© Pierre Maré,
2004 - 2007
Offbeat 146
We have one of those small, dingy cupboards in our house, the same as in every other house, in which are stored the cleaning products, though not our skeletons. Last week I found myself in search of a refill for the dishwashing liquid. I went to the cupboard and duly picked out one of the non-environmentally apocalyptic refill packs. At that point my mind went into a state of confusion. It was one of those double take moments during which the sheer bizarreness of the situation causes your brain to shut down as you vainly strive for some grasp on reality.
The latest
dishwasher comes in grapefruit flavour, Heaven help us all.
I have been through lemon and pine, bleach and antibacterial. Grapefruit
dishwashing liquid eludes me entirely.
The scent of the thing is worth some comment. The first sniff yielded a mildly grapefruit sort of scent. The second sniff caused my sinuses to attempt to crawl back up into my nose to escape the chemical burn. I also experienced a tickling sensation behind my eyeballs, just before they began to water.
I did not attempt to taste it, even though I normally like grapefruit, but my daughter who used an unrinsed utensil had a few words to say. Fortunately, she doesn’t use four letter words as a normal part of her vocabulary, but if she knew a few, that might have been a watershed moment in her linguistic development. Her ‘yuck’ was eloquent enough though.
I wonder what the manufacturers are hiding behind that grapefruit? I wonder what on earth was going through their minds when they came up with the idea. Were they laughing? Or were they wearing those psychotic thousand-yard stares?
Here’s another terrifying thought. If dishwashing liquids are sold according to ingredients for meals and we’re currently on grapefruit flavour, how long before cream cheese and chives, or Danish herring, make their appearances? I can’t see either of them going down too well at the sink, except perhaps for the most die-hard foodies, but I never imagined grapefruit either.
It’s the same in the razor blade market. I used to shave with a flat, single blade that lasted a month, until those became hard to come by. When I made the switch, twin blades were still the in thing. After a year or two of that, triple blades were introduced. Last year some time, I forget precisely when, the first four-blader showed up. Then one of the three-bladers went battery powered, I suppose just in case your hand seizes up halfway through the downstroke or the stiffness of your bristles creates impossible drag.
And now, voila! Introducing the battery powered five-blader.
Actually I managed to get a pretty good shave with the old system of a single blade that got screwed in. And I never did major damage to myself while replacing the blades.
Should I go with the five-blade creation, or should I wait for the inevitable six or seven blades? Or perhaps I should finally knuckle down and get the electric thing, once and for all, and stop being driven by that most fickle of mistresses, Product Renewal.
The thing is this. It’s not particularly nice to be bored, and that sense of excitement that is found in wanting and then getting is great. But I’m not particularly excited by razors, yet I have to buy new ones, and inevitably have to accept the latest technological wonders.
I am curious about how our ancestors managed in the days before rampant technological development. No doubt they were all very thrilled by the invention of the wheel or fire or movable type, but the centuries and decades between technological must have been difficult. Or perhaps that particular sense of excitement was underdeveloped, and waiting for its moment to emerge.
For my part, I’d be happy with the triple-bladed razor or lemon-scented anti bacterial dish washing liquid for years to come. The changes are actually cosmetic only. I have enough things to think about without having to find ways to justify and assimilate grapefruit dishwashing liquid.
