CHOICE: Not all it’s cracked up to be.

It’s about time for a little rant. It turns out that having lots of choice is not the end-all of freedom, as much as promoters of democracy, freedom and the American Way would like us to believe.

Take toothpaste, for example. I recently went to the drugstore to buy some toothpaste. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I ended up walking out of the store totally frustrated.

I’ve been a loyal fan of Colgate toothpaste for easily forty-five to fifty years. I tried Crest for a while, dabbled with Tom’s, but mostly it’s been Colgate. Colgate was just fine. Simple, white, plain toothpaste with some fluoride. No problem. I’ve watched with trepidation over the years, the introduction of different looking boxes with the Colgate logo on them, but bypassed them completely, knowing where to direct my eyes on the shelf, to the red and white box of the regular brand. I think I must have loaded up last year during a sale.

Then, this year the plain red and white box with the plain white toothpaste became extinct, replaced by some twenty different varieties on the shelf. Now Colgate makes TOTAL; PROCLINICAL WHITE PASTE (in the blue box); PROCLINICAL GEL; ADVANCED WHITENING; ADVANCED CLEAN; GUM DEFENSE; ENAMEL STRENGTH; MINT STRIPE; MAX WHITE (with mini bright strips); MAX CLEAN WITH SMART FOAM [[[smart foam?]]]; MAX FRESH with mini breath strips; LUMINOUS CRYSTAL CLEAN MINT—Ahhhhhhh!!!—SENSITIVE MULTIPROTECTION; SESITIVE ENAMEL PROTECTION; SENSITIVE WHITENING; SPARKLING WHITE MINT ZING—God help us!!!!—SPARKLING WHITE CINNA MINT; TARTAR PROTECTION WHITENING CRISP MINT PASTE or CRISP MINT GEL; ULTRABRITE ADVANCED WHITENING. And those don’t include the brands for kids.

What marketing MBA did Colgate hire to come up with all those registered and trade-marked brands? Please! Let’s 'up' the lithium dose a bit. It’s like, how many different models of a VW bug do we need? Is this what the world of facebooking tweeters want?

Okay, I'm finished with the rant.

Way down that list, I discovered CAVITY PROTECTION GREAT REGULAR FLAVOR. Eureka! Might that possibly be a re-branded version of what I was hoping to find in the first place? I’ll give it a try if I can find it on the shelf, buried beneath the other varieties.