More is less

I’m in between a lease signing and a listing appointment in St. Paul, so I pop into Davanni’s for a quick sandwich. I order, give my first name (why do you have to spell it for them, are they going to pronounce Jeanna and Gina and Geena differently when they say it over the loudspeaker? Phonetic spelling will be just fine, thanks...) and head over to the soda machine to grab my diet coke.

But, wait! The machine looks different. There is only one place to put your cup, and hey, I’m no dummy, I can see that it is computerized, but where are the directions? Where is the button marked “ice”?? Where? I stand, dumbfounded, staring at the machine. I then realize I am blocking the path of a man years older than myself, and look expectantly at him, thinking we’ll commiserate about newfangled technology, etc. But, this guy is confident. He goes for the iced tea dispenser next to the fancy soda machine and I feel shame, until I notice he doesn’t have ice. Aha! I’m not the only one out of my element here. So, I muster up the courage to say, “This is confusing. I wonder how it works?” He’s cocky, all full of his ‘just put the cup under it and it’s automatic’, only he really doesn’t know, because he starts flopping around pushing buttons and levers and I’m watching him like he holds the key to happiness and I think my mouth may have been hanging open. He steps over to the straws and I’m on my own. I’ve learned from his flopping that I can push the lever to get ice. Ok, this I’ve done, I’ve got this. Then, I touch the icon marked Diet Coke (listen, I have an iphone, I can do touch screens). Diet Coke is one of 21 choices on the machine. This leads to another screen, where I must choose the type of Diet Coke. Lime, I’ve seen, but orange? Raspberry? Really? I pick regular, fill the cup, manage to get in the old guy’s way at least four more times, as we dance around, looking for cup lids, etc.

I stammer out that I’m sorry, but I’m all discombobulated over the fancy machine and I can see that he would rather not talk about it and I wonder, as I do many times each day, why I always have to give explanations to people when they didn’t require them.

I sit down, silently chastising myself for my neurotic tendencies, ready to wait for my sandwich. But it occurs to me that other sodas might have new flavors, too, so I watch for an opening and dart back to the machine. Indeed, there seem to be six flavor choices for each soda. This is, let’s do the math, 21x6 = 126 different choices on the machine. That is 126 different options for what soda to drink at the Davanni’s at Cleveland and Grand in St. Paul.

Which gets me thinking. How many choices to do we really need? Is life somehow better because you had 126 choices of soda at Davanni’s? Yes, yes, when I get asked “Is Pepsi ok?” I’m always a little pissed. Pepsi, blech. We all have our preferences. But, I can drink Diet Pepsi. It won’t kill me (ok, it might).

But is it a life better lived when choosing from an endless variety of carbonated cancer juice?