Mrs. Butterworth's, I love you....

Every morning I wake wee one up at 7 and ask her what she wants for breakfast, and every morning she says the same thing. "What do we have", like during the night the breakfast elves visited our pantry, and magically there were new and exciting breakfast foods waiting for her this morning. I swear, I'm going to print up a menu for her so that I don't have to rattle it off every morning....

Anyway, she "ordered" waffles this morning. Not the *dunking kind but the *regular kind. So I popped them into the toaster and waited. After cutting them up I went to the pantry to get the syrup....here's where my strange problem comes in. I have a bottle 1/4 full of "store brand" syrup sitting in front of a 3/4 full bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's. I stood for a moment, deciding which one to choose. Not because there is a huge difference in taste, I actually like the store brand, but because it was Mrs. Butterworth's.  I actually had a mental fight with myself whilst choosing.

"Oh, just use the rest of the generic stuff....no! there is a good bottle right there!....yeah, like she's even going to notice....but what kind of mother are you if you give her the generic when right there is the good stuff?....oh please, what difference would it make?....well, which one would you choose?....okay, I suppose I would choose the Mrs....see?....*sigh....I wonder if my HMO covers outpatient therapy?"

So, in the end she got the Mrs. Butterworth's. I actually guilted myself into giving it to her. Now, let me say that I LOVE generic. I buy it ALL the time. So why does this bother me? Why do I feel I need to give my daughter the *superior brand? What does it mean that I am divided over syrup brands? I'll tell you what it means....it means the advertising is working! That and I'm completely insane. 
So, to put my mind at ease, I decided to give her a taste test before she brushed her teeth. I put a small amount of *syrup #1 on a spoon, and she tasted it. I then gave her a sampling of *syrup #2. After a bit of deliberation, she came to the following conclusion...."I would have to say that #1 tastes better.", and she made a smiley/yummy face to go along with it. Can you guess which syrup it was?

And the winner is....generic. All that worrying for nothing. So now every morning, I can throw caution to the wind and drown her waffles in glorious, golden generic streams of liquid gold, without a care in the world....yet, I will still get a twinge when I bypass the forlorn Mrs. B, all alone in the back of the pantry. Oh, but fear not....one batch of my chocolate chip pancakes and the old girl will be back in business....as my taste test had a different outcome....