Variety is the pumpkin spice of life
Mostly I ignore pumpkin spice. But looking the other way becomes harder with each passing year.
When I pulled in to fuel my car last week, I expected my choices of gasoline to be regular, hi-test and pumpkin spice. I was wrong. Instead, I was treated to a pump-mounted LED screen on which a way-too-cheerful woman was giving detailed instructions on how to make your own egg noodles.
The gas pump was at what used to be called a convenience store. I would have understood if the tiny female trapped in the display was telling me I could buy a King Kong-sized pumpkin spice latte and a pumpkin spice footlong with pumpkin spice mustard and shredded pumpkin spice cheese for only $1.99. That would’ve been convenient.
But how convenient is having to take notes on the back of a crumpled pumpkin pie Kit-Kat bar wrapper in order be able to make your own egg noodles after you get home? Especially when they won’t even be pumpkin spice egg noodles?
OK. OK. I’m ranting about pumpkin spice. I’m sorry.
I’ll rant instead about how impatient we have become.
I was in my car at a red light about 8 a.m. one morning last week. One second after the light turned green, the pumpkin spice latte-sucking driver behind me laid on his horn. Now, I easily could have let loose a few rounds from the .50-caliber machine guns I had mounted in my trunk right after I saw them being advertised on a gas pump on the 4th of July. But I resisted the urge. Instead, I sat at the light for five more seconds. Because I have patience.
Remember that?
Patience. I can still write a long letter to a friend rather than send him texts with the random assemblages of capitalized letters that has become our universal shorthand. I can still talk on the phone for 45 minutes rather than make an excuse to hang up after one minute. I can sit through a long movie with a convoluted plot and zero explosions. I can ignore TV commercials rather than switch between channels for two minutes. These days, it seems too many people cannot.
Neither, apparently, can we go without being entertained for longer than it takes to pump gas. We have to be distracted by recipe-hawking pitch persons.
Nor can we concentrate for longer than it takes to order a pumpkin spice latte. Because humans have diminishing attention spans.
Research reveals that from 2000 to 2015, the average attention span of humans shrank from 12 seconds to 8.5 seconds. This may not seem so bad … until I reveal that the attention span of a goldfish is nine seconds. Knowing this should make you go green around the gills.
Doesn’t seem so bad? Ponder this: During the 3.5 seconds you no longer can pay attention, you will misplace your pumpkin spice latte. No worries.
Or ask your goldfish where you left it.