James Lileks: It's Cold Comfort at the Drugstore

The Star Tribune [Minneapolis/St Paul] ^ | January 27, 2004 | James Lileks

[quidnunc]

A recent study (the columnist's friend!) noted that people are sometimes overwhelmed by choice in the marketplace; apparently, if you show people six jellies, they'll buy one. Show them 60 and they back away whimpering and don't buy jelly at all. To which I say: Wimps. The jelly aisle is a challenge any American should be able to meet. Bring it on, Smucker's. Give me the seedless and the seedful, the preserves, the blackberry currant in an inverted squeezable bottle with a no-drip spout, the Mackingham & Prosley Curried Marmalade ($5.99, imported, by appointment to the Royal Family, very classy, inedible) and I will find what best suits my jam profile, OK?

Cold medicine is different. You're at the drugstore. Oh, you could have bought your cold medicine at the grocery store, but they have a motto: Since you're too sick to make another stop, we're jacking up the price by 75 percent. You won't give them the satisfaction. You drag yourselves to Walgreens.

Your head feels like a radio station you can't quite tune in; your throat feels like you plunged it with a toilet brush, and your nose contains six cups of mucilage. Here's what you want to see:

1. Liquid Cold Cure

2. Cold cure in tablet form

3. Stuff we are certain doesn't work

And that's it. But no; you have an aisle of products:

-snip-

[KarlInOhio]

Non-drowsy 96-hour Comtrex with pain reliever and methamphetamine

Now that's something you don't find on every store shelf.

[wisconsinconservative]

Lileks bump

[princess leah]

Comtrex works like a charm! As for Jellies, none better than Knotts Berry Farm Jelly!