Miss Crankypants used to love shopping for groceries. She loved markets so much, she even penned grocery store poetry! But these days, food shopping is no fun. And it’s mostly due to the incredible shrinking package.
Some grocery executive (probably in league with the “no trans fats” people) decided that consumers wouldn’t notice if, instead of raising prices yet again, companies simply retooled their products into smaller packaging.
These execs are just like the guy who doesn’t notice his wife’s gone from brunette to blond. This dude cannot remember her birthday but will never forget the time she backed the car out through a closed garage door. These are the sorts of nitwits who hope grocery shoppers will never suspect their ice cream round is now shy of a gallon. One point seven five of a gallon? Not while Miss Cranky lives and eats way too much Rocky Road! No doubt it’s the same group of knuckledraggers who put eight hot dog buns in a package when the hot dogs come in packs of ten.
Miss CP is certain there are no longer Two Scoops in her Raisin Bran. She suspects foot-long hot dogs are now only eleven inches, if that. What’s next? Donuts with two holes?
Even the makers of good old Ritz –the Depression-era folks who claim you can make an apple pie out of their little round crackers–have gone and whacked off the top of the box so it looks like a disgruntled SpongeBob in short pants. Since the box is now vertically challenged, they had to make the stacks of crackers shorter too. Bad enough they try to force us to eat whole wheat Ritz, no salt Ritz, even baseball Ritz–did they think Miss CP would fall for Dwarf Ritz? Try making Mock Apple Pie out of that!
Who knows what they’ll do the next time recession hits. Maybe our food packaging will keep shrinking until all a box will contain is a huge list of ingredients you can’t pronounce. All this packaging nonsense can only lead to one thing: as soon as food makers decide we’re all used to the smaller containers, they’ll do what any good free enterprise company does: raise the price anyway. By that time, everything will be shrunken except Miss Crankypants. Want to hear her Ode to a Checkout Line?
