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Help! I’ve Been Eco-Napped!

I was walking through the store the other day when I realized my shopping experience has slowly become alien and strange. I have been a mom for 23 years, and within those two-decades and three-years I have been the sole grocery acquisition specialist. Oh, the stories I can tell of hours spent comparing brands, and checking for quality and value. I can tell tales of labels read, boxes tossed atop a loaded basket, and cookies used to bribe tired children quickly through check-out and to the car averting total melt down. I am the Royalty of Retail, the Mistress of the Market, the Vixen of Vending!

A couple of weeks ago I slid my feet into my favorite pumps, clasped on my best pearls and headed out to the grocery store in order to buy delicious and nutritious food for my troops. Not to mention I needed to replenish the wonderful supplies that sit under my kitchen sink that keeps the entire household sanitized and smelling wonderful. Our clothes are white, bright and we smell like lavender-white-lily-roses-on-a-sunny-May-morning. I needed to get more of that liquid miracle maker that keeps the sheets of a potty training toddler smelling April fresh!

I arrive at the Kroger. I am in my zone. I crack my knuckles and wrap my limbered hands around the push bar on the grocery cart. I begin to guide my cart with a precision that only seasoned shoppers possess. I start down the ethnic food aisle when I notice that the really small changes of past shopping trips have accumulated and changed my shopping experience. Sure, I had noticed the little “Eco” this and “Eco” that on bottles. It took a while, but the small, slow and subtle changes finally took full effect over the Summer. It now looks like an Eco-Fairy has fluttered through the local Kroger and vomited a bunch of glittering Eco-hype all over my once normal grocery store.

Where does a grocery-goddess go to get a real sized bottle of liquid detergent for a reasonable price? What is this new fad of shrinking bottles with price tags that go in the opposite direction of the size and volume of the product? I could only assume it was the work of the Eco-Fairy. Anytime there is a little hype put out about a particular subject we suddenly have a whole new media induced fad that winds up screwing up my grocery budget.

A bottle of my favorite detergent used to weigh more than my 7-month old baby, but it cost less than diapers for the tot. Now that same brand weighs as much as a loaf of bread, and it cost me as much as a month’s tuition at the now grown tot’s college. Thanks a lot Eco-Fairy. What has really changed in that detergent? Nothing really. They claim it is more “concentrated” now. Essentially they removed the extra water they used to dilute it with, put the same amount of product into a small Barbie sized bottle, slapped an “eco-friendly” label on it and raised the price so high that even Mr. Clean can’t afford to do his laundry these days.

What other products have I noted the same change in? Cleaners of course. They too have the smaller bottle and bigger price tag syndrome. I admit that I did vomit a little when I walked down the soup isle and spied a Campbell’s Soup can with an “eco friendly” label. So, how does a soup become more environmentally friendly? Simple. They change nothing at all, slap a green label on a can and then charge the poor sucker-consumer (a.k.a “me”) the cost to be in on the trend. My store has eco-friendly popcorn, eco-friendly shampoo, conditioner, flour, sugar, mac and cheese, and just about any other product under the sun that could possibly be given a green label and a price hike. The company does not need to change the product. They only need to put on a fancy green label (I will let my husband a.k.a. “Polymer-Man” tell you why the green dyes used to make those labels are not good for the environment).

What will be held hostage next by the Eco-Fairy? I think that the recent hype of BPA and plastics in the media is a good hint. Now we have stores who are already jumping on the bandwagon so they can claim to be a “BPA Free” store. Guess what? They were already, more than likely, a “mostly-BPA-free” store. Now, they will get to claim to be more “child and family friendly” than their competitor. Since the media has done such a good job scaring people, the store can raise its prices since they have had to do, oh so much, to accommodate consumer fears. Baby bottles will now have new labels declaring them as “BPA FREE!” Even though they were already BPA Free before the hype. Of course the exact same bottle will wind up costing you three-times more now.

If you really want to get this domestic-doll all fired up then whisper sweet nothings in my ear about mercury laden light bulbs. I can see the ads now:

Save the environment! Maim your children by putting these light bulbs throughout your house! You too can now own the light bulbs that use less energy to burn! Of course mercury is a heavy metal that is a known hazard to humankind, it causes birth defects and permanent brain damage, but the environment will thank you for it! Well, not really because mercury is also bad for the environment — but it’s good for the company pushing this light bulb and Al Gore thinks it’s a pretty darn groovy idea too!

Every time I see Al Gore talk about carbon credits I have flashbacks of having the crap scared out of me as a kid while watching Return of the Living Dead. He may be proof positive that mercury light bulbs are a really bad idea!

By the way, have they ever establish the mortifying connection between cell phones and brain tumors? Lavender and breast development in boys? Power lines and three headed babies? The Achy-Breaky Heart dance and Attention Deficit Disorder?

Funny isn’t it? These scare-driven fads “come on like a flame and then turn a cold shoulder.” Why is that? Maybe because past the hype there is not much substance or evidence. Maybe we get bored with it when we begin to realize that the green can of soup only made a difference in how much we paid and not a single thing more. We wait anxiously for the next wave of hype, so we can hang ten - or just pay ten-dollars more.

I could have had a V-8! Only with this current hype, put a lot of Vodka in mine. Make that Skyy Vodka, please.

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