Monday, April 20, 2009

Incredibly Shrinking Paper Towels


What the heck happened to my paper towels???!!! I've bought Brawny paper towels for years-- big, soft, fluffy rolls of Brawny. This week I went to the grocery and my Brawny rolls have shrunk by half, they should be called the Un-Brawny. I started looking at other brands, after years of being a Brawny customer, and you know what? They've shrunk, too. Scott towels are weasly looking rolls, Bounty is not bounty anymore but more like the 90 lb weakling at the beach. I was so frustrated, not just because I would have to buy two rolls now to do what one used to do, but because my soft, swiggisy rolls of paper towels now feel like skinny bricks.
So this tells you how small the circle of my life is. Other people are complaining about the stock market and I'm complaining about my paper towels. Not only am I complaining on my blog. I wrote the Brawny folks.

So I was talking to my friend, Dawn, and as she always jumps on my soapbox with me (what are friends for?) she started on washing machines. She said, "Don't you remember when you used to buy a washing machine or refrigerator and you knew you'd have that sucker 20 years or more until you finally just had to have a more modern-looking one. But that refrigerator would not die, oh no, it would still work just fine. With strong medal shelves (NO PLASTIC) and a solid sounding door. No more. Now they are hunk of junks that last five years tops, if you're lucky." With my refrigerator making this weird clunking every time the ice maker comes on, I thought maybe paper towels aren't going to be the worse thing I have to deal with...

Then I said it. I couldn't believe it when it came out of my mouth....."They just don't make things like they used to." And immediately I saw my grandmother saying it, my grandfather, my dad. Why is American junking down on what we sell? And why do I sound like old people?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So did they lower the price? Probably not.

Jammie J. said...

Psshaw! I'm with you on this! I went to buy my favorite gum, Extra... yeah, well, they've redesigned their packaging to "make it slimmer" and they took away three pieces... from 18 to 15 sticks of gum. Price is still the same.

Seems like they're trying the American Airlines ploy of removing an olive from the salad.

Slimmer, indeed.