Read the Fine Print

I am working on this big project to restore two Spartan trailers. When I see trash bags on sale I buy them. I got a bag of Hefty bags and opened them when I was pulling the carpet out of one of the trailers. There was a thick dust of some kind of powdered carpet be-stinking product mixed in with the regular dust, rat feces, .22 bullets, and candy wrappers. I crammed the carpet pad in these bags and swept up the smelly dirt and shook that in there, too, tied it up and took it to the dump. The next day I started collecting the insulation from under the floor, so I shook out another bag and smelled that Carpet Fresh again. I looked carefully at the box to see if there was some smell added, but it didn't say anything. I figured I got some Carpet Fresh from the floor in the box of bags. Two weeks later after the box got wet and I took the bags out and used one again they still smelled like that. I finally became convinced it was the ACTUAL garbage bags that had a smell. So I went back to the store and saw these Glad bags on sale. Next to them was a box labeled "Now with Febreze scent!" So I stayed away from those and got these.

Well I'll be damned if these don't have a strong and offensive perfumed smell too! What the hell?! It's a TRASH BAG! I went back to Walgreens and asked to exchange them for some that didn't activate my negative reaction to artificial scents. They found these that say specifically that they are UNSCENTED.

Is this one of the signs of the fall of civilization? The tipping point on the slide into Idiocracy? The introductory scenes for The Incredible Shrinking Woman? Where the least common denominator is that EVERYTHING has an artificial smell? Where you have to assume things have unnecessary additives and if you want the least ingredients possible you have to be smarter than the average consumer to pick that item out of the lineup? I'm just grateful these options exist for me.

But for how long? When do I start hoarding the products that don't activate my chemical sensitivities, fearing they will be discontinued? Should I just start making my own soap from pine sap, wood ash, and fat rendered from the flesh of my enemies?

"Corporations are people, my friend," says Mitt Romney. So I put it to you, Mitt, what is WRONG with people?! Here's Proctor and Gamble ahead of the curve to serve the depressed citizens of America..... 

P&G also makes Cheer. I need to go look at the store to see if they have Cheer with More Spirit! And a white bottle called free spirit Cheer.