I consider myself a smart shopper, and I learned long ago that there's a considerable number of brand names that are the same as cheaper products. Oh, there are exceptions of course. I like Dr Pepper, and I have yet to find a 'cheap' version that I like as much. (Mr Pibb isn't really any cheaper and I hate the other knock-off Dr Pop.) I also only buy Martha White flour because my mother and grandmother both swore it was the best to make soft, fluffy biscuits with. Honestly, I don't even know if that's necessarily true, but I still only buy that particular brand of flour.

Yet, when I was younger there were certain things I was taught that you looked for the brand name. My father would never have bought a television with an unfamiliar brand name, and when we needed a new washer, my mother insisted we get a Maytag.

However, it seemed to me back then that those products actually were better. Maybe it's because I was young and I didn't really pay that much attention, but a part of me still wonders. I know the television we had back then was sixteen years old before the picture tube finally gave up the ghost, but the one year old Sony TV I have now keeps losing sound for some reason.

Is it my imagination or does brand names mean less now then before or did they ever mean anything? I have to wonder.