Sandwich Fixins #7
Refrigeration broke down on the Magick Sandwich delivery truck and all the yummiest stuff got spoiled. So it’s back to salt and ketchup packets today, as we give you another handful of fixins:
How much waste is created in the making of those high-minded recyclable shopping bags? They’re everywhere. Do you think Rite Aid cares if they’re made in China through child labor? Does Whole Foods ensure the resulting toxic run-off doesn’t end up in our water supply? The regular plastic ones are still made, too, and thanks to their high percentage of recycled material, they have to be doubled to keep from breaking two steps out of the store. Yeah, this is working.
At what point will we admit that these pathetic efforts are like putting a band-aid on an avulsive wound? It might make us feel better but the patient is still bleeding out. Of course, the earth will rebound once it has shaken us off like fleas from a dog’s back.
On a related subject, I’m getting sick of environmental groups saying that Americans use too much toilet paper. Here I draw the line. Isn’t it enough that we use recycled paper that gives us a spa-worthy exfoliation of our collective ass cracks? I don’t need Sheryl Crow or Laurie David or Joe Treehugger inviting themselves into my bathroom.
I also don’t want to stand downwind of them. When they sit down, do they crunch? I wonder how much waste water is generated from the extra detergent it takes to remove all those skid marks. From where I sit, the amount of toilet paper I use is just enough.
Note to autoerotic asphyxiators: don’t forget the lime! You bite down on the lime at the moment of climax to wake yourself up before you die. I saw it on an old episode of CSI. You can get a lot of useful information from that show.
The world might still have David Carradine and Michael Hutchence if only they’d had a small wedge of tangy citrus. Or a spotter.
*****
I am viscerally creeped out by John Travolta’s hairline. It gives me goosebumps. Does he use a stencil and spray-on hair in the front? Or is he the first human Chia pet? It could be a Scientology thing: maybe that’s how they all look on Xenu‘s home planet.
Overheard in the post office:
“They call it settling like with cereal so they don’t have to give you a full box. Or like you have a bottle of Snapple that isn’t completely filled. They say it needed air. But they’re just ripping you off.”
That guy should be in a think tank somewhere. Then “they” should fill the tank with water and leave him for dead.
I’d like to end the week with a pet peeve. Please feel free to add your own.
Why do fancy restaurants grind pepper and dust my pasta with Parmesan? Are they adding value to my dining experience? Do they think I’ve never done this myself or won’t do it properly and thereby ruin the chef’s work of art? Are they trying to dictate how their dishes are garnished? Or maybe it’s a cost-saving measure, à la McDonald’s Ray Kroc: don’t give them condiments unless they ask for them.
I happen to be a person who likes a lot of pepper and grated cheese, so I’ll have that poor waiter grind away over my plate until he has carpal tunnel syndrome and other patrons are staring at me, judging me crass, low class, piggish, as if I’d ordered a steak at Peter Luger and asked for A-1 sauce. Or had a cheese souffle at the Plaza and covered it with ketchup.
My feeling is this: once I’ve ordered, this is my food and I can do whatever the hell I want with it. If that happens to mean I use a lobster as a dancing puppet at Oyster Bar—true story—then so be it. Leave the fixins on the table and step back. The fun’s about to begin.
More fixins:
Sandwich Fixins #4
Sandwich Fixins #5
Sandwich Fixins #6
I'm all for giving up toilet paper as soon as "three seashell" technology is perfected.
If you end up missing, I guess we can all assume the Scientologists had something to do with it.
I'm at lunch today, not TWO hours ago, at this Italian restaurant where the waiter is shaving parmesan on my spaghetti and I make him stop about TEN MINUTES earlier than I really want him to because of my wretched self-consciousness. With that piddly amount, what's the point?
And thanks for making me look up "avulsive". That sentence was so much more visceral after learning what it meant.
Great post. You're right: the Earth will shake us off one day and it won't matter how much toilet paper we used or what kind of bag we carried it home in.
Alll rightythen. I must congratulate you on fitting the words "lobster" and "dancing puppet" into a coherent sentence. That's a feat I never thought I'd see accomplished in my lifetime. Bravi, maestra. Bravi!
@Jay: I'm really afraid to ask what you mean by that.
@C.B.:It's okay, I'm tight with some Freemasons.By the way, their secret code is "tubal cain." Say it to one sometime, especially of you are black and/or a woman and watch them freak out. They're probably not going to protect me now, are they?
@Nanny: I know! Eventually you make a spectacle of yourself if you make the waiter keep going. He'll start looking at the other waitstaff. Other customers crane their necks to see the gauche woman who likes too much cheese. Then you get spit in your dessert. It's true: I've worked in restaurants. You have to hope it's only spit.
I don't remember when I learned the word "avulsive" but I've always loved it. It's so evocative and has such a nice mouth feel. It's difficult to work into conversation but I try.
@John: We'll leave behind the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating trash pile that's 80 percent plastic, as a final fuck you to the planet. But the planet still wins.
@Mojo: The fact that my date thought the dancing lobster was funny was probably a good indicator that we would work out as a couple. I've done it a few times in the 21 years we've been together and he still laughs. Loving each other's silliness is a good thing. Awww…the dancing lobsters just became a touching life lesson. I'm good, right?
I agree. I think Sheryl Crow must have skidmarks. lol. I've made fun of her plenty over at fracas… but that one, I don't think I ever thought of.
Shudders…
@fracas: I feel sorry for Sheryl Crow after being dumped by that one-balled man whore Lance Armstrong. But telling me to use one square of t.p. is a little too personal for me.