Disapointment

I dropped off an order the other day for a catering event. I hauled several litres of coffee up a small flight of stairs in an auditorium while the man who organized the event watched me expectantly. Coffee for one hundred and fifty people probably weighs about sixty to sixty-five pounds. Cans of ‘Dole’ brand juice weighs perhaps a bit more. He waited until I had the juice almost up the stairs to speak up.

“Oh we don’t want the juice. Dole has a terrible human rights record.”

How does one respond to that? I went with, “Oh...”

He said something in French. The only word I picked out was ‘slavery’, which is great, because the free canned ‘Dole’ brand juice at my job is in the top three good things about working there. In a shift I can be counted on to drink seven of them (order: Orange [for breakfast], Pineapple-Mango, Pineapple-Mango, Pineapple-Mango, Strawberry-Kiwi, Pineapple-Mango, Pineapple-Mango). Poisoned as I am by apathy and a left wing education institution, I won’t stop drinking them, but I will feel a small pang for whoever it is ‘Dole’ brand is enslaving to bring me such a delicious blend of pineapple and mango. And hey, maybe they get free juice.

The number of black and white issues on which I have been able to make a stand are few and steadily decreasing. They are things like authenticity, human rights and pickles. I loath pickles. They are awful. Period. Full stop. -> . <- Making sandwiches today, Brittney pulled out a jar of the things. I made the requisite disparaging comments.

“No,” she said. “These are ‘bread and butter’ pickles. You just hate dill.”

This was categorically false but I was feeling calm and fair minded so I gave them a try. She passed me a quarter of a slice and I knew I was in trouble because it didn’t smell revolting. It tasted alright and I admitted as much and I admitted another shade of gray into my life. I am too defeated even to say that I did it grudgingly. The worst of it is that I can look good in either black or white, but gray is the universal colour of I wanted to stay home. That’s why picket lines are always so fashionable.

None of this would be nearly so debasing if I was Bruce Lee. He was handsome. But I’m not him yet.