Not An Original Thought, But It's Good

I don't know where I got this from, but I like it.


We encounter many things every day that we take on faith. We take them on faith because to do otherwise would be to admit that almost everyone in every part of the world around us is smiling and lying to our faces. When your waiter brings you the check and says, "I'll take that up whenever you're ready," that's a lie. What she or he really is saying is, "I'll take that up in about twenty minutes when I get around to coming back to this table. And then I'll keep waiting another ten minutes before I bring you your change. And instead of bringing you even a single five-dollar bill, I will bring you five one-dollar bills in order to encourage you to tip me generously despite my maddening habit of failng to make eye contact with any of the occupants of my tables to prevent them from disturbing my day with frivolous requests for drink refills."

Hot-Pockets are a lie. Yes, it is true that many of us, myself included, seem only too willing to consume our food in "pockets." With the exception of the pita, however, no food on earth naturally occurs in the form of a pocket. Hot-Pockets are not a convenient dinner-delivery system; they are a combination of vaguely cheese-like substance and something masquerading as a derivative of what might once have been an animal. There is nothing reassuring about this, no matter how happy the people in the commercials seem to be.

You know that little cardboard sleeve lined with some sort of gray, nonmetallic foil that comes with Hot-Pockets? That thing that is supposed to make the Hot-Pocket crispy? That's a lie. The Hot-Pocket sleep imparts as much crispiness as the crisper in my refrigerator. Which is to say, if it's possible, that a negative quantity of crispiness is permeated through the Hot-Pocket.

When the cashier tells you to have a nice day, that's a lie. Your cashier hates you. Your cashier hates her life, her family, and her job. Your cashier hates the fact that anyone over sixty-five is convinced that some sort of organized crime pyramid scheme is taking place at the checkout, a crime that can only be foiled by holding up everyone in line disputing every single price produced by the scanner and then laboriously examining the receipt. Your cashier would like you to take your badly-bagged groceries and go away, thank you. And if, by some sadistic twist of fate, you answer the question, "Paper or plastic?" with the answer, "Paper in plastic," your cashier secretly hopes you will be run down in the parking lot by a woman named Edith Krunkel who is not watching what's in front of her Buick Roadmaster because she's still reading the expired coupon for Metamucil that she's certain they should have accepted.

There are countless other lies, big and small, that we tell ourselves every day. I would go into further detail, but my Hot-Pockets are burning.