Believe the Label

Earlier this morning we cleaned out the junk room, exhuming six boxes of slightly mildewed, long-ago-read books that need to be anywhere but here.

I suggested the local recycler. Drive up, dump in dumpster, drive away - a 10 minute ordeal. However The Wife is of Dutch heritage.  Scrub the streets, live below sea level, and never throw a book away.

So now I’m driving down out of the woods to the Kinda-Big City and its Goodwill Store. I try to envision someone reading one of these books and becoming inspired to be a famous person. Or a prominent pillar of the American Society.  Reality says landfill worms will eat these books and turn them into nitrogen-laced poop.  But delusions are great, aren't they?

On the way back, I stop at the Gas/Food Store.   Every time I go to the Kinda-Big City I have to stop here for  39 cent/lb bananas and $1.29/doz eggs.  And they have a pretty good dark roast Elixir…for a Gas/Food Store.

I grab four egg cartons and a gorilla's fist of bananas.  I fill and cap a small dark roast then head for the counter.  As I do, a little red sign catches my eye.

"Today -$1.00 each"

Underneath the sign is a hotbox that holds two different types of “tornados”.  "A whirlwind of flavor" is emblazoned on the paper sleeve.  Tornados.  I should have been adequately warned.

I pause in front of the hotbox….just like I pause in front of the carnival games at the County Fair midway.

"3 tries for a Buck...e-ve-ry-bo-dy's-a-win-ner!"

I pick out a tornado.  The end of the wrapper has a small-print listing of 16 different types of tornados.  16.  There’s a small mark by "Cheesy Pepper Jack".  I pick up a different one.  "Chicken and Waffles". That’s a new one on me.

My mind ran through the possibilities.  Shredded chicken with waffle fries?  Chicken with dented breading?

Curiosity reels me in just like the midway game at the County Fair. I drop the "Chicken and Waffles" into the cart next to "Cheesy Pepper Jack".  I do the same thing with those midway games.  I play 'em twice before I figure out the game hawker is smarter, and now richer, than I am.

I start the trip home.  At the first stoplight, I pop out the "Chicken and Waffles" and bite off a good chunk.

They really did mean "waffle". And syrup. And dead bird. Taken straight from the blender to the deep-fried tortilla coffin.

I keep eating with the idea that I should consume it while still in the Kinda-Big City with its excellent hospital facilities, chewing with dogged determination from stoplight to stoplight. The last bite is at the last stoplight out of town. I slam half of the dark roast Elixir to cleanse my palate as I reach for "Cheesy Pepper Jack". 

I fire off a quick prayer referencing the "Valley of Death" segment of the 23rd Psalm. I should've referenced those of the "Cool Waters".

Again, truth in advertising.  It had cheese.  And the cheese definitely had pepper. The wrapper said "Cheesy Pepper Jack".  A more appropriate translation would be something like: "YO!  Cheesy, and PEPPER, Jack !!!"

The dark roast Elixir disappears in two gulps.  Twenty minutes later I pull into the driveway, my mouth, throat, and stomach on fire as I head for the baking soda and water.

Sitting at the kitchen table, I wait for the Elixir of Knowledge to brew as the baking soda stomps out my cauterized digestive system.  In a fitting act of retribution, I toy with the idea of invoking fire from Heaven down upon the Gas/Food Store. Then it hits me.

Why am I upset with the Gas/Food Store?  They plainly marked what was in the ‘tornados’, (obviously Spanish for “abomination”),.  They were amazingly accurate with their information.  I was the one who didn’t believe them.

The smell of the brewing Elixir sends my mind down this rabbit trail.

Huh. I guess I do that.

I read The Book and sometimes it says something I find puzzling...or even offensive.

"Oh, it can't mean that!  He would never say that, demand that, or hold to...that!"

And yet, that is exactly what He means.   The Book, if it is anything, is "truth in advertising".  And I think we all, at one time or another, might think otherwise.

"Well, yeah, but the way the world is today, that just can't be true……………..can it?"

Hey, I didn't think anyone would ever put waffles and chicken in a blender.

Go figure, eh?