Choice

Recently an old television advertisement has reappeared on our screens. A customer asks the shop assistant for some milk. She reels off an impossible list of different types of the product. The customer hesitates before replying, “I just want milk that tastes like real milk.”

Upon seeing this ad again, I was reminded of the week before I moved into my newly purchased first home, back in 1995. I allocated a lunch break from work to shop for items that I would need for my cupboards: Shampoo, toothpaste, detergent etc. Half an hour, I felt, should have been sufficient. After all, over the years I had accompanied my lovely mum on many a trip to the supermarket. How difficult could it be?

I was a little bewildered at the extent of the ranges of toothpastes and shampoos. However, I understood that people have individual hair types and flavour preferences. I just grabbed the usual items that we used at home and continued to the aisle containing toilet paper.

I had been hoping to find a different type of toilet paper from the one that we used at home. It was a little on the scratchy side. However, once I located the relevant shelves I stopped in disbelief.

Half of an entire side of the aisle was filled with the product. My eyes were opened to the wonders of embossed, non-embossed, 1 ply, 2 ply, 3 ply, white, yellow, blue, pink, 2 pack, 4 pack, 8, 12, 24 pack, here a brand, there a brand, everywhere a brand-brand… I was completely overwhelmed.

Why was there so much choice for a necessary item? And not only that: Why was there so much choice for an item that was going to be used once and immediately thrown away? I distinctly remember saying under my breath while staring into the multi-coloured void, “It’s just toilet paper!”.

The clock was ticking so I decided to just buy the packet that my lovely mum usually purchased. But where was it? It was literally like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

I returned to work in rather a state. Perhaps I was over-reacting, but I was shocked and frustrated. And I feel the same sense of overwhelm each time I have to buy toilet paper today, 30 years later. The situation is even more confusing now. Entire sides of entire aisles are allocated to this product, not just the half of a side of my initial buying experience. And there are a few new types to contend with as well. Bamboo, for one. Recycled for another. What on earth will we think of next?

My lovely mum once told us of a conversation that she had enjoyed at one of her book club meetings a few years ago.

The questions had been asked, “What inventions that we enjoy today did we not have in our childhoods, and which of them would we not do without today?”

Someone had answered, toilet paper. Others had responded with stories from their childhoods of using squares cut from newspapers for the purpose. But the person who had originally answered the questions said that they had not had the luxury of newspapers when they were young. They had lived in a very isolated location and were not able to afford the very few newspapers that only occasionally were delivered to their area.

I don’t remember what the solution to her absence of any type of paper was. However, I’ll spare you the interesting, but rather uncomfortable, information I came across in my research into the history of toilet hygiene for this post! It may surprise you though, that toilet paper as we know it today is not as old an invention as we would prefer to think.

Many years after my original foray into the aforementioned aisle, I read an interesting article on the effects that choice has upon the health of human beings. I’ve unfortunately not been able to locate the article since, but I do remember the general conclusion.

Researchers divided several people into two groups. Each member of each group was given the task of buying an ice-cream of their own choice. One group was sent to a shop that had several flavours from which to choose. The other group was sent to a shop that had only two flavours.

The heart rates and other such things of each participant were monitored throughout the process. It was found that the group with more choices of ice-cream was more stressed than the group that had only the two choices.

When I read the article, I found myself to be relieved. My feelings of overwhelm in the toilet paper aisle were finally justified.

I find it interesting that the layouts of some supermarkets today have toilet paper and ice-cream on opposite sides of the same aisle. Did someone in the hierarchy read the same article that I did all those years ago? Are they taking advantage of the stress that people feel when looking at the paper side of the aisle, by tempting them to relieve that stress with ice-cream, but in the process cause them more stress by offering too many choices of the sweet treat?

Like the man in the milk advertisement, I just want toilet paper that does the job and ice-cream that tastes like real ice-cream!

Nikki

P.S: I think this ramble rambled itself into a rant. My apologies.