10/2/06, a graduate student's study cubby in the library: I went into Wal-Mart the other day to buy a new tube of toothpaste. When I finally arrived at the dental hygeine aisle, I was assaulted by 100! (that's 100 factorial; don't try to evaluate that in your calculator, mine just laughs at me) different available flavors of toothpaste. Here's how I think things got to be the way they are. Sales executives at the toothpaste headquarters got together and made a list of all the great developments that have been made in the last 100 (not factorial) years in the field of toothpaste. Baking soda, peroxide, fluoride, Listerine, whitening agents: you name it, they wrote it. Then, the executives had the bright idea to put them all in different combinations of two to three elements each, each combination offered in at least two different flavors. That way consumers would have to choose which health benefits are the best, a simple task if one is a dentist. Well, I'm not. So thanks for nothing, executives.

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