"While I'm waiting"

My moment of panic

It all started when I went to the dentist when she suggested I start using Colgate Toothpaste. Now I noticed on the tube that they gave me, it said Total on it. So I would assume that this is the kind that she wants me to use. I go to my local Wal-Mart; I head straight to the HBA department (for some reason, I love those letters together...HBA) and look in the toothpaste aisle. While staring at the multitude of teeth cleaning products I head straight to the Colgate section. I'm thinking to myself, I've done this a million times over and over, I can find what I want...I can get this done in no time at all. Well did I tell you I had a coupon in hand? Since I used the coupon, I can't tell you what it said of what Colgate product it was good on. But I looked and I looked in the midst of examining the vast variety of what I wanted I came up with this [small] list. Did you know that Colgate comes in (and I'm sure that I'm just scratching the surface) a multitude of varieties? But here is what was staring me in the face and making me hyperventilate at the same time:

Colgate Advanced Whitening

Colgate Advanced Fresh

Colgate Advanced Clean

Colgate Total

Colgate MaxFresh

Colgate Cavity Protection

Colgate Luminous

Colgate Sparking White

Now needless to say each of these can come in a paste or a gel. Since I'm not a fan of paste, I always get the gel. How many times did I look at my coupon, look at the shelves (three of them) glance back at the coupon, search on the shelves, look back at the coupon, investigate the shelves...I think you get the idea. I am "a perfectionist" in the way that I need to follow the rules on the coupons. I think all it takes is one person to screw up for the rest of us not to follow the rules of the coupon and you can kiss the $1.50 savings bye-bye. Now I'm not naieve to think that no one has ever violated the coupon rules, but it would be just my luck that I wouldn't follow the rules to a "t" and when I get to the counter there will be an alarm that will go off or the register won't accept the coupon. If the toothpaste that I thought I wanted wasn't listed on the coupon, then I would have to search for another one that I thought would be on the list. Since the coupon was for a $1.50 off I thought I would splurge and go for the bigger tube...bigger coupon, bigger savings. There were so many times I would find the toothpaste that I wanted and only to find that the store either didn't sell or was sold out in the gel formula, it was only available in the paste form. So off in pursuit for another tube...

I found myself after about 15 minutes of staring into a wilderness of toothpaste, panicking. How come I couldn't find what I wanted? How hard could this be? I have found myself asking this...and this goes with everything not just toothpaste...How come I can't find a tube of toothpaste that has the Total Advanced fresh cleaning, cavity protecting, luminous, sparkling white that will also fight tartar, give you fresh breath, fights gingivitis in a gel form? I want my toothpaste that will do it all. What is so wrong with that? Do these toothpaste companies think that I will brush my teeth with 8 different versions that is all supposed to different things. Give me a tube of toothpaste that will do it all. Don't do anything to it that will confuse me later. Keep the ingredients the same, improve the ingredients, don't change the purpose or the name and you'll have a consumer for life...me!

This also goes along with detergent (we could go into another tangent on that one...maybe later...maybe another blog on that). Why can't I find a detergent that will do it all? Fight stains, with bleach, fresh smelling, easy on the environment (whatever), have a built in softener in it, whitens, I think you know what I mean. My brand here: Gain.

PS - I ended up purchasing a 4.0 oz tube of the Coltage Total Advanced Fresh Gel. No fancy actions like the MaxFresh that I wanted. I went small and I went with boring.