« stuff on my Truck | Home | …. aaand Fire. »
boom.
By briantologist | July 4, 2008
We have Oklahoma, ladies and gentlemen. The flight was brief and we started earlier than we needed to. I didn’t get coffee until too late, which led to me typing the following.
The phrase “Cognitive Dissonance” doesn’t get used as often as it should when describing the baffling array of stimuli many of us face on a given day. I think if more people were familiar with the idea, more people might at least be comforted by the knowledge that they’re not alone in being overwhelmed.
Or at least I would have been this morning. We were up by 6:30 to be at O’Hare by 8:00 for a 10:25 flight. The check-in process at American Airlines has been retooled to the brink of utter chaos; rather than a line, there’s about 300 feet of kiosks that sit amid clots, rather than lines, of travelers. There appears to be one guy taking checked bags for the entire system. We hand him our bag; he takes it.
That the idea of removing one’s shoes, disgorging the contents of one’s pockets, sending all of it through an X-ray machine and stepping barefoot through a doorway that may or may not sound an alarm has become routine to most of us is a healthy indicator we’ve lost sight of normalcy. And the trip ends with a sit-down breakfast at Macaroni Grill, a restaurant I’ve only seen elsewhere by the gigantic mall on the South side of Tulsa, where we’re presented with ten-dollar breakfast plates we eat with plastic silverware presented on linen napkins, all the while serenaded with an aria from 16th-Century Italy.
Please don’t give me any of this shit about the New Normal. I’m not saying the New Normal doesn’t exist, or hasn’t existed since the first time things seemed abnormal after the word was invented. I’m saying this New Normal, and the several iterations before it, are quite probably driving us insane, and that we may be ignorant of the fact.
Something like 15 percent of Americans are currently taking, or have taken in the past, psychotropic drugs for depression. (I am included in this number, you will likely not be surprised to learn.) What’s so goddamn depressing, one might ask? “A blend of mini pretzels, honey roasted sesame sticks and cheddar corn bites.”
“Ingredients: Mini Pretzel Twists (Enriched Flour [Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine, Mononitrate, Riboflavin and Folic Acid]. Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Corn Syrup, Yeast, and Baking Soda), Cheese Corn Stick (Corn Masa, Soybean Oil, Seasoning [Dehydrated Cheese Flavor (Cheddar Cheese [Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes]. Whey, Salt, Disodium Phosphate, Yellow 5, Yellow 6), Dried Whey, Salt, Buttermilk Powder, Dextrose Monohydrate, Natural and Artificial Flavoring (Containing Maltodextrin, Food Starch Modified, Soybean/Cotton Seed Oil), Onion and Garlic Powder, Extractives of Turmeric and Paprika, Citric Acid, Yellow 6 Lake, Lactic Acid]), Honey Roasted Sesame Stick (Unbleached Wheat Flour [Contains Malted Barley Flour as a Natural Enzyme Additive]. Soybean Oil, Sesame Seeds, Honey Coating [Sucrose, Wheat Starch, Honey]. Bulgur Wheat, Tack Blend [Maltodextrin, Xanthan Gum]. Salt), Beet Powder, Turmeric.
“Produced in a facility that processes peanuts and other nuts.”
Clearly the peanuts are what we need to be looking out for.
Tomorrow we shoot guns at the strip pits.
Topics: Baffled Mutterings, Hoo!, Stuff | 4 Comments »
July 5th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Yes.
Also, did you see Dick Cavett’s post on depression? Discovering the fact that Dick Cavett blogs certainly cheered me up.
July 5th, 2008 at 8:47 am
caffeine cures all. I’m impressed that you took time to carefully type out all the ingredients. Strangely my taste for pretzels has waned for the day.
July 5th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Back to the simple things- should make for a much better day. Have you read the omnivores Dilemna?
July 6th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Brilliance. Utter brilliance.