Some good advice for the new year…
My first job was at Piggly Wiggly. I was fifteen. I boxed and bagged groceries and spent as much time as I could near Margaret. She was a University of Washington cheerleader and, well, ‘nogh said.
I’m guessing that the coffee section had about four brands. Folgers vied with Maxwell House for premium shelf space. Other brands your grandma spooned into a cup of hot water filled in spaces below, forcing you to actually bend over to grab them. The entire space used up a yardstick.
Not today. Next time you’re at your grocer, notice the coffee aisle. Mine is…thirty feet long? Add another twenty for tea. Every brand, every concoction, every country, and every imaginable thing about drinking coffee is here. In triplicate.
Imagine Mom telling you to pick up coffee on the way home from work.
It used to be easy. “Big can or little?” I’d ask.
Not now. “Starbucks? Gevalia? Green Mountain? Organic? What roast?”
For all I know, it might be a Saturday Night Live skit.
I call this the tyranny of options.
***
I admit that it’s pretty fantastic. I really like Gevalia brand coffee. I really like decaf – it works better with my damaged brain. I much prefer organic. And wouldn’t you know it? Gevalia makes an organic, decaf, morning blend. Voila! Even Frasier wouldn’t have found this in 1975.
But that’s okay. I still drank tons of the stuff. Same with bread or broth. I could run in the store, collect and pay for what I wanted, and be out in fifteen minutes. Now it takes five just to wipe down my shopping cart.
So what?
I thought about this today. One of the twins gets her driver’s license in three weeks, so each day we explore another way for her to drive to school. Through town in traffic. A back road in the boonies. Across town, past Issadora’s.
She wanted to try a new way today, along a back road with less traffic, but near town in case she has trouble. The best of all worlds, she thought. A morning brew that’s organic, mild, and decaf.
We got to school late, and she had a fit. I didn’t know it, but the school locks down ten minutes before class. Then you have to go through the office and prove who you are before they let you in.
“It’s an adventure,” I say, true to my general outlook.
She growls “You might have noticed, Dad, that I’m not a girl who likes adventure.”
“No trouble,” I say, nonplussed. “I’ll just get you up fifteen minutes earlier.”
No comment.
***
Mom drives her tomorrow and goes directly into mama hen mode when I tell her we were late for school and why. She comes up with new routes and plans and ways to make sure our little chick is safe and sane, but I break in mid-sentence:
“You know what I think? I think we take away the 99 options. We tell her this is the way you drive to school. If traffic, or merging, or whatever bothers her, then she’s not ready to drive by herself.
Too many options. Pick one, and do it.
To sum up, I quote good words from Mr. Michael Jordan:
Once I make a decision, I never think about it again.
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Please note that I get nary a red cent from anyone for this post or if you get the notion to buy something I mention. But you are always free to send me a buck or a new Porsche. Your choice!
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