A "Quiet" Week

It's weird, nothing crazy unusual has occurred in the store's vicinity this week. Or, perhaps it has and I just simply don't notice anymore. Maybe I'm becoming like that frog in the pot of water; as the temperature increases I fail to notice the subtle shifts of heat that will eventually destroy me.

I'm not surprised that it has been a bit on the quieter side because it was the end of the month, and since a lot of our customers are on Food Stamps they seem to mysteriously disappear as the month ends. So I tend to wander around the store a bit, I joke with J-Dunks about the latest drama in the deli while he tries to convince me that the wheat grass really is greener on his side of the store (a point with which I cannot disagree), and that I should come over and work with him in produce. I'd like that. But he doesn't have as many fun conversation as I do.

Therein lies what I love about where I work. There is a real, and vital exchange across these vast social expanses whenever I talk with my co-workers or customers, it's awesome. I can't tell you that I have successfully converted all, or even any hippies over to my religiously traditional, and socially conservative lifestyle, but thanks to me....they might hate the rest of you a little bit less. It's a great privilege. I also love how the opposition of ideas has had a tendency to challenge areas of biased or untruth in my perspective. But really, I kind of enjoy the sort of mild shock that washes over people when they find out that:

A. I did in fact vote for Mitt Romney over Obama. (mind you, I don't like either of them....I just dislike Romney less, and while it maddens me that politics has come to that...c'est la vie)

and
B. I'm a Biblically-conservative traditional Protestant. One that listens to a lot of the same music that many of them all do, and occasionally crosses the  "work-place appropriate joke" line....to my embarrassment that actually means that every once in a while a joke I make is appropriate. I've seen a lot of movies that they have enjoyed, and can articulate my background somewhat well.

I can tell with some, that it's been unnerving to discover these things about me. Unnerving for two reasons I think. The first is that people are terrified of offending each other, so they worry that their demeanor or language has been offensive. Sometimes it has, but I don't take myself so seriously that I cannot talk with person who uses bad language. The second, and I think this is subtly more common, I stand for a lot of things that the people around me disagree with, sometimes with great vitriol, and yet they seem to enjoy my company and outlook.

It's a pretty cool thing to be able to "humanize" the enemy for people. There seems to be more credence seen in my beliefs now that I am able to chill out and let relationships happen before I point to the line drawn in the sand, and while I have actually had to point at it most people haven't treated me any differently for doing so. I know that, in conservative circles, we are being made to belief that the social sky is falling in on us. We will soon be crushed under a black miasma of liberal ethics, government entitlement programs, and the Oprah Winfrey channel, but I don't get the feeling that it's as bad as all that. Perhaps, and this might be shocking so make sure you are comfortably seated, some of their social agendas are good and helpful.

Still in your chair?

Perhaps we've been wrong in how we go about our perspective.

Perhaps some of them are also Godly, and reverent.

So, what's all this about? It's about disagreement, wonderful, lively, humorous, good-natured, and humble disagreement. Life is so hard if you always have to be right, so find somebody who disagrees with you, and become their friend.

How Organic is your Turkey....or, "A Tale of Three Matts"

So, before I fully begin this sordid tale let me first say that there are occasional sublime moments wherein life and art truly do imitate each other. This story is true, regardless of how closely it resembles an episode of IFC's Portlandia, to be honest it's the earnest resemblance to that show that made the episode so amusing to me.

Like many people in the world, the last several minutes on the clock at my job can yield unexpected craziness. Between clearing out dishes, making last minute sandwiches or coffee drinks, telling the closing crew what to do, and counting out the register I tend to get a little distracted. Occasionally the universe likes to throw me a curve ball during those distracted, hurried and harried moments. This was one such occasion. I had actually finished things in a relatively timely manner, and somehow managed to jot down a list of tasks for my closer to accomplish earlier that day, and as the clock waned from 3 to 3:30 I was optimistically looking forward to actually clocking out on time.

3:25 PM

 Then I saw him.

He sauntered up to the counter slowly, not making eye contact with me or offering any greeting whatsoever but gazing solely at our sandwich menu with a slow but deliberate attentiveness. I make a concerted effort to not rush our customers into ordering something but I saw in his facial expression a certain confusion that gave me cause to ask how I could help him.

3:28 PM

Do you remember the last scene of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" When the brick wall is knocked down, and we finally see "Toon Town" All of nature in Toon Town sings, the Sun bounces around in the sky while birds flit about swaying elm and oak trees...that's what it looked like outside the store as He casually rested his elbow on the counter and leaned in to ask me a serious question.

"How organic is your turkey, and how can you proof it?"

I don't know how I caught on to this, maybe it was something in his eyes, but I somehow knew this question wasn't designed to receive information....but rather as a pretense under which I could be informed by his superior knowledge. It was at this point that I knew I was in trouble, so I calmly replied that our 100% organic Turkey came from a small farm in Iowa and bore the requisite stamp from the USDA certifying it's "organic-ocity". I had made a terrible mistake!

 He rolled his eyes, smirked, rocked back on his heels, and chuckling to himself said:
"Well, almost anything can be called organic when all you have to do is pay to get it certified....what else can you tell me about it? Do you have any information about the farm?"

 I was suddenly, existentially, transcendentally, and inconveniently divided into three complete persona's bearing different replies. Customer service Matt just wanted this poor guy to go home happy, whether he ordered something or not...and he really wanted to clock out and ride his bike home in the cartoon-esque amazing sunshine.

Sarcastic Matt really wanted to enjoy these few moment of being stuck back in the deli by parading the euphoric lifestyle of Big Tom the turkey in his Utopian Organic farm in Iowa: Big Tom has satellite TV piped into his yurt so he can chill out and watch independent movies, and CSPAN to his massive turkey heart's content. The food upon which he thrives is hand prepared for him by a rotation of different international Chefs skilled in all the culinary traditions of the world. Come mating season, the most supple beautiful female turkeys are paraded in front of him. At the zenith of this opulence he is led into a warm room playing Beethoven where he is decapitated, plucked...gutted, stamped, frozen and shrink wrapped for convenient storage. Sarcastic Matt tends to make my life worse, so while I smiled at his input I decided that it wasn't in my best interest.Then "Rhetorical Matt" stepped into the ring.
"Well Sir....what he have here is actually a conflict of epistemology. Since knowledge can only be revealed from a capable source, not generated from a vacuum, we actually have absolutely no way of guaranteeing that anything is what it says it is unless it is inspected, and then certified by some sort of objective (or third) party committed to serving public good. After all, who is to say that the information you have is reliable? If the certification is faulty, how could possibly turn then to the farm itself for comfort when after all, they are selling the turkey in the first place. You see, that's called a biased perspective, because the farm would ultimately be motivated financially to boast about their product, they could say anything they wanted to to get you to buy it."

It was a humbling moment for me, either wanting ignore this guy, make fun of his beliefs and values, or destroy him in a debate. I honestly found myself wondering what was wrong with both of us. His self-righteousness in regards to food had stirred the beast of my self-righteousness regarding everything. I can't say that there weren't any hidden barbs in my comments, because there certainly were, but I do have to say that people get a little weird, and kind of annoying when they take the "you are what you eat" thing too seriously. I mean....this guy, he talked at me for about 10 minutes (which is a long time in food service) and left without buying anything at all! I guess the upside for him was that he was sticking it to the man somehow....perhaps we should charge a minimal consultation fee when people only want to talk about what we cook rather than eat it, because it seems to happen a lot.

The USDA guarantees that no Hippies, or turkeys were harmed in the making of this post....because that's what he paid us to say.