The Truth Behind Those Frozen Foods

My brother Bob had gotten back from a trip he took to Tennessee one night and we had an interesting conversation. I had my husband Del's truck so I could go to the store and get some groceries but...

I didn't want to.

It was too hot outside that day and I got lost in my writing. When I finally realized that I was about to keel over from starvation it was dark outside.

I had a bag of chips and a frozen waffle for dinner. Yum.

I'm not going outside for any reason when it's dark. We have the freaking animal kingdom going on out there. There are bugs in Florida that I don't think are in any text books, I swear. At least during the day I can see those crazy things coming. Go outside in the dark? Are you mad?

Bob had a real bad trip back to the house so I couldn't ask him to go with me to the store to protect me. Where I live the crime rate is pretty high and I am really scared of going places alone at night.

Bob actually got hurt on his trip. His truck started over-heating and he stopped at a gas station to get gas and check out the problem.

Now, Bob is NOT an idiot. We have older (much, very old) brothers and have spent most of our lives around cars. Our dad and brothers use to race stock cars at the local tracks.

Bob has dismantled and reassembled more cars than Ford Motor. Some of it was because of his inability to control himself when he is excited (I refer you back to the story of him taking apart 2 of my dads work trucks because he was excited about our upcoming Disney trip and didn't know what else to do with himself), but mostly it was because he just liked that kind of stuff.

My brothers have tried to force me into liking the guts of cars. I never did. They are dirty and you can never get that grease out from under your fingernails.

EVER!

They tried everything to get me interested but I just wanted to do girl things. You know, play with Barbie dolls and things like that.

I am the only girl in my neighborhood to have a complete line of lesbian Barbie dolls. My brother's would chop off all their hair into crew cuts and cover them in tattoos.

They added nipples too.

Nipples can go either way though.

I guess they thought that would make me go outside and play under the hood of the cars with them or something. It didn't, I just wanted to know where the gas went so I could drive. I didn't give a good diddly squat about the rest of it.

Actually, I still don't.

So anyway, Bob's truck over heated and he stopped. Under the hood is a reserve bucket for his radiator. All he did was put his hand on it. The intention was to let some of the steam and pressure out of the engine so it would cool off.

I've had tons of cars that used to over heat. I've done this myself 147 times. I've NEVER been afraid of that reservoir bucket.

Like I said, all he did was put his hand on it. He didn't even get a chance to turn it. That son of a bitch blew up all over him head to toe. The cap blew across the parking lot and hit another car. He was burned on his right eye and hand the worst. He's okay but that was still a pretty scary thing to have happen.

Bob got lucky. He found the restroom quickly and was able to run cold water on his burns before they blistered. He called me after it happened and I was so upset. I don't care if he does look like a big badass scary biker; he's always going to be my baby brother. I hate it when bad things happen to him.

"For some reason though, I'm getting great gas mileage. This trip has cost me about $30 less than it normally does." He said.

"Really? Well, that's good, right?" I asked.

"Honestly if my choice was going to be saving $30 or having my damn face set on fire, I'd have paid the $30. I will always pay $30 not to have my freaking face set on fire." Bob said.

Now I'm pretty economical (cheap like a chick). I just happened to be looking through the sales flyers trying to decide which stores had the better sales so I would know which way I was going.

I might let someone set my face on fire for $30. It's $30 bucks. I always have this fear of being homeless and starving. I'm pretty open minded on making money. I might not have a boundary on becoming a crispy critter.

But then again, the opportunity has never presented itself to me. There is a chance I could chicken out on that. Don't come running at me with a lighter and a handful of $10's. Let me think it over first, okay?

I can't run and my air casts don't double as a force field or a machine gun. Play fair.

Anyway, Bob was tired and hurt when he got home so there was no chance in hell I was going to ask him if he wanted to go shopping with me. God, I could barely even look at his red eye without wanting to cry. It broke my heart that he got hurt.

I've always said the longest relationship you'll have in your life isn't going to be with your parents, children, spouses or friends. It's with your siblings. They are there from the time you are born until the time you die. Nobody will ever know you like they do.

And they will hold stuff against you and blackmail you a lot over the years but that just comes with it.

So I apologized to Bob for not going to the store before he got home. "If you had told me you needed stuff, I would have stopped and picked it up for you." Bob said.

Nice thought. I appreciated it. But when it comes to shopping, as much as I hate it I have to do it myself.

I have a theory. (Don't I always?) Here it is:

See, some of the people who work in grocery stores are teenagers looking to make a little extra money for prom (or drugs, or a car, or whatever). This is the kid we are trusting with things we are going to ingest.

Oh, and the kid has pimples. This is important. I don't know why yet, I'm only ½ way through the story. I'm going to find out with you.

The pimple faced kid doesn't give a crap about his job; he is just there for the paycheck.

Now, you have Sally Shopper. She thinks she wants some steaks for dinner. She picks them up and sticks them in her cart while she finishes her 3 hour shopping expedition. She might have a screaming kid in her cart too. Maybe that's what is taking her so long to finish her shopping. The kid is driving her bat-shit and she has to keep stopping to deal with him.

Sally Shopper wanders around thinking about her budget and decides that she really can't afford the steaks after all and decides to have Tuna Helper instead.

When she started shopping, she could afford the steaks. But her bat-shit brat wanted a box of cereal and a bag of cookies that broke the budget.

Sure, she could have kept the steaks and gotten the cheaper cereal and skipped the cookies but the kid has driven her to the point of attempting to end her life in the frozen food section by pounding her head in with the freezer door.

She just wants the kid to shut up so she can finish shopping and get home and open a bottle of wine.

And possibly down a handful of pills because she's had a pretty rough afternoon. She may even be plotting to kill her husband as soon as he walks in the door from work for impregnating her with the spawn of Satan. I don't know I'm not her therapist.

Anyway, she's in the tuna section and dumps the steaks on the shelf. She doesn't give a crap, 'there are people paid to take care of that stuff' she thinks to herself. She can't be bothered to walk all the way back to the meat case to put it away.

Wow, Sally Shopper is a little bit of a bitch, huh?

I felt bad for her right up until then.

So there the steaks are on the shelf next to the canned tuna that wasn't dolphin safe and packed in oil. Nobody paid any attention to it because of that.

So our pimple faced hero comes by and sees the steaks on the shelf. Not knowing that Sally Shopper had walked around for 3 hours with her bat-shit crazy brat (the kid just keeps getting a little worse) he ignores the steaks. He's not heading for the meat case; he's headed out the back door for his smoke break.

His break ends but he doesn't go back down the tuna aisle for another hour. His pimple faced friends had stopped into the store and he was busy "hangin' with his homeys".

Finally 4 hours and 15 minutes after the steaks left their cold case, the pimple faced kid makes it down the tuna aisle and picks up the steaks.

Does he throw them into the trash? Obviously they are warm and bloody. There must have been a bacteria orgy going on them, right?

No, he doesn't. Does he notify his manager?

No. Why?

They had a big fight just before that because the pimple faced kids - pimple faced friends showed up and he was in trouble for not working. He had just gotten written up and it was his last warning. He might lose his job. His girlfriend will probably dump him if he can't afford to keep gas in his car. He's looking at a lifetime of never getting laid again.

His girlfriend is a total slut and gave it up the first time they went out only because he had a car (or so he thought).

Her side of the story is she has pimples too. It lowered her self esteem and she thought "doing it" was the only way a boy would like her.

Oh, there we go. That's why the pimples were important.

So anyway, he thinks his manager is a total jerk and was going to make an effort to avoid him at all costs. He doesn't want to lose his job because he won't be able to afford gas and he just bought a 12 pack of condoms.

As he walks by the meat case, he throws the steaks into it.

They are now on top of the other steaks.

Now, you can substitute anything cold for steaks. The theory works for all of it. Cheese, milk, eggs, etc.

I have to be the one to buy food because I have to know that the cold stuff came from the middle or back of the case or cooler. I'll settle for the middle if I can't reach the back of it.

But I'm never taking food from the front of the case. No way, no how.

It has a little too much history for my tastes, you know?

Now you know the truth behind those frozen foods.