Conflicting "Shoulds"

I’ve noticed a pattern of conflicts in my life. For example, I think I should eat what I want. Also, that I shouldn’t eat things that are bad for me. I shouldn’t spend too much, but also I shouldn’t try so hard to save money that the people who provide my food are exploited. Also, I should try not to disrupt the environment by generating air pollution and waste, and I should not take the path of least resistance and contribute to Amazon killing off all the local stores.

Since I need to eat every day, I need to make decisions frequently about what to buy, and where to buy it. But the “shoulds” make it more complicated than just taking my list to the local A&P, as I did back in the day.

One small example: sweet pickles. The ones on the shelves in my local stores contained high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is the Great Deceiver of the sweetener world, however. Sugar is bad too. But at least it’s not as evil as high fructose corn syrup. I wanted pickles with just sugar.

After looking for them in several stores, I decided to buy them online. But not from Amazon. Because Amazon is the Big Bad Wolf of online stores, who threatens to eat us all up. So I decided to order sweet pickles from Target. It turns out their house brand, Market Pantry, includes gherkins sweetened with sugar. They were cheap, too. But the minimum order for delivery was $35, so I added some other items I needed.

Everything except the pickles came within a week. Not as quick as Amazon, but also not as evil as Amazon.

Target sent me an email explaining that my pickles would be delayed because of a shipping mishap. I thought of all the times I’d seen messes on the floor of a grocery store. For some reason, eight times out of ten it was a jar of pickles that had come crashing down and put the grocery store on red alert while someone came with full hazmat gear to sop up the brine and gather up the shards. I imagined a similar scene at the Target warehouse, and wanted to apologize for putting them through that (the warehouse employees, not the pickles).

Target seemed confident that my pickles would arrive intact. They did. Eventually. Two jars of sweet gherkins, for which I paid $1.99 apiece, were hand-delivered to my door swaddled in corrugated paper, cradled in crumpled brown wrap, and laid out reverently in a cardboard box, like matching green corpses at a bizarre double funeral.

As I pulled them out and carefully unwrapped them, avoiding my own red alert scenario, I pondered all the work that had gone into fulfilling my very specific request. Was it worth it?

I imagined the bigwigs at Target headquarters around a gigantic oaken conference table, poring over the quarterly report. “What’s this?” explodes a middle aged executive wearing a pinstriped suit. “There’s an order here for three-ninety-eight worth of product, and it cost $159.44 to deliver.” Beads of perspiration dot his furrowed brow.

“I can explain that, sir,” says a younger man in a linen shirt and skinny jeans. “Our signature gherkins have become extremely popular since word got out that they are made without high fructose corn syrup. Add to that our competitive price, and the slipperiness of pickle jars in warehouses across the nation, then factor in the necessity of careful packaging to prevent in-transit breakage, well, you have a perfect storm.”

The older man frowns, “Are you telling me that pickle jars are slipperier than jars of, say, spaghetti sauce?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How can that be true?”

The younger man’s eyes dart to his colleagues and back to the man in pinstripes. “No one knows, sir. But it is common knowledge that eight times out of ten, when a glass jar is dropped in a commercial or home environment, it contains pickles.”

“Dill, sweet, or half-sour?”

“All of them, sir.”

“Is there nothing to be done?” roars the older man. “We can’t go on losing a hundred and fifty-five dollars every time someone orders two jars of sweet gherkins, can we?”

“No, sir, but,” he continues, referring to the report in front of him, “if you’ll read the footnote here, it says that the customer who ordered the pickles also ordered thirty-one additional dollars worth of product to get free shipping.”

“Well, that is something. But it’s not a hundred and fifty-five, is it?”

“Not quite,” smiles the younger man, twisting the upturned ends of his waxed mustache between thumb and forefinger. “But we can make it up in sales of spray cleaner, paper towels, antiseptic, and bandages.”

A smile spreads over the face of the older man. “Well, in that case,” he says, turning back to the stack of papers on the table in front of him, “what about this next item?”

My life is full of conflicting “shoulds.” As much as I’d like to nail it down to a weekly list at the same grocery store every week, the “shoulds” keep shouldering in.

What are your conflicting “shoulds”?

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