Feeling Ethnocentric

Today while unloading groceries, I got really annoyed. At the bottle of toilet bowl cleaner.

What did the toilet bowl cleaner do to piss me off? Nothing. It was the way it was packaged.

Ever since NAFTA, however many years ago, we've become accustomed to seeing packaging with English, Spanish and a lot of times French on a lot of the goods we purchase.

So I should be used to this by now. But today the half Spanish/half English label really peeved me off. It's just one more item out of many. Do you know how cluttered labeling gets when you cram two, three, or even more languages on it? It's the clutter that was the last straw this morning. I'm sick to hell of clutter and information overload.

The last month has been one big clusterf*** of clutter in the workplace, clutter at home and new information for me personally, so that may be why I'm feeling a bit sensitive toward something like this right now. But for years we in the lab have dealt with the frustration of unfolding a giant, map-like package insert of a reagent or test kit, and hurrying to find the microscopically lettered instructions in ENGLISH, so you can find that critical piece of information you need like YESTERDAY.

It's not that I have anything against the people that speak these languages. It's just that why do we have to pack so freaking much information on our packaging these days? Isn't it bad enough there are now televisions in checkout lanes, scrolling tickers of additonal news stories below the actual news on the screen, and all the other signage blaring at us from every wall and roadside?

And yes, I do feel we are being just a tad too accommodating toward non-English speakers who decide to come to this country to live for a good long time, or permanently. And that we ought to stop it. Now.

The can of butcher-block sealer we bought from IKEA made almost laugh hysterically. I unfolded a 2-foot length of paper from the lid that looked something like round paper dolls to reveal instructions for use in every language from Korean to Magyar. Magyar! Now this leads me to suspect the company is just showing off.

Yeah, all right, we do live in an increasingly global world now. Get used to it, Reinert. But I guess I feel just a bit pressured to stop being so...American. Like it's unfashionable or even backwards to *only* know English. If I want to learn another language badly enough, it will be German. And I'll do it in my own time and pace. And yes, I feel just a little guilty for not having already done it.

Enough pressure, and enough clutter already, dammit!!!!