Wed, October 13, 2004

I can't stand going to the grocery store. I don't really know why this is, because the experience itself is usually rather pleasant. (Plus, at the end of it, I have food!) I think it relates to the chore of it more than the particulars. Going to the grocery store means going out on a weekend, or making an extra stop on the way home from work when I'm tired and sullen and just want my TiVo and my pillow.

Anyway, the Coke situation was beginning to get serious, and the milk and Goldfish situations had already moved beyond critical levels, so I had to go to Ralphs last night. (Miserable as it is, the after-work trip is significantly preferable to the weekend-outing trip; at work, I've already got pants on.) One of the items on my shopping list was paper towels and – because I'm me – this purchasing decision comes with more than its share of requisites.

I buy the three pack of Bounty. Bounty because it's the brand my mom used at home (where all the strongest brand loyalties are born) and three-pack because I can put two rolls away in the cabinet and when the time comes that I pull the third roll out, I can write "paper towels" on the grocery list and still have paper towels to use while I refill the space in the cabinet on my next trip to the grocery store. It's a perfect system.

The Bounty three-packs are a sort of grab bag of styles. Bounty offers a bunch of different printed patterns on their paper towels, and in the three-pack you get three at random. I don't generally like printed patterns on paper towels because it seems like an unnecessary place for adornment. I'm mopping up a spill or wiping pizza off my fingertips – I don't need country houses or wildflowers, I just need a disposable scrap of material with a little texture to it. However, when I started buying the three-packs, I had to figure out the least objectionable pattern, and do my best to live with it. I chose the "pandas" pattern – partly because it's a lot less countrified than the other options, and partly because I like the design: besides the panda, the tableau includes some bamboo shoots, and the whole thing is done in a sort of oriental style which is the kind of subtle detail that impresses me.

Also, I like the pandas themselves, because sometimes I talk to them. It's just a thing I do, to entertain myself. The same with the Hefty Zoo Pals. (This is kind of a long story.) A couple of years ago, my mom sent me a packet of Zoo Pals in one of her occasional care packages. These are paper plates which are divided into three sections similar to cafeteria plates, but the two outlying sections are arranged in such a way that they form "ears" for an animal whose face is printed on the plate. It's another mix-n-match packaging scheme: you get a few random Zoo Pals in each package, out of a larger collection. At some point, I decided to find out how many there were, so I went online, where Hefty has a whole Zoo Pals site set up, in a clear attempt to jump start some sort of Beanie Baby phenomenon. There's a collector's checklist available, as well as a list of "retired" Zoo Pals. And there's an extensive catalogue of active Zoo Pals, with their names and a few things about them: likes, dislikes, and talents. Which means someone in Hefty's marketing department had to go through and make this stuff up for every animal. For some, this is easy. The beaver dislikes the dentist, the octopus dislikes handcuffs. For others, no immediate concept comes to mind, so this person got randomly creative. I noticed on the website that the otter (now retired) dislikes "being teased." No idea why, but there it is. To me, this was really hilarious. Who does like being teased? Why is this unique to the otter? Anyway, after that, any time I used the otter plate for my chicken nuggets (the honey mustard fit perfectly in his left ear, although the right ear was left woefully empty), I would look him in the eye as I covered him with food and say, "I'm gonna tease you so bad!" I do silly stuff like this to make myself laugh and break up the monotony of my solitary routines. So, on rare occasions, I'll talk to the pandas. They're my friends.

As a result, when I'm shopping for Bounty three-packs, I look for a pack that includes a roll of blank white paper towels (as God intended) and a roll of pandas, and then whatever least offensive third option I can find. Occasionally, I'll get really lucky and find two whites and a panda. Considering how many styles there are, I'm usually surprised to find pandas at all. (Recently, they were in the middle of some renovations and had no three-packs whatsoever; I had to accept a super-size roll of Dora the Explorer. On the plus side, I'm learning how to count to ten in Spanish.) But yesterday, it happened. The holy grail of Bounty three-packs: two pandas and a white! I don't know how I got so lucky. There weren't even that many packs left on the shelf. I was steeling myself to accept a non-panda pack if I had to. But, two pandas and a white! I would never have dreamed. I almost burst into tears right there in the store.

It's so perfect, I'm almost afraid to spoil it by opening the plastic. But I won't be able to leave these paper towels wrapped up forever. The whole thing is so exciting, I can't wait to tell the pandas all about it!

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