That Hideous Hunger

"Campaign shoutin' like a Southern diplomat"*

* I knew I'd get the damned thing right eventually.

I have admitted, repeatedly, that I am an older gent--an old fart in fact. I just referenced Chuck Berry, didn't I?

<----   Me in a year or two

Well sir, I'm going to earn a few more curmudgeon points in this post.  It's a topic that's been eating at me for a while.  I'll keep it short...but with more scoffing and sneering than even that sad schmuck Lewis Black can manage.

My question: When did it become acceptable for people in our culture to eat and drink anywhere, anytime?

You know what I'm talking about.  Anytime and anywhere: in the car (where I believe this hideous trend began), in class, at work, on the bus, walking down the corridors of a hospital, at the theatre (trust me, it happens), before lunch, after lunch, before dinner, after dinner.  I'm waiting for people to pull open the Doritos in church services, to chug a Mountain Dew while they're opening the Torah scrolls, to slop Slice over the dearly beloved in their casket. With sound effects to match.  I fully expect this.

I mean, Jesus, what kind of low-class scum have we become as a nation, as a people?  And we presume to know what's best for the world?  We can't even master the basics of post-Dark Ages civility.

 

Fat, slack America, even in the days of the 50-mile hike

I'll relate a tender memory.  Once when I was a kid, my mother was driving through downtown Norwich, Connecticut (back when Norwich had a downtown), and she saw a girl wolfing down a bag of doughnuts (back when there were good doughnuts) on the curb.  My mother, whose narrow-minded (truthfully: anti-everything) views I have mostly succeeded in expunging from my soul, declared, "It's always the fat girls who eat in public."

Bingo!  Ma, for once you were right!

So THAT's why so many people in this country are disgustingly obese! They don't just eat between meals, they eat IN PUBLIC.  THEY SHOW NO SELF-RESTRAINT.  THEY TALK WITH THEIR MOUTHS SPEWING FOOD.  THEY CHEW AND NEVER CLOSE THEIR MOUTHS.  THEY LITTER.  THEY NEVER STOP BECAUSE THERE'S NO FORMAL, OFFICIAL REASON FOR THEM TO.

Well, I got that off my chest, more or less.  I'm sure I could go on and on. But you're no glutton for punishment.                                                                           

   
"Come on.

You know you want it..."

Comments

[Fredric Koeppel]

"Glutton for punishment"?????
Glutton for PUNS, more like it.
Bravely spoken, overall.

[Terry Hughes]

Thanks. It has really been bothering me for a while. Partly it's the sheer unprofessionalism of it. And partly it's practical: if you teach in a dirty, slummy Bronx neighborhood, as I do, hundreds of kids and teachers dropping food and throwing wrappers all around is going to provide a feast for the rats and roaches that already infest the place!

BTW, Ken thought the posting was crazy. He needs to get out of our neighborhood more often and observe how the rest of America really conducts itself.

[Fredric Koeppel]

He obviously lives a sheltered existence.

[Terry Hughes]

And likes it that way!