Sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen island, Mom showed me the Smith’s coupons, and showed me her shopping list, including vitamins costing their weight in platinum, including bags of Jelly Belly beans and individual Snickers snack-size bars, including two large bottles of bleach.  It seemed to me, I observed carefully, that we had bought two bottles of bleach concentrate not so long ago, and I asked with feigned disinterest how much bleach she uses.  “I use three cups of bleach for a load of whites.”  I blanched.  My nonchalance gone, I blurted to her that three cups of bleach for one moderate load of whites seemed like a lot.  “That’s just what I started doing a long time ago,” she shrugged.  I hear that observation too often at work in city hall: That’s just how we’ve always done it.  The time often comes when a different way becomes a better way.  But I still put two new bottles of brand-name bleach in the cart, and, meeting her one aisle over, she glanced over the cart and gave a quick approving nod.