Wednesday, July 30, 2003

The Bag Behind the Polenta

* Don’t throw that away!
* You know what it is?
* Doesn’t matter.  We’re saving it.
* It’s a sealed featureless bag of an unknown dry granulated product.  It could be anything.
* Exactly.  Maybe something we would never want to throw away.
* We don’t need it.  We’ve had it for years.  We have no idea what’s in it.  We’re never going to open it. 
* Sure we are!
* I’m not.  I’m not interested in trying to figure out what’s in a three-year-old generic packet of mystery powder - and how to turn it into anything resembling a food product. 
* You’ve got to be adventurous.
* That’s not adventure - that’s the cuilinary version of Russian roulette.
* You’re exaggerating.  And what if there’s an earthquake?  Or a power outage?  We need stockpiles!
* Why do you think an anonymous packet of something we don’t know what it is would help us in an emergency?  Won’t we be stressed out enough without trying to figure out what our food is supposed to be?  Imagine - the lights are out, there’s no water, power or gas, the streets are in chaos - why do you think we’d want to try to eat it any more then than we do now? - Which, I think you’d agree, is not at all. 
* Let me see that.  (...) Hmm.
* What, ‘hmm?’
* It’s a peculiar color.  I didn’t expect that.
* Can we get rid of it, then?
* Well, I guess so.  But it still seems a pity.