I should probably buy a new toothbrush. I tend to use mine until it’s splayed, flattened, and soft. This task, buying a new toothbrush, should be as easy as picking it up at the grocery store on one of my weekly or more than weekly trips. Except… I’m pretty sure everything in the aisle with the toothbrushes and toothpaste and other personal care and health items is behind locked, glass doors. This is enough of a barrier to make me consider ordering my toothbrush on Amazon. But then I remember that I don’t like Amazon and am participating in my own personal and ineffective partial boycott against amazon. For a host of reasons (bad labor practices, unethical business practices, and monopolistic tendencies) I try to use them as infrequently as possible. Convenience, however, is an awful and alluring temptress.
This is what I think about when I’m brushing my teeth in the morning. It begins with needing a new toothbrush, but quickly shifts to the question, “so what if it’s behind a locked glass case? just ask the person in the store for help.” That, I think is the miscalculation that many of these stores have made. The mixed messages alone are confounding: you trust me to ring myself up in the self-checkout lane, but you don’t trust me enough with the store-brand dental floss? Instead, you want me to summon assistance? This after a pandemic in which we lost some of our ability (and desire) to interact with other people – especially over trivial things like the niceties exchanged in a grocery store? The pressure alone to know exactly which of the 25 brands, flavors, and derivatives of mouthwash I want when the clerk arrives is enough to give even the most confident of performers stage fright. “Oh wait, no, could you open that again, I grabbed the wrong one. I wanted the green one that has whitening and fights gingivitis and not the semi-green one with enamel protection and 24-hour freshness. Oh, wait! There’s a purple one that dose all of those things? What’s the price difference per ounce, I can’t read the label from behind the glass? I swear it’ll only be another moment.”
After years of blaming poor store performance on retail theft, and dangerous neighborhoods, and the pandemic, the CEO of Walgreen’s has admitted that this practice was bad for sales, “When you lock things up, for example, you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.” As someone who pays way too much attention to his own thought processes, I can attest to this. I notice the mental hoops I jump through every time I have to buy something that’s locked up. I start to think of other local stores where I might be able to buy it with greater ease. I walk down the aisle and sigh the heaviest of sighs as I pass my own sad reflection in the glass case. I put off buying it. I consider placing an Amazon order. I grumble quietly, “shopping shouldn’t be this hard or convoluted.”
What I’m most curious about, and what I have no answers for, is why this barrier seems as insurmountable as it does? What are the below-the-surface factors going on? Is it because we don’t like asking for help? Is it because we don’t like being deemed untrustworthy? Is it because we don’t want to interact with other people? Is it because it’s less efficient and takes a little more time to ring the bell and get help as opposed to being able to grab something off of the shelf? Is it because we’ve all had the experience of waiting for help that never arrives – (perhaps that’s my abandonment issues creeping in)?
For me, I think it’s a combination of all of those things – things which, under scrutiny, aren’t terribly insurmountable barriers to buying a new toothbrush. Sure, I don’t like to be a bother or to ask for help – but this is what people are being paid to do. I could consider it as my contribution to supporting the economy. And no, I don’t like being deemed untrustworthy – but that distrust is directed at everyone, not just me. As for interacting with other people… when I go to the store, I expect, and choose, to interact with the cashier (I never use self check-out). But I’m not sure up to the task of more than one interaction. I’m not sure I’m prepared for more than one opportunity in any given shopping trip to show how socially awkward and inept I can be, “That’s a great mask you’re wearing, and I really love this brand of hemorrhoid cream – it really takes me to my happy place.” I’ll concede that waiting for help is decidedly less efficient, but not only do I have two minutes to spare, I’m also trying to rid myself of the need for efficiency – what better way to practice? And yes, I’ve had the experience of standing helplessly in the aisle of a mega box store with puppy dog pleading eyes, wandering around as though I’m lost in a desert and some clerk, any clerk, could be my salvation with a small cup of water in the form of customer assistance… but that has not been my experience at my grocery store. Typically, I ring the bell and they show up. Sometimes, their cruising the aisle looking for people, like me, who might need help.
Despite knowing all of those things, despite recognizing and believing that every opportunity to connect with someone is an opportunity to build some sense of community, despite despite despite… I still have the very real, if not humorously insignificant, problem of needing a new toothbrush. A conundrum that will probably stalk me for a few more weeks.