Following the Corner this week may take a bit more of your patience than usual, but I hope it’s worth it. The topic today is laryngitis, supermarkets, and the movie The Hurt Locker. Well, now that’s clear let’s move on.
Some not-s0-sympathetic family, friends, and colleagues of the Corner weren’t exactly heartbroken to hear the Corner had developed a case of laryngitis this week (as some of you may know, the Corner is a ‘professional’ trainer, so the voice thing is kind of important). Keeping my self-esteem in tact, I went to one of the local grocery stores to pick up some over-the-counter medicines in the hopes of nipping this bug in the bud. Now, I know the best remedies really are what grandma suggested; rest, chicken soup, fluids like tea (can’t remember if grandma added the bourbon, but she can take the credit) and ginger ale, etc. But why go simple when I can go complicated! And complicated is what my journey became; for the simple reason of the choices I faced in what to buy. There are meds (not Rx remember) for: cough and cold, cold and flu, nightime and daytime, cough, cold AND flu, sore throat, runny nose, post nasal drip, etc. etc. etc. Oh and let’s not forget the companies that produce these. I’ll let you do the count on that.
I came back to work and did a bit of research and discovered that in 1980 the average grocery store contained 14,000 items for purchase. In 1990 that number increased to 25,000. In 2009 (www.fmi.org), you had a choice from 49,000 items! Yikes! Why? Is this progress? The companies that make these products produce jobs, support families, certainly make life more convenient. What has happened in our modern lives that going to the store became such an exercise in decision making? What does this mean for our planet in terms of sustainability? Reducing comsumption realistically? No answers here, just lots of issues to ponder as this young century gets another year older…..
Which brings me to the 2009 Academy Award winning Kathryn Bigelow Iraq war film, The Hurt Locker. This is a terrific movie about soldiers who are charged with dismantling IEDs (improvised explosive devices) before innocent citizens and soldiers are killed/maimed. The protagonist of the story, Sergeant James thrives in this highly tensed atmosphere. It gives him a rush he can’t find anywhere else, and he just can’t seem to quit volunteering to go back again and again; face death and defeat it. Never once in those nerve racking scenes does he display anything but utter confidence and arrogance. But there is one scene in The Hurt Locker where James is perplexed, lost, confused, unsteady and frustrated. That one scene: he is home on leave in the States; he stands in the cereal aisle of a supermarket and is overwhelmed at the choice he has to make to buy a box breakfast food. He can’t do it. He returns to Iraq.