Labels

Labels are often helpful, and sometimes essential, as on luggage and on bottles for wine or medicine. Yet no-one likes to be "labeled" I dislike those labels that are stuck on apples and other edibles. They can be missed and left on the food. Barbara tells me of an occasion in which her former husband claimed she had made him a "label sandwich". I can understand that when there are similar items at a different price, those labels assist the checkers to ring up the right amount. But that is a rare occurrence: mostly the labels are not needed for that purpose. Buying the labels and occurring the cost of labor to affix them to each piece of fruit is, in my opinion, a waste of money. Labels are useful if one is sharing a refrigerator with someone. They can also be useful indicators of quality: Johnnie Walker Red Label Scotch Whisky is good: Black Label is better! I recently was asked to remove the two labels stuck on an apple. One came off easily; the other was firmly embedded, so that I gouged the apple, trying to get the label off. A relative told us of a three-label item. It was probably an apple, with one label identifying the variety, one showing the price or numeric code, and one announcing to the world that it was "Organic".