Copyright is held by the author.
SO, YOU know when food talks to you in the supermarket? Something you have a particular weakness for like salted caramel cookies or tiramisu ice cream sandwiches (or chips for the more savory minded among us). And depending on your hormone level they just seem to scream EAT ME!!
And you’re all:
What? (You look around.)
Right here?
Right now?
And then they stop being maniacal for a second to be like:
Yeah. It’s not like you’re stealing. You can just bring the empty packet (you know you can’t have just one either) to the checkout and pay for it afterwards. They don’t know what kind of day you’ve had. They can’t judge.
And you think:
Oh but the shame!
I shouldn’t be eating things like you at all! Much less ripping you right from the supermarket shelves and devouring an entire package outside the comfort and safety of my bathtub.
Your what now?
My bathtub — you know, sometimes you just want to be alone with your self-loathing/pity/disgrace/humiliation — whatever emotion you’re currently conspiring to eat away at before it eats away at you.
OK, no, that’s a little odd.
And you stare at each other judgingly for a menacing minute.
Wouldn’t you rather I just buy you and then keep you on a high shelf at home, untouched as proof of my pillars of self-control until one day I cave and try to ravage you but it’s too late because you’ve long since expired. But even as I cast those capitalist expectations aside and rip into you I find your contents fossilized and starting to sprout mold. And I weep, I weep actual tears for what we could have been had I not thwarted our union with my self-righteous health concerns.
No. That kind of shit only happens to vegetables and other stuff you bought when you thought you were better than yourself. Although it’s pretty hard to imagine anyone wanting to ravage vegetables.
So you’re saying you’re irresistible?
You know I am.
What about me? A small voice peeps out from the opposing shelf. Could I be a good compromise? I’m healthy and delicious.
Shut it you lying sack of granola green-washing, nothing involving quinoa has ever been delicious and what the fuck is agave anyways?! Forcefully you grab the evil empty calorie cookies without even looking and start to exit the aisle.
Once on the lips . . . The quinoa cookies blink innocently.
“I will decimate your entire marketing and distribution get-up. One tweet. That’s all it takes. I will sign up to twitter just to end you.” You shout aloud unintentionally.
A dark roasted coffee and a good laugh. Great way to start the day.
Very funny! I too have had conversations like that at the grocery store.
I needed a good laugh after reading yesterday’s daft story of a daft OCD grass cutter. My only wish is that today’s story had been longer. Maybe I’ll read it again.
Ah. The finest compliment Michael: I’ll read it again.’ I agree. It is a fun read.