Things I Hate - The Shopping Edition

I hate grocery shopping. I like the part where I get home and can make food for my family. I don't like the part where I have to sift through countless amounts of BS buzzwords and comparative math. Here are a few of my least favorite things that come up in the grocery store:

1. Anything that is " 'something' - style."

The moment, nay - the millisecond your brain perceives this two-word phrase, drop whatever you are holding. For what you have in your hand is not what you think! Certainly, it will be similar to the product you are hoping to buy, but in a sinister way.

Let me draw my example from Greek yogurt. I have slowly been branching out to try different brands (also known as different brands from the one I normally buy have been on sale) and what I came across was a "Mueller" brand yogurt that had the little corner compartment with fruit. They were on sale for a dollar each, so I grabbed a few that looked tasty.

When I got home, I noticed my grievous, horrible mistake. I hadn't paid a full dollar for actual Greek yogurt. I had paid extra for "Greek-style" yogurt. You might be asking what's the difference. The difference is, instead of straining the yogurt to achieve the thick and creamy texture, this brand has simply realized it is much cheaper to add some gelatin and corn starch. There is also a dash of whey protein to up the protein content of the yogurt, but at 9 grams per container, it does not come close to other brands.

I should have looked closer; I shouldn't have been pulled in by the price and by the blaring "Greek Corner" label that very much wanted me to assume I was obtaining Greek yogurt with my money. But my point is, I shouldn't have to take a minute to verify that the product I'm trying to buy is actually what it says it is. And, I understand that legally, the product is exactly what it says it is. But it is also BS, so I will not be buying the Mueller Greek Corner yogurts again.

Also, they don't taste that good.

2. Chocolatey Whatever.

Admittedly, this isn't too much of a problem for me anymore, since I've moved away from certain brands of granola bars and cereals. But it still scratches me the wrong way, so let's look into it.

Actually, there's not much to look into. Companies use "chocolatey" to get you thinking about chocolate while they conveniently don't include any sort of actual chocolate in the product. Quaker oats bars are guilty of this. You might wonder how they can afford to dip their granola bars in chocolate and keep the prices somewhat low! Well, wonder no more. They simply dip their granola bars in "chocolatey whatever" and it's kind of like chocolate except it's not. Again, saving money while staying in the legal confines of convincing people that they're getting something they're not.

Come to think about it, Quaker also appears to own the fake Greek yogurt brand mentioned above. I used to trust them. Now I just assume that whatever they claim to be selling is not what I can expect to buy.

3. Ice Cream

Well, I was going to go on a rant about the annoying trends in ice cream, namely, shrinking the container sizes while charging the same or higher prices.

But then I decided I'd rather talk about Publix brand ice cream.

Look, I moved over a thousand miles away from my family to live with my husband down here in Florida. It is some small compensation that Publix brand ice cream is actually the best ice cream I have ever had in my life.

You know how you buy the store brand when you want ice cream and the name brand isn't on sale? That's how I ended up with my first container of Publix brand ice cream. (Which, might I add, is still a half gallon and not endlessly expensive!) Imagine my surprise when a month or so later, a name brand went on sale, I bought it, and subsequently realized that Publix brand was better. Bam. That's it. I'm a believer.

Publix does all sorts of flavors and styles. I stick to the regular style - no splenda or low fat or whatever they do - and I love it. Also, they make great seasonal stuff. When we had roommates, our fridge always had several containers of Publix ice cream.

So no, it doesn't completely dull the achy homesickness I occasionally (often) feel when I think about how my parents are literally at least seventeen hours away from me even in the direst of emergencies. (And my siblings who are off at school are even further north from me!) But it is like an extra tasty consolation prize.

That's right, I'm just going to complain (humorously, perhaps?) about commercials

You know, the truth of the matter is I do watch a lot of TV. I tend to have a TV on as background noise during the evening and I'm only slightly afraid to say that the food network, HGTV, TLC and Comedy Central are my constant companions. (My fright comes only from the off chance that someone from Comcast is reading this and that my profession of love for those channels ends up with them being in some sort of extra premium package).

Anyhow, I see a lot of commercials since I also live in the stone age and typically watch shows during their normal programmed time rather than recording and watching later. I don't mind. It gives my husband and me a lot of items to make fun of.

And one thing that cannot be pointed out enough is shampoo and conditioner commercials. Seriously, hair care products are kind of like cars - they all look slightly different and purport to have slightly different purposes but it all boils down to the fact that people drive cars to go places and use hair care products to look presentable. And whereas a car commercial might utilize the common "only car on the road" shot to somehow set it apart from all the other "only car on the road" shots, a hair care product does something remarkably similar - the claim that their product makes hair X times more Y.

You might recognize the formula. X is any percentage or phrase, such as "100% more" or "30 times more" to indicate the supposed betterness of the product. Y is whatever adjective people like to use about their hair - shiny, healthy, bouncy, not-looking-like-it-was-stuck-in-a-garbage-can-y.

You might also recognize that their claim is splashed across the screen in large letters and that underneath, the small print reveals the part that makes me want to scream. Almost verbatim from every hair product care commercial ever, the small print will read: "Brand Z Shampoo and Conditioner vs. non-conditioning shampoo."

How is this legal?

I mean, (and for most guys this doesn't count, but let's be honest - you're not the target market here) who here has ever tried to just shampoo their hair and that's it?

Personally, if I were to just shampoo my hair and then try to comb it out, I would probably remove a good portion of my hair that I would much rather have remain in my scalp. Conditioner, or at least a 2 in 1 shampoo, is pretty much a necessity for whatever adjective you're looking for in your hair.

My point is this - how can I compare brands when they're all comparing themselves to some useless, pointless baseline. It's like me saying that my blog is 30 times more popular and then in small print reminding you that this is compared to a blog that doesn't exist. Heck, I'm feeling great. Let's say my blog is 100 times more popular.*

*100 times more popular than most blogs that do not exist. A few non-existing blogs were found to be more popular than my blog but as outliers, these blogs were removed from my totally unscientific making up of data.