This morning I couldn't find that little green piece of string you pull to open a roll of Butter Rum LifeSavers and realized that there hasn't been a little green piece of string to open the package in a long time. I've been using my thumbnail for ages. At some point in the past, the people who made Life Savers decided to eliminate it. Probably because it rarely worked. Most times you'd pull on it and it would either break or not tear the packaging where it needed to be torn. Nevertheless I'd always give it a shot. On those days it would actually open the roll, it would give me a lucky feeling that would last all day.

And what about the little red closure-tie that they used to put on a package of saltine crackers? Somewhere in the murky past Premium Brand decided to get rid of it. But since it was actually useful and worked as intended, I'm guessing it was a financial decision instead of a functionality decision? Oh well. Now-a-days I just twist the end of the package and hope it stays closed enough that my crackers stay somewhat fresh.

And then there's Grandma's Brand cookies. They used to be huge. You'd get two big cookies in a package and it was a hearty enough snack that you'd be filled up enough to get through the day until it was dinner time. But now? They're so small. They kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking until one day you buy a package of cookies and realize you're getting half of what you used to get. At some point Frito Lay decided that it would be better to trim the size of Grandma's cookies instead of raising prices... destroying the reason you bought them in the first place... their large, satisfying size. Now that they're no bigger than regular cookies, I just buy a package of Chips Ahoy and pop a few of them in a baggie. Grandma's Brand is dead to me.

Every day little pieces of our lives are being diminished or taken away completely.

We rarely seem to notice.

Until one day we look at where we've landed and realize there's nothing left. No string-pull on our LifeSavers. No closure-tie on our crackers. Not enough cookie in our cookies.

Meanwhile, in all too many places in the world, somebody is starving and couldn't give a shit about my lament over the decline of snack-food convenience in America.

I should probably feel much worse about writing blog entries like this than I actually do.