I’m seven.
I feel like I’m rowing in the hull of a Greek slave ship.”
That was breakfast.
And in the midst of that dark and hopeless moment,
the Kellogg’s Pop-Tart suddenly appeared out of Battle Creek, Michigan.
Which, as you cereal fans know,
is the corporate headquarters of Kellogg’s.
And a town I have always wanted to visit.
Because it seemed like some kind of cereal Silicon Valley.
Filled with Breakfast Super Scientists working on
frosted, fruit-filled, heatable rectangles, in the same shape as the box it comes in.
And with the same nutrition as the box it comes in, too.
That was the hard part to achieve.
I don’t know how long it took them to invent the Pop-Tart.
But they must have come out of that lab,
like Moses with the two tablets of the 10 Commandments.
(holding over head religiously)
“The Pop-Tart is here.
Two in the packet.
Two slots in the toaster.
Let’s see you screw this up.
Why two?
One’s not enough.
Three’s too many.
And they can’t go stale.
Because they were never fresh!”
All You Can Eat
What is the idea of the buffet?
“Well… things are bad.
How could we make it worse?”
Why don’t we put people that are clearly already struggling with portion control,
into some kind of debauched Caligula food orgy of unlimited human consumption?
Let’s make the entrance a chocolate syrup water park slide… and you surf down on a churro.
So people feel in control.
And able to make sensible food choices.
The human brain does not do well in an unsupervised eating environment.
We need guidelines.
Boundaries.
That’s why when you walk in a restaurant the first thing they give you is a menu.
The menu means,
“Calm down.
You’re going to get some food.
Here are some items.
Just take it easy…”
The buffet is basically like taking your dog to Petco
and letting the dog do the shopping.
You give him your wallet in the parking lot and go,
“Here’s money.
Why don’t you go in and get whatever you think is the right amount of dog food for you…
Use your dog judgment.
I’m going to wait here in the car.
Leave the window open a crack so I can breathe.”
You come back two hours later,
he’s wearing a headset, working there as an assistant manager.
“We love him. We have never had an employee with this kind of enthusiasm.”
The buffet breaks down human reason, judgment, portion sizes, combinations.
No one would go into a restaurant and say to the waiter,
“I’ll have a yogurt parfait, spare ribs, waffle, meat pie, crab leg,
four cookies and an egg white omelet.”
People are building Death Row Last Meal wish lists on these plates.
It’s like a perfect working model of all their personal problems and emotional needs.
They walk around holding it out so everyone can see,
“Here’s what I’m dealing with…”
It’s like a salad with a scoop of ice cream on it.
“I’ve got some unresolved issues I’m trying to work out here at the buffet.”
They start spinning around like a broken robot vacuum.
“Kale chips—maple bacon…”
They hit a wall, “Muffin muffin muffin muffin…”
They start accosting strangers.
“Excuse me, what is that? Where did you get that? I didn’t even see that.
Is that a caramelized chicken leg? I’ve got to try that.
Give me yours. You know where they are. You can get more.
Come on!”
Swanson TV Dinner
The opposite of The Buffet is a Swanson “Hungry-Man” TV dinner.
Little taste of prison right there in your own home.
Try the Leavenworth Chicken or the Alcatraz Meatball this week.
But it’s an honest product.
It’s TV dinner.
They’re telling you,
“Just stare at the screen and chew.
Do not look down.”
That’s what TV dinner means.
“Keep your eyes front. Grind it out.
(staring straight ahead, shoveling food)
It’s TV dinner.”
Every Swanson box for some reason says, “Hungry-Man.”
I guess they had a marketing meeting:
“All right…
Well, we’re not going to do anything about the quality, we’ve agreed upon that…
So…
we just have to figure out
which segment of the public should we focus on,
that could potentially choke this pig food down?
I was thinking, what about hungry men that are broke, alone and starving?
I think taste is the last problem they have.
We could package it like a horse bucket that just hooks on their ears.
Let them stomp around their house like that.”
But Swanson has helped people too.
To achieve dreams, goals and aspirations they may have buried deep inside.
You bring home a Swanson,
heat it up.
Peel off that plastic.
And plow through those four compartments of hell.
By the time you get to that Peach Cobbler
… you’re like,
“I’ve got to make something out of my life!
This is ridiculous.
I don’t want to live like this anymore.
Swanson… Why don’t they call it Swan Song?
My life is over.”
The Raisin
I admire the fighting spirit of the raisin.
Mysterious in its movements.
Never invited.
Just shows up anyway.
Rice pudding.
Noodle dishes.
Weird salads.
A lot of,
“How did that get in here?”
with the raisin.
I think when you start out as a grape
and you don’t know if you’re going to end up as an elegant chardonnay
or a wrinkly little raisin,
you’re just flying by the seat of your pants.
* * *
I don’t even know who’s in charge of raisins.
I know that Sun-Maid is the largest and most powerful raisin company in the world.
And I know they recently came out with their very first chocolate-covered raisin
after 80 years in the raisin business.
Can you imagine not thinking of that for 80 years?
What a bolt of lightning that must have been
for someone at Sun-Maid
coming out of the office,
after another tough raisin week.
Frustrated, struggling to popularize the god damn raisin.
And then finding him- or herself in line
at a movie theater candy counter going,
“Hmmm, Raisinets…
That’s interesting. I can see that
the word ‘raisin’ is part of the name.
So there has to be some similarity
between their delicious, delightful, worldwide smash-hit chocolate-covered raisin product
versus our dry, wrinkly, tasteless, lifeless, hopeless, depressing,
makes you want to take your belt off, throw it over a pipe and hang yourself raisin product.
I wonder what the difference is?
&
nbsp; If only we could isolate the key ingredient.
Because god damn it to hell, we’ve tried everything else.
Giant boxes, tiny boxes, party bags, cylindrical-shaped boxes with like a Tupperware top.
Little boxes cellophaned together in groups of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12.
People don’t seem to respond to any of the numbers.
Thompson raisins.
Yellow raisins.
Jumbo raisins.
Craisins!
We don’t know what to do.
What if we tried doing something with the Raisin Lady on the front of the box?”
“Like what?”
“You know… the blouse?
Little lower? Little tighter?”
“No, you don’t.
This is a family company.
Core values.
We’re not whoring out the Raisin Lady.”
It was probably a janitor going by with a broom that went,
(walking by sweeping, then stops)
“Just put some chocolate on it, you morons.
Stop punishing people.
I work here and I prefer Raisinets myself.
I like the little ‘shuka-shuka’ sound they make when you shake the box,
because they’re not all stuck together inside.
So I don’t have to crook my finger like the Wicked Witch of the West to get them out.
It’s just chocolate.
It’s not heroin.
No one’s going to have an issue with it.
Just melt it. Dip it. Sell it.”
And that is how a humble custodial worker
became the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Sun-Maid raisin company.
The Weight Problem
I see all the same shows you do.
“The Weight Problem in America.”
I don’t think we have a weight problem in this country until
we’re all physically touching each other all the time.
Just solid human flesh from coast to coast.
Like a jar of olives.
All these shows start with that same camera shot on the sidewalk.
Regular people walking by.
Low angle, so the heads are cut off.
Can’t see who it is.
Not flattering.
I always wonder if one of those people is at home later going,
“Hey, that’s my ass on CNN.
That’s not fair.
I just stepped out to get some Donut Holes.”
Donut Holes
The Donut Hole.
What a pathetic snack choice that is.
You want a donut?
Have a donut.
What are you eating the hole for?
It doesn’t even make any metaphysical sense.
You cannot sell people a hole.
A hole does not exist.
It is the absence of whatever is around it.
If it was really Donut Holes, the bag would be empty.
The only thing you could do,
is take what they are calling Donut Holes but are not.
They are Donut Plugs.
And you could shove the plugs into the holes.
Which I don’t even feel comfortable saying for some reason,
but that would eliminate the plug, the hole and the donut
but you still have a fat ass,
and people shooting you with a camera as you’re walking down the street.
Offer Drinks
People come over to my house, my wife always says to me,
“Did you offer them something to drink?”
“No. Wherever they were, there were drinks there.”
There’s no place left with no drinks.
There’s a Mini Mart every four feet out there.
The only thing I see on the street are people with a giant drink in one hand
and a communication device in the other.
“I’m down to 14 ozs.
How far out are you?”
“I just had a latte, I’m going to get a green tea, I’ll meet you at the juice bar.”
When we were kids, we’d have one sip from the school water fountain
and run for 28 straight hours.
What the hell happened?
I like the Mini Mart because it’s mini but it’s packed.
It’s tight. It’s jammed. Every spot is used.
We do not waste space in the Mini Mart.
“Got an inch open?
Put a ChapStick in there.
We’ll sell them that.”
Hydrate
We’re all delicate exotic ferns now in need of constant hydration.
People on planes are like they’re in the hospital.
“Can I get some water, please?”
“Hydrate” is the new annoying word.
“Did you hydrate? Make sure you hydrate.
Are you hydrating? You better hydrate.
You need to hydrate. Make sure you hydrate.
Do you know what could happen to you if you don’t hydrate?
You could get dehydrated.”
Oh no.
Wouldn’t I get thirsty first?
“No. There’s no time.
According to the fitness people on TV,
if you feel thirsty, you’re too late.”
What do I do then?
“Try and catch the pieces of your face as they dry up and crack off onto the floor.”
Tired
Energy drinks, of course, the most popular category.
Ener-G
Powerade
Monster
Rockstar
Red Bull.
Why do people love energy drinks?
I guess the real question is, why is everyone so tired?
“Tired” is another word you hear all day.
“I’m tired. You tired?
You feel tired?
I got tired last night.
Did you get tired?
At the end of the night, I just went to bed.”
Yeah, that’s the way it works.
Maybe we’re putting too much energy into the sleeping experience.
* * *
With the Sleep Number bed.
“I’m putting mine on 45.”
“I’m cranking mine to 78.”
Waiting to see how long your handprint stays in the foam.
Jumping up and down trying to knock over a glass of red wine.
Just lie down in the bed.
When you’re out of bed, that’s when you do stuff.
Sleep Aids and Coffee
There’s quite a few ads for sleep aids on TV.
Ambien, Lunesta.
People floating through dreamscapes in their kitchen.
Hanging out with hedgehogs and Lincoln.
Hey, you don’t think there’s any possible connection
between all of us drinking these
giant, insane coffees all day long
and then suddenly finding you need a horse sedative
to get your eyelids out of your skull, do you?
I don’t see any relationship between those two things…
The Out Thing
You hear people talk about it.
“Let’s go out. We should go out. We never go out.”
Well… this is it.
This is the “Out Thing” you people are constantly discussing.
Now, the other good thing about being out is you don’t have to be out for long.
Just long enough to get the next feeling, which you’re all going to get.
And that feeling is,
“I’ve got to be getting back.”
After all that work you have put into being out,
you’re only halfway through this nightmare at this point.
You’re going to have to undo this entire process you just went through, in reverse.
The people, the cars, the clothes.
Everything has to go back where you got i
t from.
Not the money, the money doesn’t come back.
Forget that, that’s gone.
Coming Down Your Aisle
And you’re good.
You’re happy in your seat.
Until you see somebody else coming down your row.
“Oh my god. Would you look at this. Can you believe these people are coming in here now?
This is outrageous. I cannot believe how inconsiderate some people…
I’m not standing up for this guy. I’ll tell you that. I’ll give him one of these.”
(rotate both feet to the side)
“Or, I might lift up the bottom of the seat and sit on that a little bit.
Just so I don’t give him a full stand.”
You have to make that little sound, as they go by, so they know how unhappy you are.
“Tsk.”
That’s the sound you make in public when you don’t have a car
around you protecting you so you can give the finger.
The Finger
I’m driving the other day.
I move in front of this person.
Guy gets all upset.
Thinks I cut him off.
I did not cut him off.
Some people feel like when they buy a car,
it comes with all the air in front of the car too.
So he gives me The Finger.
Really didn’t know we were even still using The Finger.
It does seem like we designed the car as a device
Just to move around and give Fingers.
Metal to protect you.
Glass, so everyone can see all The Fingers clearly.
What is The Finger anyway?
Why is this finger “The” Finger?
It’s a finger.
Basically you pick a finger.
Show it to another person.
And they’re supposed to feel bad.
I don’t.
It’s just a finger.
(show middle finger)
This finger is very bad.
(show thumbs up)
This finger is very good.
So, whenever I get this finger
(middle)
I try and remember,
I’m really only one finger away from a compliment.
(thumbs up)
Prison
What is prison?
All prison is—is just a place that you’re not allowed to go out.
That’s the whole punishment.
Is This Anything? Page 24