Potpouri

A few little things, on a foggy morning.

Yesterday I had lunch at the Wild Spice. I ordered a lovely salad, colorful, fresh, and full of things I love. And when it arrived, I remembered what it is that troubles me about Wild Spice salads -- all of the ingredients are sliced and chopped oddly, so that it is difficult to get them to stay on my fork. The bell pepper, of which there were three colors, has to have been shaved to achieve those large layers of extra thin pepper that the fork won't penetrate. The carrots have been rendered into sticks that are too thin to pierce or to stay between the tines and too long to lay over the tines. The lettuce is a little too big to go into my mouth in one bite, too much of it to make it fun to cut up. And it got me to wondering -- has the person who makes this salad ever tried to eat it?

Which makes me think of bread packaging. Particularly, Orowheat. There is a stiff plastic wrapping inside of a soft plastic wrapping, closed with a brittle plastic tab. Since I live alone, I open and close a loaf of bread a good number of times. The most slices I might take out at a time is two. And when I close it back up, the stiff inner wrapping resists being closed with the brittle tab. So, I have to fold the inner wrapping, gather the outer wrapping, and then affix the tab. Which breaks the third time I open the loaf. I've purchased little closures that work quite well, but short of taking the bread out of both wrappings and replacing it in the outer, it is still frustrating to deal with. And yet, Orowheat makes one of my favorite breads, and the only one of them that I can get at the grocery store I usually frequent. And so I wonder -- do the people who make Orowheat all have servants who deal with this or do they eat some other brand?

All of which reminded me of a car I once rented that had a cup holder on the floor. I'm pretty short, and I have short arms, and I couldn't reach it. I do know, however, who test drove this car. An orangutang. I'll bet the engineer who designed it, the production line people who put it together, and the salesmen who sold it never tried to use that cup holder. Or, perhaps it was made in another country by people who hate us.