Overflow

When I was young and the choices were few, I’d take strawberry if chocolate wasn’t available. Anything but boring old vanilla.

Now that I have forty some-odd flavors of ice cream to choose from (not counting crush-in purmutations) my favorite flavor is — boring old vanilla.

(And even when you order vanilla nowadays, you have to be specific. Natural Vanilla Bean, thanks.)

I remember being excited when ranch dressing was invented. Yes I’m that old. We had another choice! Something besides Italian, French, and Thousand Island!

And when they brought out Tropical Punch flavored drink? Whoa. You could have *more than one* flavor of punch at a time? Who knew?

It was all very exciting as a kid. But now it’s the *choices* that bore me. Strawberry Durian Smoothies? Yawn. Habanero Portabello dip with blue cheese blue corn chips? Ho Hum. Serve me a Shiner and some Ruffles please.

(I hear Shiner is marketing a light beer now. That’s just wrong. More choice is not always better.)

So I go to the vending machine today for some Fritos to put in my tomato soup and what do I find? Chili Cheese Fritos, Cool Ranch Doritos, some Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips (Does anyone actually *harvest* cheddar anyway?) I just want some plain old Fritos. Lacking that, I just want the plain version of something. Anything, as long as it’s the original flavor.

I am a one man backlash. I suspect that all this choice we’re being sold is distracting us away from quality. If I get rid of the steamed milk and vanilla syrup, I can tell whether the coffee I’m being sold is good coffee or not. And at four bucks a pop, I damn well better get some good coffee. Sometimes plain is plain better.

When I eat chocolate, I eat the plain dark stuff. As much cocoa as they can get in there. When I drink coffee, I drink coffee. Black. Full caf. No whip. I take my liquor on the rocks or neat. And when I have my choice of ice cream, I choose Vanilla.