Stickers on produce. Why? Oh why??
Those of you who know me well are very aware that I have plenty of weirdness lurking in my brain. Hey, we all have a variety or three of weirdness going on, do we not? We all think our personal weirdness makes sense (and is, therefore, not weird) and we do not understand why other people’s weirdness is different from ours. Then when we see someone else being weird we’re all dude, that’s so weird. When in truth, the weirdness we see in others is simply a different variety from our own weirdness because we are all weird.
The Bible backs me up on this although I think it uses more terms like “different gifts” and “knit together uniquely” and stuff like that.
So here’s one of the ways I’m weird that you likely did not know as of yet.
First, I love staring at my groceries. Yes, you knew that one already. That’s not my weird thing even though it kind of is. What you didn’t know is what I’m about to show you. I cannot handle it. I mean, it looks like a lovely table full of grocery and Bountiful Basket purchases. But as it is at this point, I can not admire it. There’s too much distraction.
Stickers on Produce!!!!
There are stickers everywhere. It’s highly alarming. I want to see the pretty produce in all its natural beauty. But the bar codes and the item numbers and the sticky residue – oh it is all too much.
Say it isn’t so.
So weird thing #672 about Laura: I have to take all the stickers off my produce the minute I set it down in my kitchen. The admiring of the produce cannot happen until all stickers are removed.
You think I’m kidding.
Ahhhhhhhh, there now. Now we can all stare at the pretty produce, without stickers, in all its God given glory.
Before you say, wow Laura that’s weird – let me just remind you that you also have weird things that you cannot handle. They are perhaps different from my weird things because God knit us each together uniquely amen and amen. But you, my friend, are also weird. And I mean that in the kindest, most supportive way. I do.
Today, let us embrace our weirdness. Leave a comment confessing one way you’re weird.
Just so you know, if you make fun of my weirdness, I will pretend to give you a big bear hug but what I will actually be doing is placing all 28 of my produce stickers onto your back then watching to see how long it takes you to notice. Then people will see your back full of stickers and think you’re weird and it would be for real.
That is totally NOT weird! I grew up in the 70s before they were putting stickers on produce and I remember when they started doing it and I was like “Ewww!”. Where I live now, we have a very progressive yard waste/compost program with our city garbage service and one of the issues they have is that those darned stickers aren’t compostable yet they end up in the compost bin from fruits and veggies where the peel is discarded (bananas, oranges, etc.)! SO, they came up with a program a couple years ago where they issue bingo-type cards that you fill up with your produce stickers and once your card is full, it becomes a voucher for a discount on bags of compost for your garden. My kids have had so much fun with it. We keep the card on a magnetic board on the inside of our pantry door and fill one up in a matter of 2-3 weeks. FWIW, I was told there is an effort ongoing to start producing compostable stickers (let’s face it, the stickers are here to stay) so I suppose that’s progress and eventually the “bingo” cards won’t be necessary. I’m glad to know I’m not the only produce sticker “weirdo”! :)
Wow, those bingo cards sound pretty cool. I’d fill those like crazy!
Lol!
I can’t even list all of the ways that I’m weird! My daughter thinks I’m weird because I am a woman and I don’t notice what shoes and clothes that other women wear!! She’ll say, ” Mom did you see the awesome shoes that Zelma had on today in church?” and I give her a blank stare and then she rolls her eyes at me LOL! I am NOT a clothes person!! I wish that I could wear a t-shirt and jeans (or jean shorts) every single day!!! And tennis shoes or flip flops!! Life would be so much better that way!!!
Tennis shoes or flip flops – YES!!!!
One weird thing about me is that bathroom vents drive me crazy. I know they serve a purpose but I can’t stand to hear them left on when no one is in the bathroom.
Those little produce stickers are annoying. I agree. I wash all my produce as soon as I get home from the store so my family knows that it is ready to eat. I like to look at the pile of stickers and think how much good food we will be eating them at week.
Good point about the pile of stickers – it’s a reminder that we’re eating lots of produce. I’ll try to remember that next time I’m ripping those silly things off my good produce!
Oh, let me count the ways. If my dishwasher isn’t loaded just so, I have to rearrange everything so it will wash ‘correctly’. This, despite trying to train children in help load and really, really trying to praise their best efforts in getting their dishes out of the sink and into the dishwasher in the first place.
You would pass out if you saw my dishwasher. You would not even like me anymore. I promise. I cram the dishes in just like no one is supposed to do it. Every time.
So, just don’t look inside my dishwasher and we’ll be fine. (My kids are loading it as we speak.) :)
I think my strangest thing is that I can’t stand having my belly button touched. Like really can’t stand it. If someone puts their finger in there, I might cry or throw up, or both.
If someone else is unbuttoning my jeans (for totally wholesome reasons that I can’t come up with at the moment, yeah right), I have to put my hand between the jeans and my tummy so the jeans don’t poke it.
I even get kinda queasy looking at someone else touching their belly button like a baby playing with theirs, or someone picking lint out of theirs.
You mean there is someone else out there with that same problem??? I can’t stand having my belly button touched either. My daughter used to just show me her big pregnant belly with the belly button sticking out and I would shiver with horror! Also, my husband and son were just laughing at me the other day while folding towels because I was putting all the washcloths according to color and then from darkest to lightest. That’s another way I’m weird.
Darkest to lightest, huh? I have to do mine in a pattern: dark brown, light brown, dark brown, light brown. I mean…I thought that’s the way you’re supposed to do it. :) :)
I am sooo sorry that what I’m laughing about is the wholesome reasons for someone to unbutton your jeans and accidentally touch your belly button. This made my day!!!!
I have an internet camera pointed at my garage door that I can check on my phone because I am scared the auto reverse will kick in and the garage door will be left open with no one home.
That’s classic. I need a camera pointed at my stove so I can check it while I’m gone to make sure I turned it off. Hmmm….
Okay, okay. Useful internet information here. When you turn off your oven, clap your hands! You may not remember whether you turned off the oven, but you will remember that you clapped your hands! :) Make a game out of it! My husband still remembers his mom saying, “off off, 140, off off.” in front of her old stove when they left the house!
i am just weird all together and at 40 i have embrace it. one of many weird things I do is. The kitchen has to be clean before I can cook in it. Theres time supper late because I cleaned it or have went out to eat because it was clean enough.
It is soooo much nicer to cook in a clean kitchen, I agree!!!
Nobody… I mean nobody, is allowed to touch my toes or get any where near them. Don’t even look at my toes! It’s safer that way. For you. Safer for you.
When I (finally) clean and organize a messy room I go in many times after for no reason at all but to stare at the order and tidiness!!
Oh my goodness RaShell, that is me too! I KICK when someone touches my toes, and I can’t help it so I’m sorry if you’re nose is bleeding but you came near my FEET!
I absolutely love gardening in my bare feet – feeling the dirt between my toes, and stepping in puddles left by the hose or squishing down into mud.
But at the same time I absolutely MUST wear gardening gloves because, God forbid, I touch a bug with my bare hands.
This made me laugh out loud. Filthy feet allowed, but the hands must stay clean! I mean, it makes perfect sense. :)
I. Love. This. Post. I know I am weird, but I just don’t understand why it always seems to shock my family. I mean, they are supposed to “get it”, right. Just kidding…
So, hearing the sound someone makes while eating peanut butter or cheese is like nails on a chalk board to me. I just cannot stand it, and I have to leave the room when someone (ahem, my husband) is making all that racket. When I was pregnant, I may have made him eat such things in our basement…
Yay for weirdness!!!
Yes! Family is supposed to get it and think that all of our weirdness is adorable. And yes, that smacky sound that results from cheese or pb – it’s just too much. I’m cracking up at your banishing your hubby to the basement so you wouldn’t hear it. Ah, the things our men have to deal with (I mean, the things WE have to deal with. THEY are the weird ones).
I once bought some apples with stickers so sticky that I had to peel that portion of the apple! And stickers on soft-skinned fruits like peaches, plums, and nectarines annoy me because they always peel off a little bit of the skin. So while I don’t have your same “weirdness”, I do understand some level of annoyance with produce stickers.
Hmm. . My weirdness. But I seem so normal to me. :D
I always peel a little of the skin off too…grr!
I understand and accept your weirdness fully. I cannot sleep if my sheets are crooked :-)
Oh man, crooked sheets. And then our toes stick out and the top corner hits our noses. You’re right. The sheets must be straight.
i was just thinking the other day how much I dislike those stickers. I was peeling one off the fruiti wanted to eat. What does that leave on your fruit? Yuck!
Yes, the sticky residue. Nasty. :)
I am one that has to have the dishwasher loaded the way I want it to me. I rearrange it when someone else does it wrong. I like all my clothes hangers going the same way and all the same kind hung together in the laundry room.
I think my face got hot when I read this! Someone else has my hanger matching quirk!! Sometimes I feel so silly organizing hangers, but I just feel so much better when I look at my hangers and they are all “organized” by color and size/type. Even though it really doesn’t matter. I’ve got lots of quirks as I call them like folding the chip bag just so to close it, folding laundry just so-although I’m not OCD about it because I do allow the children to help me, and the shower curtain must be pulled closed before I leave the bathroom to name a few!
I’m the opposite with the shower curtain. Mine needs to be left open. If I go into a bathroom with one closed, I have to peek behind it to make sure there’s nobody in there before I use the bathroom. But, I just don’t care much about hangers.
I also have to have the shower curtain closed, Anna Rose! But Jenny, I relate to what you say also – so much so that if I’m alone in the house (because that’s when the boogey man comes, I guess) – I punch the shower curtain before I sit down to pee. You know, just to make sure no one is there. I am SO WEIRD.
Charlotte, as I told another commenter above, you would HATE my dishwasher. Please never look inside. Mine is a nightmare to people like you. :)
Ahhh…weird. I happen to enjoy “weird” and am known for having “such interesting friends”. ???? I am quite sure that’s because I am a total weirdo too and have too many quirks (that’s a more charming word to use, yes?) to mention here. But one that comes easily to mind is that I loathe wire hangers. You know those flimsy, metally smelling things that bend and warp and scratch? None for me! No, ma’am!!! All plastic hangers in my closet (& my husband’s & children’s closets too). Here’s to all us weirdos! Let’s accept ourselves & others. After all, we’re all made in the image of God so He must really be somethin’!!! ????
Charming…yes that’s a great word to describe all of our weirdness. :)
This is SOOOO NOT weird. Another thing that bugs me about those produce stickers is that the consumer absorbs the cost of the sticker AND the workers hired to put the stickers ON the produce. I’m mature (ahem!) enough to remember when the check out lady or boy (girls and men never seemed to work that part of the store) KNEW what the produce and the price were. Or they were smart enough to be able to read to look it up. I DO like the idea, though, of the voucher card. Still, the card is just SOMETHING else produced and un-recyclable, it seems. Imperfect world weirds me out! Thanks for letting me vent.
Yes, I hadn’t even thought too much about the cost – I just think they are so ugly and sticky. And you’re right! They always look up or memorize the numbers anyway, so no need for a sticker!
Oh, let me count the ways of my weirdnesses! LOL! Whenever my family of 7 is traveling, I have to wash all the clothes before packing. All. The. Clothes. That can get very time consuming and I often find myself up late the night before our trip, throwing random clothes in various suitcases. But at least they are clean!
Okay, now that is a lot of pre-packing laundry. You go girl!
In my pantry, I keep everything forward facing and lined up like the shelves in a grocery store. Also, I have to keep all my empty hangers in my clothes closet at the left end. I can’t stand it when there are empty hangers mixed in with my clothes.
Everything facing the front in the pantry – YES. Otherwise it’s just pitiful.
I totally get the stickers on fruits and veggies–I hate them. And if for some strange reason I miss one and begin washing said freggies–the sticker is nearly impossible to get off at that point as it has gotten wet. I’m thankful that we all have just enough weirdness to keep things interesting in this life. Can’t even begin to imagine what life would be like if all thought, looked, and behaved entirely identical.
Yes, a wet sticker is awful to get rid of. That’s partly why I always try to take them off right away. But ugh, the forgotten, wet sticker!
I really have enjoyed reading about everyone else’s weirdness……. NOW I know that I am normal! :)
Yes, because we are all weird! :)
Right!
One of my quirks (and believe me, I have many!) is that when Im about to read a novel, I always read the last few pages of the book before I start! Drives my hubby crazy! Oh, and I hate when stores put stickers on the glass part of picture frames..I mean seriously, why do they have to do that? Oh, I could go on and on, but for your sake, I won’t. ????
I’ve heard of weird people like you! :) I can never read the end of a book. Shoot, we didn’t even find out if our babies were going to be boys or girls before they were born because I am that much of a “don’t spoil the ending!” kinda girl!! :)
Ditto on the belly button thing. I have put up with family ridicule for years! ;)
Oh you people and your belly buttons. You’re cracking me up!!!
OMG Laura, this is the funniest thing you have posted I think….and I am right there with all these women…..I am them all, except for reading last few pages of new book, I would never do that, and a couple more which doesn’t pertain to me :) but as for the hangers, I too want my sorted by color in my laundry room which I use only to hand up wet clothes that I dry, so when I take them down, they go in the dryer and fluff up for about 5 mins. then I hang them on different hangers in my closet, the ones that your clothes don’t fall off of…..got them at QVC…..and I too hate the stickers on anything that I have to eat…most of the time I just wash the fruit and cut that part out where the sticker is….don’t want to have that glue in my stomach :)
I think you need to write a book just on this subject and list everyone’s name and all their quirks and see who has the most and the one with the most wins a prize and I guarantee I would win that prize :) ask my daughter….she thinks I am weird in everything I do LOL…..and I have to agree, but at least I am not alone……and do pet peeves too……my biggest is people not washing their hands before they eat ANYTHING…….I can not stand this…..I do not like pot lucks, you never know how clean the food is……this is a big quirk of mine….. another thing if I send a dish to someone’s house, and of course it always comes back clean, I still rewash it…..even when it comes back from my daughters or my sisters…..real quirky eh? Told ya……. I could go on and on….. I think I will start my list now, just in case you decide to write that book on quirks and pet peeves….I think it would be a top seller :)I think everyone wants to know just how quirky (if that is a word) everyone is…..and they will buy that book and I will be the first one to buy it…..think about it Laura….have really enjoyed this email today and sent it to my daughter and some friends…..I’d post it on facebook if I knew how LOL
Enough from me….gotta start my 2 lists……
I always rewash returned dishes too. Surely they get a little bit dirty from there to here, right?!!
And you’re right, a book on this would be a riot! (If I could find the time to write it!)
I hate when my husband or son get gas and don’t stop on an even number. You pumped $34.43 worth of gas?! ARGH!!!
I guess I’m in a silly mood (or I live in a household of males!) because when I read your first few words I was like, “Yeah, I hate when my husband or son gets gas too.” You know…that kind of gas. It’s almost as bad as stickers on produce. :) :)
My family thinks I’m strange because……..I wipe off my groceries when I get home with a paper towel. The bottles or containers we put our mouths on get a disinfectant wipe or a dish cloth with a little dish liquid on it.
My Home-Ec. teacher taught that when I was in Junior High.
I’m almost 60 and I still have to do this.
Linda
I have not laughed this hard in a long time! Thanks to everyone for the reality checks. I was so glad to hear there are others that can’t stand to touch their belly button. I also can’t stand to touch stiff wrapping paper (holidays are rough for me!) One of my boys can’t deal with other people’s feet, while the other son hates it if people scrape their bare feet across the carpet. I’m going to go load the dishwasher (willy-nilly) hang up some laundry (on plastic hangers in no color order) and fold some towels (in thirds, then in thirds again).
Just one?! I’m not sure I can tell just one LOL!
My top weird thing is probably this: I can’t and won’t eat the last serving of cereal in the bag/box. I will leave it for my kids. I HATE all the crumbs in the bottom making the milk all thick and icky.
On your sticker trouble. Let the kids have them! Mine fight over the stickers (especially the banana ones) to ass to their sticker collection books.
This post is a HOOT! I cannot stand for my hands to be wet, sweaty or greasy for any length of time. I love to cook and I bet I wash and dry my hands a thousand times! I had to teach my husband to patty hamburgers and roll cookie balls early in our marriage because it is just not happening for that extended period of time that it takes. And let’s don’t even go down the road of having some gunk under my fingernails or wet sand at the beach – I might just pass out!! lol
Glue is an issue too – just NOT happening! lol
Not weird! Like me, you just appreciate God’s handi-work.
I do it too! Bananas, mangoes, peppers, plums…. and I MUST rip the tag off the pineapple, too! ;-)
I totally agree with you on this. I HATE HATE HATE stickers on my produce, too! Thought I was the only one :)
This is so funny! My issue is crumbs under my feet in the kitchen. I can’t stand to walk barefoot and feel unswept crumbs. This becomes a problem with two little ones running around, so I will be in the kitchen many times a day sweeping or looking on the floor for crumbs/dirt that needs to be swept. My older children sometimes take over the sweeping, and they rarely sweep it to my standards. It’s kind of become a joke around the house, me always with a broom in hand!