By Scott Schmeltzer, Tribune publisher

I’ve had it.

The final straw was broken.

I woke up this morning to vanilla toothpaste.

You may be asking yourself what does vanilla toothpaste have to do with Scott Schmeltzer’s state of mind and why would it make him flip out?

Let me go back to a simpler time when only mint toothpaste and eight colors of crayons were offered.

You see, my general complaint is that we have too many choices.

You go to the store and there is toothpaste that comes in vanilla, orange, cinnamon, and nine different kinds of mint.

Can someone tell me the difference between &8220;clean mint&8221; and &8220;luminous crystal clean mint?&8221;

It doesn’t stop there, oh no. You can have tartar control, whitening, baking soda with or without peroxide, fresh mint, cool mint, sensitive teeth mint &045; and the list goes on and on.

I thought it was confusing enough when one could buy paste or gel, but now the selection options have just gone crazy.

When I go to the store it takes me 20 minutes to pick out plain mint toothpaste. When my wife and daughter go to the store they pick out what they think is cool. Guess what? This week vanilla was cool.

I am not knocking vanilla-flavored toothpaste for some people, but I want my mouth to be mint-fresh after I brush my teeth, not feeling like I just ate a bowl of vanilla pudding at 6 a.m.

I am trying to stay calm, but the number of choices does not stop there. We have 70-plus TV channels and there’s still nothing worth watching.

When I was younger, we had three TV channels, but somehow shows like &8220;My Three Sons,&8221; &8220;The Walton’s,&8221; &8220;Happy Days,&8221; &8220;The Andy Griffith Show,&8221; and many other worthwhile programs seemed to be on.

Today if you turn on the TV, you get sex combined with smut on one channel and smut combined with sex on the other.

The only channel good for kids to watch is Nickolodeon and that is because it reruns all the shows that were popular when I was a kid.

OK, back to choices &045; I think some choices are fine; many great Americans have fought for our right to have choices but some things are getting out of hand.

Did you know there are

120 different colors of crayons, and that includes 23 different kinds of

red? Do we really need 23 different kinds of red?

I am a normal guy and I stick to the belief there are only eight colors &045; black, blue, purple, red,

yellow, green, white, and brown.

I would even say maroon is a color, but only because cars come in that color.

Guys think that every color is one of the eight standard colors or a slight variation of it. I do not think that Burnt Sienna or Caribbean Green are actual colors, but Crayola says they are, so it must be true.

Sounds confusing. I know, I know.

If you challenge my belief

there are too many choices in the world, I challenge you to go into a movie store and try to find two movies in under a day and a half.

I am practically in tears trying to find one movie let alone two movies because I have a coupon for a rent one get one. By the time I come out of the store I usually go home and am too worn out to watch any movie.

In short I just want a simpler time and less choices in life.