paste-eaters anonymous

Why Retail Clerks Can Be Surly: An Explanation In 56 Indictments.

Indictment 1:  She pulls up to the bookstore and parks her Cadillac Escalade right up front, except that she makes no effort to straighten it out and it takes up half of another space. 

Indictment 2: She might have been able to park better if she wasn’t talking on her cell phone when she pulled up...

Indictment 3: ...or if she had driven in using the entrance instead of the exit...

Indictment 4: ...or if she had approached it at a reasonable, slower speed.

Indictment 5:  She is still on her cell phone as she takes a child out of the back seat.

Indictment 6: She lets the child run out into the parking lot.

Indictment 7: She drags the wailing child into the store.

Indictment 8: She is still talking on her cell phone.

Indictment 9: She makes no attempt to quiet wailing child...

Indictment 10: ...instead talks louder on her cell phone to be heard.

Indictment 11: She pushes wailing child towards the Children’s section...

Indictment 12: ...while she heads for another section on the other side of the store.

Indictment 13: In spite of being far removed from the wailing child, she still talks loudly into the cell phone...

Indictment 14: ...discussing the inconvenient scheduling of her mother-in-law’s upcoming gall bladder surgery.

Indictment 15: Wailing child has stopped wailing, but is now calling for “Mommy! Mommy!”

Indictment 16: “Mommy” is oblivious to child’s calls.

Indictment 17: She fails to respond to the crashing sound in the Children’s section.

 Indictment 18: Clutching several magazines in one hand and cell phone in the other, she sits down in a chair flipping through them, depositing them on the floor when she gets to the end. 

Indictment 19: She gets up from the chair, leaving the magazines on the floor.

Indictment 20: Her child has cleared out the entire bottom row of picture and story books, also leaving them on the floor.

Indictment 21: While perusing the Parenting section, she pulls out a pile of books, holding some, but putting others back in the wrong shelf.

Indictment 22: She is still on her cell phone...

Indictment 23: graphically discussing childbirth...

Indictment 24: ...in the Children’s section.

Indictment 25: She steps over a pile of books the child has left on the floor.

Indictment 26: She grabs her child by the arm, causing the child to wail.

Indictment 27: Again.

Indictment 28:  She makes no attempt to quiet the child.

Indictment 29: Again.

Indictment 30: Struggling to hold books in one arm while holding the hand of the wailing child and holding her cell phone in the other, she drops the books onto the check-out counter. 

Indictment 31: She never acknowledges the presence of the cashier.

Indictment 32: She leaves the books, Your ADD Child, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, and It’s Easy To Organize! at the counter...

Indictment 33: ...while she heads to another section for more books...

Indictment 34: ...leaving the wailing child at the check-out counter...

Indictment 35: ... and continuing to discuss female reproductive problems on her cell phone.

Indictment 36: After holding up the check-out line, she returns with a daily calendar.

Indictment 37: She has not yet acknowledged the presence of the cashier.

Indictment 38: The child intermittently breaks up the wailing with more cries of “Mommy! Mommy!”

Indictment 39: “Mommy” talks louder into her cell phone...

Indictment 40: ...moving on to the subject of a neighbor’s impending divorce.

Indictment 41: Declaring on the cell phone what she would need for monthly alimony, she pulls her wallet out of her handbag and hands the cashier a card to pay for the books.

Indictment 42: It’s a library card.

Indictment 43: She frowns at the cashier, taking back the library card and dropping her American Express card...

Indictment 44: ...on the “Mastercard/Visa Charges Only” sign taped to the counter. 

Indictment 45: Another frown after her error is pointed out.

Indictment 46: The child continues to wail.

Indictment 47: Besides the frown, she has yet to acknowledge the cashier. 

Indictment 48: She signs the charge slip while discussing on her cell phone the difficulty of finding a good nanny.

Indictment 49: She decides this is an excellent time to clean out the jumble of papers in her wallet...

Indictment 50: ...unconcerned with the line forming behind her.

Indictment 51: She leaves her trash on the counter...    

Indictment 52: ...as she drags the still wailing child along with her to the door...

Indictment 53: ...complaining on her cell phone about the lack of responsibility in household help...

Indictment 54: ...while ignoring a man on crutches struggling to open the door.

Indictment 55: She is still on the cell phone as she pulls the Escalade out of the parking lot...

Indictment 56: ...driving out the entrance.

Talking Back to Charlotte Allen

 take the quiz: "Which has more fat and calories?" and get the answers here.

Hey Charlotte! I read your opinion piece, “Keep your self-righteous fingers off of my processed food,” as well as heard your interview on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. It’s very...thought provoking. But I respectfully ask that you calm down for a moment. 

    No one is telling you what to eat and how to live. They are just showing their side of the story, one that most local businesses and small farmers share too. It would help American consumers if they were shown more than the glossy ads and public relations created to sell you Lunchables and KFC’s Double Downs. Knowledge is usually power, and who knows, maybe you would think twice about buying that chicken “sandwich”--no matter how cheap it is--if you knew how the chicken was raised, what it ate, and what chemicals were pumped into it, (we could get into the whole fat and sodium content thing, but that’s another battle). 

    I’m lucky that I am able to buy locally grown food, even though cheaper produce is available in the supermarket down the street. I know that Steve the farmer started the seeds in March. I watched as they planted seedlings and harvested crops all summer long. This was particularly soothing information to have when E.Coli was prevalent in spinach grown on large commercial farms. I find it all tastes better, too.

    I also know that the money earned by Steve will be spent in my community, and that Steve truly cares about what happens here, especially environmental and social issues that effect the health of me and my neighbors. He also employs many friends of mine, with good benefits. I find it reassuring that I can call up the farm, ask a question about the produce, and get an answer, not some “FAQ’s” off of a web page.    

    If you are concerned about “America’s poorest people affording automobiles, cellphones and TV’s,” perhaps you should be concerned about the corporations that broke the unions that provided decent jobs and benefits to Americans. Or took their business out of the U.S. so that they could avoid not only paying higher wages and benefits, but also higher taxes--money for the customs inspectors for the goods they ship from overseas, roads they ship their products on, or education for the people who buy them. 

    Instead of making a good living and being able to afford health care, many have been driven to making less than they did in the past, hoping they don’t get sick because they don’t have coverage. And while the cost of living--processed products included--have gone up, earnings have not. 

     It’s true, people can’t afford to live on the wages that the Chinese make. But the drive to pay less doesn’t help create sustainable, durable products. We now live in an age where it is acceptable to dispose of products after a few years, regardless of where it is made. This damages the ability of workers to earn a true wage, and is causing undeniable damage to the environment. 

    There is a cost to low prices, and I believe Ms. Shell and Mr. Pollan are simply pointing it out. They also admit to succumbing to the seduction of low prices and processed foods. This is America, after all. We are a corporate nation and we will never be pure. 

    So eat your Haagen-Dazs, your Hostess cupcake. Enjoy! But please, be mindful that your decisions do have consequences, and respect those that point them out. 

    

Caramelized Onions

I'm on this kick to cook new things. I figured this was a good start.

Step 1: Put two pounds of thinly sliced onions in a large, covered skillet (this one's non-stick), on medium (I've got an electric stove) for about twenty minutes, stirring once or twice.

Step Two: After twenty minutes, add 2T olive oil and a pinch of salt. Turn heat down to medium-low and cover again, stirring once or twice for another twenty minutes.

Ta-da! While it doesn't look much different than the picture in step two, this is the final result after a full hour of cooking. I'm sure if I had a gas stove I might have had darker, more caramelly-looking onions. 

But these were damn sweet! Thanks to Mark Bittman, How To Cook Everything Vegetarian pg. 329

I've Got Your Number

 

    Third Grade. I would sit in Miss Anderson’s classroom and try, really try to be a good student. I had the best of intentions. But we all know where that leads. She would pass out grey rectangle blank paper, a sure sign of a math quiz. Like some kids who hate broccoli or spinach, I hated that paper. I liked the lined paper, because I had fabulous handwriting and everyone commented on how nice it looked. I could tell a good story. But with math, I was in way over my head.
    To make it worse, it was multiplication. I could not memorize those tables if my life depended on it. It’s still the case. A few years ago I had flash cards with the multiplication tables up to 12. Flash cards at forty-five years old and still no dice. I’d remember for a few days and then it would all go away, as if the neurons holding that information just disappeared into some black hole in my brain. Everyone says calculators have ruined us, but I believe you either have it or you don’t; I struggle with calculators too.
So I would panic as the grey paper went around.
    Right across from where I sat was a bulletin board with rocket ships on it. The good old sixties and our Soviet paranoia had us all preoccupied with space. Our rockets started on the launching pad and as the weeks progressed we were to get closer and closer to the moon as our quiz scores rose. I never liked space. Too much grey and then there were all of Ma’s drunken questions, like “where does the universe end?” What kind of sadist asks an eight-year old questions like that? I would stay awake all night gripped in a sweaty existential panic over that one.
    The first couple of quizzes were easy. Zero, one, and two times. But as we started to get higher, I started to panic. I never did like heights all that much. My rocket ship had no get-go and I lagged behind.
    I became preoccupied with the personality of numbers. I would write them down,  in hopes that their psychological profiles would give me some clues for the answer.
    Zero. Good old Zero. I could relate to that poor number. All by itself, it meant nothing and even trying to multiply with something else mean nothing. But tack it on to another number and that number became more impressive. A little misfit with a hidden inner blessing. I liked to think of myself as some kind of facilitator just like Zero.
    One. Oh boy, what an ego. Everything was all about One. But easy, because you could count on it just being the self-centered digit it was. Just give One what it wants.
    I liked Two. Two just wanted to make everything nice and even so there wouldn’t be any fighting, generously doubling up whatever was there and making sure that no One was standing out in the cold alone. Two was a little peacemaker.
    Three had issues. It didn’t want to be divided and of course, it was always a crowd. Three liked to cause trouble and the other numbers would put up with it because it was like a wayward teen that needed some guidance. You just had to cope with Three, hoping that it would grow into a mature, responsible number.
    Four was another peacemaker, a close relative to Two. I always thought of four having a special relationship with Eight, who tended to be needy. Four kept Eight in line, like a guiding hand through dark times, a loyal younger relative looking out for its elders.
    I liked Five, because even though Five was an Odd number, it worked very hard to keep things running smoothly. It was easy to see that Five would be the natural heir to greatness, someday possibly achieving the status of Ten.
    I didn’t like Six all that much. Six was just trouble.
    Seven was a big problem. Seven could not be trusted at all, and then of course there was that whole “Lucky” thing. I could see Seven going on to having a gambling problem, smoking too much and drinking with low-lifes in trailer parks. There was also the European Seven with the little line through it; like it was putting on airs and being better than all the other numbers. To make it stand apart from low-life, hillbilly Seven. All show. No tell.
    As I mentioned before, Eight had issues. Insecure, it relied heavily on Four to get it through the worst of times. If numbers need medication, you knew Eight would be hitting the Ativan. Sad, really, because eight was so pretty.
    Nine was a prick. A real bastard that had a chip on its shoulder because it wasn’t Ten. Nine had to make EVERYTHING difficult. I dreaded dealing with Nine. Nine was the worst.
    And then there was Ten. Ten was the Holy Grail of the number family, kind of like a kindly old grandfather that looked out for them all and gave them large gifts. Everyone loved Ten. I loved Ten. Ten made life so easy. It was Ten that made continuing on with numbers a little better. I did have issues with Eleven, Thirteen and Nineteen, but that was to be expected. No one can be perfect like Ten. Especially if you have roots in One, Three and Nine.
    By the time we had gotten through the Twelve tables everyone was pretty close to the Moon.Well, except for me. Derek Spencer, space geek, made it all the way to the moon. I hated Derek with his astronaut fetish and plans for the future. 
    I was barely off the launching pad and grateful when Halloween came and the bulletin board was changed to spiders and pumpkins and was no longer a nagging reminder of what a math Zero I was.

Imagine what 700 billion could do...

Would the urgency be different if it was here instead of there?

Flower Perspective

The other day I said something about drinking tea as being kind of pansy, a weak move in my world of high-test, super macho strong black coffee.

Then we got a shipment of pansies in at the farm. Let me tell ya, those bad boys are as tough as a wildly determined crocus pushing it's way up through the snow.

It was almost freezing (almost being the operative word here) on Easter. We set the pansies outside in the sun on racks just to let folks know we were open. It was cold. It was windy. They were fine. I was pissed I forgot my gloves when it was time to bring the racks back inside.

Pansies fail when it gets too hot. Maybe that's why they are so maligned; they can't take the heat. But I think you have to be just as tough to take the cold. It gives me new respect for these funny-faced flowers and I regret I used them in such a derogatory way. Funny how words work that way.