A Patriotic Moment

I must start off by confessing a little-known secret of mine. I am a habitual label reader. I read labels when I am going through my daily, mundane tasks. I don't do this for any health or wellness concerns. Usually I am bored and it has become a habit so I read the labels off anything - soap, DVDs, Germ-X, etc. Think of it like a kid that reads the back of the cereal box. I do this too, but I also work my way through the ingredients list and wonder if there's someone at Quaker Cereals that just throws long words in the list for fun. As if some executive is like "Hey, Bob. Let's add proxysocoglucocamine to the ingredient list!" To which Bob would ask, "What is proxysocoglucocamine?" And the former executive would shrug and say: "Made it up. Wonder if anyone would notice."

Moving on - (Sometimes I distract myself) tonight as I was taking my shower I started reading the label of my Apricot Facial Scrub and noticed at the bottom it read: Made in the USA. I was immediately excited. I do not shop on the basis of where the product is made. According to my high school economics teacher, this is not good for the American economy. But if one shirt at Walmart is made in a Taiwanese sweat shop and sells for $5 and I have the choice between that and a shirt that looks exactly the same for $50 just because it was made in the good ole US of A, I'm most likely going to go support Taiwanese child laborers. It's just the ingrained capitalist in me. The cheaper product sells. But when I saw that written in -12 pt font on the bottom of the label, I suddenly felt very patriotic. In a little way, I was restoring the US economy by using my facial scrub. Excitedly, I started looking on EVERY bath product I had and here's what I discovered. My bath products are exclusively made in the USA. I was very proud of myself as I prevented acne and AT THE SAME TIME did my little part in helping our nation.

So, tonight, I felt a little warmer as I brushed my teeth knowing that while my clothes may all come from SE Asia, my bathroom is probably the most patriotic room in the house!