Two Kinds of People . . . .

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The Twisters & The Knotters

So, you're in this kind of upscale

grocery store,

where they actually trust you

to package and price your own produce.

It works like this:

Very rustically organized loose fruits

and veg, in a wood highlighted,

low lighted 

space.

You take as much

as you want;

they provide the plastic bags

and the twistees.

You collect your food, put it in 

the bag, take note of the code,

enter said code into the 

scale, weigh and price

the product.

(couponsherpa)

OK?  

Easy enough.

A child could do it, 

and many children have done it,

taken to the upscale grocery by his mom,

the kid gets a kick

out of weighing and pricing

the food.  Alec Baldwin,

for instance,

may have done this as a child,

for the sole purpose

of making his mother happy.

And it was this very evening,

as I was trying to open some spinach

purchased earlier at the upscale grocers,

struggling

with a poorly tied knotted bag,

that I thought that oft thought thought:

There are two kinds of people in the world:

The Twisters 

and

The Knotters.

 ( papermart )

 Now, I'm sure you're just

dying to know what

this all means:

Well, it's simple, and 

it manifests itself at the moment

of trying to open the bag.

I confess, I am a knotter.

By that, I mean:

when at the upscale grocery store, putting

my spinach into

its plastic bag,

I realize:

there are no twistees to be seen.

                        I scan

the produce horizon,

                          and all

                       I see

are empty twistee containers.

So, what do I do?

I knot it.

I'm sure that if I looked,

just a little further,

or planned my bag closure for later in the department,

I would most definitely find twistees.

Somewhere.

Most definitely.

But do I wait?

No.

I knot it,

then weigh it,

then price it,

then get on my way.

Now the Twister people are the ones

who do all the things I just told you I don't do,

or better yet,

they find an employee and say:

"you're out of twistees."

Thus, the employee replenishes the twistees,

often faster, depending upon

how many Twisters have pointed out

the deficit.

Now, at the moment of trying

to open the package at home,

the difference between Twisters and Knotters

becomes even more apparent,

because the Knotters realize

fairly quickly

for the umpteenth time,

that they just wasted a perfectly good bag.

Faced with the encased spinach,

the Knotter rips,

and knows they cannot reuse

that bag if any of the product remains,

therefore, they need another storage item

for the remainder 

of the spinach.

This is why Knotters have quite a selection

of fancy zip lock bags or other

assorted storage devices.  Either that, or they

keep using the same tattered bag, and then

end up throwing it all out - spinach and bag.

Twisters, on the other hand,

have quite a nice collection of twistees at home,

so they can reuse that bag, easily.

Furthermore, since they have such terrific foresight,

Twisters generally finish all of

whatever

they have in their fridge,

because they remember twisting the twistee

on that planned portion of food.

Knotters, on the other hand,

often forget what's in the fridge, and it 

rots and leaks

all over.

In general, then, Twisters are more frugal and efficient,

and Knotters just

kind of don't give a damn.

Knotters, in fact, get frustrated over the whole thing,

especially since they generally don't have time

to clean their fridge,

so they do 

one of two things:

a.) they start shopping at the local big box

flourescent lit store, because it's easier

and results in a multitude of small packages in

the fridge they can't ignore

or

b.) they buy a new fridge

or 

c.) both a & b

Twisters, on the other hand, make their fridges last

forever, and always know

what's in them.

Now, before you go forming your conclusions,

about Twisters and Knotters; let me

add another dimension to the 

analysis:

after these shoppers

Twist or Knot,

they all place their own personally packaged

produce 

on a scale, and enter

a code, 

the appropriate code

for that item.

Now, no one's watching -- 

                                   hell,

there are no twistees here!

Where's the person

who's supposed to make sure

there are twistees?

(Where ever they are,

I'm sure twistees are the last things

on their list of tasks to do.)

So, anyway, unmanned,

unsurveilled, who is to keep

a shopper from marking spinach

with a cheaper price,

or tossing an exotic fruit in

with a few fuji apples?

Yes, this is where the division

between Twisters & Knotters

gets blurred,

because the most diligent Twister might also be

the one who knows what she

can mix in with the romaine, and get

cheaper.

And the Twister may also be

the person who knows the check-out

people (oh, the poor check-out people, who

are burdened with the task of making sure

the shopper has grapes in a bag priced for grapes).

So, this particular Twister knows exactly which

check out person is tired and not looking at what

they're doing, so that frugal Twister

is also getting a double, maybe triple bargain.

If they're really meticulous,

they have coupons, and they might end up 

getting paid for their trip

to the upscale grocery store.

Meanwhile there's a Knotter struggling to find

her glasses in her purse, so she can see

the correct code.   She may get it wrong 

the first time,

and goes back and gets it 

again, until it's right.

These pathetic people generally waste a lot of money

and time.  But

they're kind of funny to talk to.

So the Knotters of the world, as a consituency,

are really not deserving of

reproach.

This is not to say, too,

that all Twisters are

schysters; indeed,

some of my best,

kindest

friends

twist and they also always

get the right code.

In fact, on my better days, 

I do that, too.

And there are Knotters who wrongly code, and degrees of coding and closure in between.

So what does this all mean,

in the larger scheme of things?

Does it mean that there are not two different kinds of 

people in the world,

but rather a vast multitude of individuals.

Or it may also meant there is

really only one kind

of person: 

the Sometime Twister & Sometime Knotter

who wishes they could be

consistent?

Either of the above could be true,

as could this, which I read

on a fortune cookie

the other day:

There are two kinds of people in the world:

those who think

there are two kinds of people in the world,

and those

who do not.