I'm Death to Products...

If I like a product, it’s guaranteed to be taken off the shelves.  If you have a favorite product – don’t show it to me.  If I like it – within weeks you won’t be able to find it.  It will be gone with the rest of the things I have obliterated from the marketplace. 

The first I noticed this special affliction was years ago with lipstick colors.  If you’re a woman you know how hard it is to find a color you like.  Once we find that color, we might try some others for variety but we never stray far.  There is always the favorite close at hand, in our purse, our pocket or bathroom counter.  The one you buy two of, that goes with pink and coral, doesn’t make your skin look yellow, and has the right about of creaminess and doesn’t come off on your teeth.  Mine was Revlon number 742.  It was the perfect lipstick. 

I was down to the metal rim of my third tube of the marvelous stuff and standing in my local drugstore looking for another, never suspecting Revlon was about to betray me.  There were all the tubes arranged by number in the little slots with the matching plastic color swatch, I reached my hand out and to my dismay there was no number 742—not even and empty slot.  Revlon color number 741 was nestled against number 743 as innocently as if 742 had never existed.  My favorite had been… the dreaded word…discontinued.

Why my color, I thought?  Why not that offensive bright pink that no one in their right mind would ware?  Or the dark red that was almost black that not even Goths could think of as a good color?  How had my perfect color offended the lipstick gods and gotten itself removed from the shelves? 

I was soon to realize that fault didn’t lie with poor Revlon #742 but with me!  

Then it was perfume.  Aliage, a wonderful fragrance that I wore every day, got a remix and smelled like cat pee on my wrist.  Nylon stockings that wore like iron were replaced with ones that ran if you looked at them.

 

I can do it with television shows, too.  Studio 60 and Journeyman – both excellent shows, in my opinion—lasted only a single season.

 

And food!  Ruby Red Grapefruit from Crystal Light—a delightful flavor—gone from the shelves.  Bubble gum flavored Fruit Punch is still there.  And Boston Market Chicken Pot Pies have disappeared from the frozen food section.  The one frozen food item I could count on to please when even the idea of cooking was beyond me.

 

And those little chocolate cakes that Weight Watchers makes…vanished! They still make the insipid carrot cake, the un-lemony lemon, and too-sweet artificial flavor caramel.  Chocolate, I ask you, how could they discontinue chocolate?  Gone from Stop & Shop, Price Chopper and the Big Y.

Oh yes, I looked.  But alas…  My personal preferences have again guaranteed the demise of a perfectly good product!

 

Twinings Black Current tea is already off most supermarket shelves but I can still order it on line.   The TV series Bones is due back in April but I only discovered it last fall, so you have to give me some time.    

 

I’m eating ruby red grapefruits.  Real ones.  Could this mean a bad year for Florida grapefruit growers?

 

So my advice to you is stock up on Burt’s Bees Raisin lip gloss, Starbuck’s decaf Verona, and Olympus compact digital cameras.  I think they are great.  And you know what that means! 

Comments

[pandora]

OK my dear friend. this supernatural "I can kill anything" only happnes to anyone with the level of good taste that you have. I understand compeltly as I have found that if I like a TV show it also goes the way of my favortive nail polish or food item! Could we possibly be sisters in taste?
With all this said I hope you hate my newly lanuched company and that it lives long after you and I no longer matter! Smile Cat it can't happen all the time!
By the way my friend want me to see if I can get you your discountinued lipstick? I got misty mauve nail polish long after it was "discontinued"! It pays to have friends in high places!

Smiles, hugs and cheers.....

[pell]

I LOVED JOURNEY MAN! Try reading "Replay" by Ken G_________ I can't remember his last name at this moment. FABULOUS.

[tracy]

OH NO!! Not Bones! The tea I could handle - bought some way over priced replacement - Bit Sigh - I loved Bones - Sigh - I'll start maourning.

[Brenda Hock]

Judy, this is classic. I'm amazed, in telling the story, of the number of fans of Revlon 742! I've become a charter member of hardtofindgrocer.com, searching for things like Milani's 1890 or Henri's Tastee salad dressing and the like. There is just no justice in the world, is there.
Keep up the wonderful blogging, my friend.
Best
Brendini, the kitchen genie

[Richard]

You do sound like a woman who's luck is not, let's say, great. Here is the part that makes me nervous: you know me and have told me that you like me - what's to become of me? If it does happen to me, I'll try to get back to you and let you know where all your favorites are. Hopefully, your luck has changed. Richard