A few random things that bug me – you got any like this?

First up - Bottles designed more for looks and utility:

I use (deep breath)- shampoo, conditioner, hand cream, face cream, liquid soap and liquid bath soaps and gels. Some of these are indulgences. Some are cheap, many are gifts. Every time I get near the end of a bottle, I tend to want to transfer the last bits into the new bottle. I’m a good little consumer person who doesn’t like waste. Besides, ya gotta wash the thing out anyway so it doesn’t get icky in the recycling bin, right? Or I want to be sure to GET the last bits out, so that I, well, get my money’s worth. What’s the point of being a smart consumer/shopper, blah blah if you buy something on sale or buy a generic or whatever and then throw away a buck’s worth of goop, you know?

Take that bottle of hand goop I bought a while ago. First thing I did was transfer it into a smaller bottle because I’ve got some arthritis in my hands that has weakened my grip and my ability to squeeze stuff. Um, the other reason is that if I knock it over, less of it will soak into the carpet before I realize just what it is I did. In the middle of the night. When I was reaching for something else. I do this too with shampoo sometimes because 22 ounces is a bit difficult to manage when my hands are wet. And I drop the shower gel in the shower. And I wasn’t planning on shampooing my hair. So I don’t WANT to bend over and get my head all wet. Because my hair gets wet and it goes BOING! And I tend not to like that. It’s harder to brush.

And there I was last night, trying to shake or scrape or whatever the last bits of hand cream out of the big bottle. Because the damn thing is designed NOT to let you do that. The bottle has, well, shoulders, so the goo gets hung up when you turn it upside down. And it has one of those nice elongated caps that follow the elongated bottle shape, caps that are pretty near impossible to get off and that don’t go back ON very well. Groovy. What ever happened to plain old bottles, the ones I get from Body Time that let you get the last dregs? Utility does not seem to matter here, does it?

Some of these newer bottles look cool; there was one that looked very art deco. Who CARES? It’s hand cream dammit. I know that design departments in these corporations are spending every waking moment redesigning their crap all the time but most of us, I would bet, want the stuff that is IN the bottle to get OUT of the bottle. I don’t CARE if it’s a “new improved formula”. So again, yesterday after my shower, when I wanted to empty the last bits of bottle A into bottle B, I couldn’t because bottle B had a little tiny hole and I couldn’t upend bottle A into it. Just to have fewer bottles in the shower stall.

Ditto the bottles with pump dispensers. They might be useful but what do you do when you’re almost done with the stuff and the pump won’t work? Because of course it has to leave room at the bottom for the goop to SHLURP up the tube. But I can’t turn it upside down to get at it. And the damn pumps clog up all the time anyway. I once even called a manufacturer of some stuff I have used – literally since I was 13 – and said it clogs up. Like they cared.

Next we have stick-on newspaper advertisements. Every week, my morning paper has a sticky on it advertising something. I don’t know what. I don’t care. Our newspaper sucks rocks but it’s better than watching –oh gods – the you-should-pardon-the-expression news coverage on local tv, which reports celebrity gossip as if it affected our lives. Besides, they can’t spell. And they lead with crime and bloodshed EVERY friggin night – as Stu would say “be afraid….” And I’m not ready to give up Doonesbury to read it on line. Yet. Although it’s getting there as it seems there is less news, more crap. I know newspapers have thin profit margins. But they also are losing readers and don’t seem to be able to figure out WHY. So they are writing more 20 something “news” and can’t figure out WHY that isn’t working to make the 20 somethings buy the rag. Crap. And I don’t want more ads layered over OTHER ads 9or more likely text) on the damn paper. NOT to mention the damn “lasik” eye surgery outfit that used to have an ad on the Sunday comics. Attached to the damn comics so I’d rip it off every week. Isn’t that how YOU find surgeons? Because they advertise on the comics section? (speaking of which, yesterday, a WINDOW company knocked on my door. Apparently they are so desperate for business, or something, they’re going door to door. Yep, that sure is how I find window installers.)

The newspaper as well as many advertisers are including plastic “you can’t get rid of it” sticky things onto mailings which means you can’t recycle the stuff without taking time to rip off the sticky plastic ad or card. The damn phone book comes with plastic magnets. Screw that. I find it stunning that in this day and age, we are SO into organic and green and bio but we still put out plastic crap and “lunchables” (I’m not convinced those aren’t 100 percent plastic and paper) because making sandwiches or teaching our kids to put something between 2 slices of bread is just too hard (Feeding those to your kids and claiming you give them lunch is like the woman who couldn’t comprehend why her kid was gaining weight because she ate nothing but “chicken nuggets”. But it’s chicken! She cried.) I know it’s hotter to have store bought but really, do you gotta? Are there any parents out there any more who don’t feed their kids junk food every day and have to buy yogurt “pops” and breaded everything to get their children to eat?

Third- Customer service people who answer every email with “thank you for allowing us to help you” when all they have done is send you boilerplate responses which do not answer your questions. Who very politely waste your time because they don’t read. But they’re so polite! This is piggybacked onto the store clerks who are required to thank me and who cannot pronounce “Shechter” so I get thank you Ms. Sketer, Ms. Shecler, Ms. Shnecter, Ms. Sheeter,” WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THAT? (Ah but they always ask me if I’m finding everything okay. Catch is, If I’m NOT, they freeze into immobility because no one coached them on what to do next.)

Finally, our friends the post office. Some 4 weeks ago, I shipped out a box of book, media rate, but on my own dime, to someone in the military. It’s a program designed to respond to requests from folks serving in the military – if you’re interested, see the link I’ve got for Operation Paperback. (Yes, of course we’re anti-war but we ain’t anti-soldier. And I feel bad for the readers out there who are far from books. Even if I wish they’d found another line of work.)

The box was returned the other day. I have NO IDEA WHY. There Is NOTHING on it to indicate why it did not go to the person it was sent to. And there is no way to tell who to talk with, so I have to start calling around because you just DON’T DO THAT. Yes, we’re trying to find out if the guy was transferred or something. This program has lots of people asking for books, all over the place but we are trying to find him. Usually, if that happens, I’m told, they SEND THE BOX ON. Instead, I have a box (yes I checked to be sure I didn’t write the address incorrectly) that I spent $5 to mail, for a good reason (and yay, they accept ARCS) and I am flat out FURIOUS. And there’s probably NOTHING to be done.

I don’t like when there is nothing to be done. Maybe that’s the problem here. No one wants my opinion on the shape of the design of their bottle of aloe with cucumber moisture lotion. Nor do they care if I ignore the ads for new gutters or whatever those things are for. They think nothing of knocking on my damn door to sell me windows for my rental apartment (I so love getting up to go to the door for that crap.) They don’t care if their cashiers can’t pronounce my name. And hey don’t CARE if my box was returned. About 5 years ago, I started asking “why can’t Medicare pay for my scooter if I don’t use it in the house?” and never got an answer. That STILL infuriates me, but no one could tell me. Nor did they care. No one cares that every 10 days or so when I go to the drugstore for decongestants, I have to haul out my ID – and I can’t buy two boxes on sale. Because I might use the pseudephedrine to make meth in the garage.

I wish someone DID care. Even if I call the corporations that make the lotion, or the newspaper (I actually did get an answer on that. Somewhat). Or if I wrote to Safeway and said “WHAT IS THE POINT of “politeness” when you get it wrong?” and I’m too tired to fight with Medicare. At the time, I went to court. And lost. It still sucks but I can’t figure out how to get an answer from someone who cares.

All I can think to end this rant is to quote the Travis Tritt song: “Here’s a Quarter, (Call Someone Who Cares)”.

Grump.