Uniqueness is sometimes overrated
You know, life would be so much easier if certain things were just standardized. In fact, here are the three things that I think should be standardized first:
3. Microwave control panels: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to reheat a slice of pizza and ended up, after a dozen useless button pushes defrosting 11 lbs of ground beef instead.
2. Parking ticket dispensers: There is nothing worse than standing in the middle of a rainy, unsheltered parking lot trying to figure out how to buy a ‘place face-up on the dashboard’ ticket. Some are straight forward, there is a set price and you pay it to get your ticket. Others require you to punch in the anticipated length of your stay before it will let you know what combination of nickels and dimes need to be poured into the machine. Others are as complicated as American voting machines; I swear that one day in a parking lot in Virginia I accidentally donated $20 to the IRA.
1. Bra sizes: Seriously, why do I have to take three different sizes of five different bras into those cheesy pink curtained changing rooms in order to find one that fits? Can’t there be an industry standard with a little bit of lycra built in to provide just a tad of personalization?
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with all of the standardized stuff in Germany (I am not sure how it looks in the rest of Europe–anyone know?).Standardization is a very big thing here.
–Paper sized are so standardized that each subsequent one is exactly half the size of the next-biggest. A4, A5, A6, etc.
–Pillows come in only three or four sizes, always standard ones. Any pillowcase of one standard size fits the corresponding pillow.
–Shoe and clothing sizes are also very standardized–so much so that you can practically buy stuff without trying it on– except that each European country uses different sizes. So tags are very confusing.
–There are even purity standards for beer. There are only four ingredients that are even allowed to go into beer: malted grain, hops, yeast and water. No sugar,no herbs, no honey, no nothin’.
–The system of education is very standardized and very complicated. However, school vacations vary from state to state! Ooh, how loosely organized!
–Everybody even eats practically the same thing for breakfast and dinner here.
I have to admit it’s a lot easier to manage one’s life sometimes when everything matches… but I love variety and sloppiness and colorful things…
Hear! Hear!
And shoe sizes, too! I have at least 3 sizes of shoes in my closet.