Spent Saturday doing something we don’t normally do, which is go to a mall and shop. I’m pretty anti-consumer marketing and I think it’s been a year since we did this.

The intent was to get some various household stuff, curtains, a storage unit for the bathroom, cleaning supplies, a Britta water filter - your general middle-class utilitarian stuff, all made in China and sold at some retail joint for some ridiculous mark up. Anyhow, there’s a whole world of ridiculous consumer items I never knew existed and actually feel the better for not knowing about them.

The first is the “detergent ball” - some kind of solidified mass of laundry soap (like a giant jawbreaker) that you toss in your washing machine which dissolves over several washes until you have to replace the plastic cage with another ball. I’m sure there’s some marketing group that comes up with this stuff as a way to make current brands and products more exciting and bilk the middle class out of another dollars of their hard-earned cash without them knowing about it. Maybe they were inspired by the strange “wooden ball” theme of interior decorating, where you get a tray, put it on your coffee table, and fill it with balls made overseas. I guess if you can waste money on balls you must be living the American Dream.

I also noticed a plethora of unusual “organic” ingredients making their way into consumer-grade products: instead of root beer, it’s sarsasparilla, cherry is pomegranate, orange is citrus. So now you can get a mangosteen thai mint toothpaste for a dollar more than the old, boring mint style. I’m sure the mouth bacteria are so happy to be treated to such culinary delights.

The last stop was to Sears where I observed a sad fact of the retail experience: way too many shifty looking salespeople hanging out by the flat panel TVs, washing machines, and stoves, but when you want to actually pay for something everyone vanishes by the register. When you finally do track down a clerk, there are a lot of added sales tactics, such as pushing the Sears Card (a 10% discount!) and music videos and associated sales pitches playing on the register LCD screen.

Anyhow, the whole experience is a bit less the shopping I remember and more Minority Report. There’s just too much garbage being sold these days. The high point for me was a small vanilla cone from Orange Julius, which cost me less than two bucks.

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