The subject came up in a coffee klatch with Brother Clark and Sistah Lisa.

I don’t remember the specifics of the convo; I only remember the flash point, which was the word “choice.”

Essentially, after rappin’ ’bout this and that, we agreed that while having no choices is oppressive, having too many choices can be downright crazy-making.

Let’s say I want laundry detergent. Should be a simple chore, right? Wrong!

Just go in the detergent aisle of any grocery store. There’s liquid or powdered, scented or unscented, concentrated or regular, with or without bleach. And this doesn’t count sizes or package materials or anything else.

So now, The Big Question: Amidst all those choices, how do you find out which one is the best deal?

Well, there’s price. But is the cheapest detergent the best one? You tell me.

I guess you could buy the one whose advertising most appeals to you. But frankly, before I’d believe an advertiser’s claims, I’d invest my life savings in oceanfront property in Arizona.

Of course there’s always a friend’s recommendations. But are your friend’s standards for detergent the same as yours?

And all this shtuss begs the essential question about laundry detergent, namely what difference does any of this make? According to Bill Rich, The Grand Wazoo of Washers and Dryers, not much. What cleans your clothes is a combination of water temp, agitation and detergent. And of the three, as every dobi wallah knows, agitation is the most important. It may be the only time agitation is a good thing.

Another example of this — education.

When I was in college a mere half-century ago, picking courses and majors was easy-peasy. I studied history and had two choices of a major — American or European. I chose American and among the courses I had a choice of maybe five courses a semester. And it was the same for all my peers, regardless of major.

But today? Colleges, even small ones, offer literally dozens of majors. And if you can’t pick one from among the multitude, there’s a major that seems to be no real major at all. It goes by different names but is something like Interdisciplinary Stuff or Multi-Subject Studies. From what I can gather, it’s like a combo dinner menu in a Chinese restaurant — pick one from Group A, two from Group B, one from Group C, etc.

On the one hand, the students get exposed to a vast and varied assortment of courses. On the other hand, I’ve no idea if they learn anything in depth or even master college-level literacy and numeracy. Then again, I’m not sure if those things have anything to do with today’s education anyway.

Good for what ails ya … maybe

Somewhere else choice is confounding — health food stores.

Used to be health food stores were very small, very simple establishments. The only thing they had was food that was good for you but tasted like crap. Stuff like wheat groats, kale, sauerkraut juice, sorghum molasses, tofu, and on and on. But today? Now they’re bigger and have a huge variety of things, only some of which is food. And even then, while a lot of the food now tastes good, it’s not all that good for you at all. They have sodas and candies galore; some have a good supply of beer and wine.

But the real confusion in health food stores arises not from the wares themselves, but from the miraculous properties touted by their various advocates. Feeling tired? Try ginseng. Knees aching? Glucosamine’ll have ya sprinting up he stairs in no time. Bladder raising hell with a good night’s sleep? Ginkgo biloba’ll set you right, Dwight.

So am I anti-health food stores and alternative medicine? Not at all. Just is, as I said, the choice of

nostrums and panaceas is so plentiful, it’s hard to tell what among them, if anything, actually works.

So what about conventional medicine?

Good question.

While I avail myself of conventional medicine and doctors, I’m not doing it out of blind faith. In fact, my faith in the medical establishment isn’t even myopic. If anything, following the metaphor to its logical conclusion, I regard the medical community with perfect 20-20. And the reason for that is choices. Quite simply, the docs have so many drugs to choose from, I’m not sure they’re fully hip to what they’re hustling all the time.

Want an example? Good, I just happen to have one.

—

The acid test

A bunch of years ago, after my annual physical, my doc said he wanted me to take folic acid. Frankly, while I knew that ants produce formic acid, I had no idea what folic acid was. As a matter of fact, I’d never heard of the stuff till he mentioned it.

“Why should I take this?” I asked.

“Because,” he said, “it coats the walls of your circulatory system so plaque doesn’t form.”

So who was I to argue with not wanting plaque on my veins and arteries and all — especially after my triple bypass?

And thus I took my folic acid religiously for a bunch of years, till after another annual physical he told me to stop taking it.

“Quit taking it?” I said. “Why?”

“Well,” he said, “according to the latest research, it raises your chances of having a heart attack or stroke.”

“Well, isn’t that a fine howdy-doo?” I thought.

First, I was supposed to take this stuff because it’d prevent me from having a heart attack or stroke … and then I find the exact opposite is true.

Not that I blamed the doctor. He acted on the best information he had. Couldn’t fault him there, because he did nothing wrong. Still, the information itself was doo-doo. And in addition to shaking my confidence in the medical establishment, it reminded me of a joke.

A guy cuts his finger, it gets infected, and he goes to the doctor.

The doc checks him out and tells him to soak his finger in ice water five times a day and come back in a week. He does as told, but his finger gets even worse.

On the third day, he’s in the kitchen soaking his finger, thinking it’s gonna explode, when his mother comes in.

“What’re you doing?” she says.

“Soaking my finger in ice water,” he says. “The doctor says it’ll get rid of this infection.”

“Ice water?” she says. “That’s no good. To get rid of infection, you soak your finger in boiling water.”

She boils some water, he soaks his finger in it and it starts to feel better. A day later, the infection is gone. When he goes for his follow-up appointment, he’s mightily annoyed with the doctor.

“Look,” he says. “You told me to soak my finger in ice water, and the infection got worse. Then my mother, who only has a high school degree, told me to use boiling water and it cleared up.”

The doctor is silent. He just sits there, shaking his head.

“Well,” says the guy, “what’ve you got to say for yourself?”

“Only thing I can,” says the doctor.

“What’s that?” says the guy.

“Am I to blame ’cause my mother told me to use ice water?”