge, right? And we say “gay.jh” Perfect.

No wait!! It’s NOT perfect! What kind of dumbass way is THAT to spell the word!

Suppose there’s this woman who’s like, totally pissed at you. She wants to do what with your eyes? Why, gouge your eyes out, that’s what! We say “gow.jh.”

I think it’s just plain stupid that we spell the thing with the needle and gas, “gauge.” How come THAT doesn’t sound like gow.jh? Hmm? Or maybe “gaw.jh” or “gawdge.” After all, if you have a serious burn and go to the hospital, what do they put around you? Gauze, that’s what! And what’s that thing the holds your teeth? Your jaw!

We should fix this! Immediately! It’s just ridiculous to spell it that way.

There’s that rule about how when a vowel (a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y) is in a word and there’s an “e” after it, the vowel takes a long sound. So “gage” would be just fine, thank you very much. There’s the “e” after the last “g” and that “e” is after the vowel, so therefore the “a” should have a long sound. Why do we need a stupid “u” in there? What possible purpose does it serve?

Think about the word “aesthetic.” We say, “ess-thetik” and the “ae” is just a waste of space. It should be “ay-ssthetic,” since there’s an “e” after that first “a.” Or just plain “esthetic.” But nooooo…!

Alright, you might argue; but suppose someone really needs a 5-letter word for some idiotic crossword puzzle about car dashboards? “Gayge” or “gayje” would be completely acceptable, if you ask me. Of course “aye” is pronounce “eye,” but hey, those are just details. Everyone knows that the “ay” in “hay” is the sound we need. So why ISN’T IT THERE!? I mean…what the hell? Who would look at their gas “guy.jh” to see if they’re running on empty? (Well, maybe the Brits, but they talk funny anyway.)

I intend to write a letter to the White House, with a copy to the Oxford Dictionary people to demand!…yes demand!…that they fix this seriously faulty problem. There are a lot of words out there that suck, even “faulty,” come to think of it. Why not make it “fawlty” or “fawltie” like a normal word? But I can live with that, since “au” comes from Australia, so everyone knows how to pronounce it.

I was gonna say “already” knows how to pronounce it, but in fact it should be “aulready.” The only person with some sense is that lady who wrote about cave bears, Jean Auel. But looking at her last name, I think she stole the extra “e” from “aesthetic,” but forgot to debit the account! Well, she’s only one person, so we can let that one goe.

But “gauge” is just too much! That’s “gaw.jh” as far as I’m concerned, and yes, I realize that “gouge” is already taking up space. So “gage” would be fine and easy to remember. Besides; we save the “u,” thereby allowing us to use it somewhere else, where we need letters. In these economic times we’re running out of resources everywhere. We’ve hit peak oil, peak gold, and we’re about to run out of letters — pique alphabet! We probably won’t run out of numbers, though. But do we really need all that many? Don’t get me started!