A Bottle of Adjectives
The other day I found a bottle of adjectives on the shelf.
I wasn't looking for adjectives, I was looking for bleach.
On the shelf I found a likely looking bottle, but in a moment of weakness I read the label, in case it wasn't bleach. You don't want to be pouring bleach on something and discover that it's lard, or red dye #2, or something. That would be bad. So I read the label.
Why does everything we buy say NEW on it? I just ignore that, anyway. Unless I'm buying antiques.
THE STANDARD OF PURITY
I assumed that was the brand and tagline. No help there.
NATURALLY FRESH
Clean bleach? Fresh bleach? It was nothing but adjectives. My wife buys adjectives?
A noun! It's a big bottle, but I didn't believe it had a mountain in it, however clean the mountain might be. Still no help.
Everything on the label was in upper case. I guess if it all costs the same, capitals are better than, uh, whatever non-capitals are.
I guess they were strong adjectives. I had read the entire label, and I still didn't know what was in the bottle.
It was then that I did a bad thing. I broke the code. Wait... I take that back. It's not that I had decrypted the meaning. If I had broken the code I wouldn't have had to break the code. I'm referring to the code of conduct that men sign when they reach puberty: Thou shalt not ask for help. You won't tell, will you?
"What is this?" I asked my wife, holding the bottle at arm's length. At arm's length from her, that is. We're at that age.
"What do you mean?" she asked. I love that woman. She knew perfectly well what was in the bottle, so she assumed that I did, too. I had to be asking something else, right? It's not like I'm an idiot. Sadly, I am an idiot.
"I don't know what's in the bottle. I've read the label, and I still don't know what's in it. Is it bleach?"
She blinked at me. "Bleach??? It's not bleach!"
"What is it?"
"Laundry detergent."
"How do you know?"
She points. I squint. There, at the bottom left, in the smallest font on the entire label, smaller than the warnings (and you know how small warnings are), smaller than SEE BACK, are two tiny words. LAUNDRY DETERGENT.
At least they were in upper case.
Blog Tag: Chatter
Posted 6/01/2005 06:04:00 PM
L
On 6/01/2005 7:51 PM, 
Melissa said...
On 6/01/2005 11:31 PM, dkgoodman said...
On 6/02/2005 10:30 AM, dkgoodman said...
On 6/03/2005 4:24 PM, Mary said...
On 6/03/2005 5:24 PM, Melissa said...
5 Comments:
Lol! Very well written! And, I'm also very impressed. You actually do laundry?
I also found it interesting that Connie tries to answer the question that you meant, not just the question that you actually asked. My husband used to get so irritated when I would answer precisely the question asked and nothing more. If that wasn't exactly what he wanted to know, he would have to frame a new question. Sometimes he would have to overcome objections, too. Lawyers are such a pain to be married to.
By the way, the post a comment page no longer allows the orignal post to be displayed. I like to be able to refer to it when writing a comment. What is that all about?
I still see a link to "Show Original Post" just under the post title. Must have been a glitch earlier.
I don't do laundry. That's part of the Code. :) But I do treat stains with bleach at times, and not just laundry stains.
My daughter used to ask me circuitous questions, which I trained her out of. For instance, she'd want to know, "What are you doing tomorrow?" and I'd reply, "What's your real question?" She'd then sheepishly ask if I could drive her somewhere.
When I used to live in an online RPG for hours a day, I knew a woman who didn't like direct requests. She told me a story of going down the freeway with her husband and she'd say something about their having been on the freeway a long time. She was mad that he wouldn't automatically get off the freeway so she could get something to drink, or use the ladies room, and I'd wonder why she didn't just ask. Some people are good at reading minds, and some people aren't.
By the way, if the comments page does fail in the future to provide a link to the original post, you can open a second browser and go to that page without disrupting the comments process.
I use two browsers a lot when I'm writing a post. One has the text I'm writing, and in the other I go to the different pages I'm writing about, so I can read them or copy a link to them.
I was already laughing when I got to "Unless I'm buying antiques", but kept up the giggle throughout this whole post. Funny, Dave, and actually I think you have a very good point here. Somehow we've become a generation of consumers who respond well to flowery adjectives in all-caps, topped off with exclamation marks. Or maybe it's just that the advertisers like to SHOUT at us to get us to pay attention to their products. And apparently we listen.
Btw, "Shout" is a stain-remover and it works ok, but I like "Spray-N-Wash" better. Not just because it works better, but because it simply says what to do with it and then it actually does what it says. No small-print-squinting needed! ;)
Mary, I like Spray-N-Wash too. It doesn't work very well on blood (don't ask), but it works well on pen ink and other annoying stains. I also like that I can see instantly what it is. My eyes aren't getting any younger. :)
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