The incredible shrinking everything

We've all seen those bits on the news, or Andy Rooney getting all crotchety, about product packaging getting smaller but the price staying the same. Did you know that a half gallon of ice cream is no longer a half gallon? Or maybe I should say that a half gallon is no longer the standard size for ice cream. It isn't just food though. A few weeks ago I was changing the toilet paper roll and when I put the new one on, it just looked odd. I took the old tube and held it up to the new roll. The new roll was 3/4 of an inch narrower. Interesting. We still get the 1000 sheets of toilet paper, but they are smaller squares. Brilliant. I wonder who thought up that one over at Kimberly Clark, and I hope they got a raise. It was one of those days, and I couldn't help myself, so I emailed them to inquire. The response I got stated that the "new size" allowed them to fit more product on their trucks and therefore save more energy in transport. Interesting spin to put on them making more money when I get less product.

This mystery of the shrinking product goes beyond the grocery store. Ever been to the clothing store Chico's? Here the product isn't shrinking, just the arbitrary size on the label. Someone there came up with the idea that women don't want to be reminded they are a size 10 or 14, so their sizing is 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. I feel so much better about my body image now that I can strut around in a pair of size 1 pants. I never thought it possible.

You probably thought your bedding was safe. Not so. Earlier this year I went shopping for a new comforter cover, found one I liked and bought one for my queen sized bed. It was labeled "full/queen" and I didn't think anything of it. I put it on the bed and it looked ridiculous, barely hanging over the bed or covering the mattress. I started investigating bedding sizes and they had shaved about 4 inches off the width of a queen to make this new size full/queen. Did they think no one would notice? Now they didn't need to produce two different sizes, they could cover both the full and the queen with one. I went in search of a straight "queen" size in a style I liked. No luck. I ended up getting a king size comforter to put on my queen bed. Crazy, I know, but it looks right! Beware, you never know what may be shrinking!