Buyer's choice

We tend to buy and enjoy the same things over and over, and then one day, when we can no longer buy them, it's sad news. 

F'rinstance, our cats enjoyed doing their royal business on a fresh layer of Yesterday's News, which was recycled newspaper in little pellets. It made the perfect poop-and-pee base, and I'm sure that lots of people saw the delightful irony of cat waste being mixed with last week's New York Times. We used to buy it in huge sacks, which the Amazon guy really seemed not to enjoy lugging up to the porch, and maybe he was the one who talked the manufacturer, Purina, into discontinuing the product.  

But we found a similar product for less money, and Eddie, now that she is an only cat, seems not to notice the change in her toilet ritual. 

Now for another problem: there will be no more Stoned Wheat Thins. It was always the best cracker, and now it's been discontinued, and it's even hard to say whose fault this is. According to SLATE online, "The cracker was produced by Red Oval Farms, which is a brand name of Mondelēz International Inc., which itself is a rebranding of Kraft Foods’ 'global snacking business.' ”

I mean, really. 

I loved STWs in all their forms: regular, low sodium, and mini. All went well with  a nice hunk of cheese or salami, with maybe an olive or an anchovy flying up top like a banner. 

Perhaps the problem with Stoned Wheat Thins was the confusion with the inferior Wheat Thins, the stamp-sized wafers with a curiously salty taste. The real STWs did not bring their own flavor to the party; they relied upon you to slam meat or cheese on them, or plunge them headlong into some dip or pimento cheese spread.

As store shelves grew increasingly bereft of our favorite cracker, some turned to Amazon and found they were asked to pay $25 for two boxes, and who am I to pay for crackers like that? I'm not J. Paul Spaghetti, you know. And Amazon now has placed SWTs on their "currently unavailable" list, which is their way of saying, Go to Trader Joe's and see what he has.

Anything but Wheat Thins or the Nabisco alternate, Wheatsworth, with always seemed like a regular Saltine with a touch of rough flour thrown in.

I don't know, you find something you can count on, and poof! It's gone. I wish I could be as flexible as Eddie about these things.