Nah, not that kind of shrinkage. Simmer down, fellas.
The other day in the grocery store I saw that Cheez-Its were on sale for $1.99/box, so I threw a box into the cart for the boys. A day or two later, Jim had the hongries so he got the box and was munching away when it suddenly occurred to him that there was something awry. The box was really, really small.
Small boxes - men hate those, right?
*whistling innocently*
Anyway. Looks like the Sunshine Company has pulled a fast one on us. The box is now several ounces lighter and is square instead of rectangular. It's basically now postage-stamp sized, but roughly the same price as the old packages. Jim held the box up and examined it before declaring that it was "freaking him out."
Not long ago I noticed the same thing about ice cream. As a kid, we'd get half-gallon containers of my favorite Breyer's ice cream, but a few years ago I noticed that I was able to palm a carton of ice cream when removing it from the freezer instead of having to use two hands. It seemed slightly smaller because it was - it had shrunk from a 1/2 gallon (2 quarts) to 1.75 quarts. No big deal, right? It's not like my waist needs that extra half a cup of smooth, delicious ice cream, right? However the price... it didn't get smaller, now did it? Recently they shrunk the Breyer's containers even more. Now your money will buy you 1.5 quarts and the container looks positively Lilliputian to me.Last September Mala made a similar observation about
Across the board things have gotten smaller; everything from bags of chips to paper towels are smaller but cost the same price. Apparently, inflation causes shrinkage. Since many Americans are overweight anyway I guess it's not a huge problem if we get 2 less ounces of fat-laden potato chips into our gullets, but still... I noticed.
Have you noticed? What else has gotten smaller?