The Problems of Color and Choice

by Janis Patterson

Where have all the colors gone? We're rapidly entering a sad and monochromatic world.

Maybe I had better back up and tell you what is behind this melancholy rant. You see, I have a pink bathroom. An ALL-pink bathroom, and as things will when they grow old our toilet (pink, to match the sink, the bathtub and the wall tiles) broke. Well, what can you do but buy a new one?

Except that no one makes pink (or any real color) toilets any more. We went to big box DIY stores, specialty plumbing houses, commercial plumbing suppliers, even contacted manufacturers. Most of them didn't laugh at us, but it made no difference - there is no such thing as a commercially available pink toilet. We were told by a manufacturer that we could order a specially made pink toilet - at a price that was a little better than tearing out the bathroom to the studs and starting over... but not by much.

What makes me angry is that there is so little choice. At all the outlets we found at least three shades of white, between four and seven variations of beige (called 'Biscuit') and a rather creepy solid, shiny black. And nothing else.

So we chose white. It looks really weird in our pink bathroom, but I hope to ameliorate the effect by painting flowers to match our shower curtain on the tank. Desperate measures, I know, but the whole situation is as depressing as when colored toilet tissue disappeared. When we heard on the news about this obscenity, my dad went out to at least six stores and bought every package of pink toilet tissue they had. His daughter liked pink, so she should have pink! Of course, as that was many decades in the past the supply ran out long ago, but alternating with white softened the impact of having no choice except white. (Biscuit - no way; black - ick!) I still resent the freedom of choice being taken from me.

In other areas of our lives freedom of choice is being slowly but definitely eroded. Look at cars; the vast majority are white/silver and black. Every so often there is a red and less often than that a blue - in new cars; customer-painted aftermarket is a different thing. It's boring, but thankfully in cars - at least for now - you can buy your way into individuality - sort of. The Husband's car is a 2011; mine is a 2013. His is brilliant red, mine a pale liquid blue. We had to pay $500 each (a small percentage of the total cost and would probably be more now) to get something that was not black, white or silver but at least we had the choice - however costly - of getting a color.

So what does this have to do with mystery writing? Ten-fifteen years ago when the big publishers controlled what was published, one by one lines tightened (or disappeared) and the choices of type of book decreased accordingly. This holds true for all genres, too - mystery, romance, science fiction, women's fiction, whatever.

Then the self-publishing revolution began and suddenly writers could write what they wanted to write and readers could read what they wanted to read, all without the oversight (or interference) of the New York publishing types. Now this does mean there is a ginormous amount of absolute rubbish being published almost daily, but it also guarantees that every reader can find the precise sub-set of book they want to read. It puts the freedom of choice back into the hands of the writers and the readers, proving that there is hope for the survival if not resurrection of personal choice.

Unfortunately for those of us who have colored bathrooms or hate white/silver/black cars, I doubt that there will ever be a situation where people can design/color their own bathroom fittings or choose whatever color of car they want to order... but that's by no means a guarantee. Twenty-five years ago who would have even imagined the scope and reach of self-publishing? Who knows what's going to happen regarding the available colors of bathroom furnishings or new car colors?

Whatever it is, it will probably be far too late for me to have my pink toilet, drat it!