I want to make it clear, this is a perfectly good thread. It is. It involves advertising, marketing, fast-food ethics, the palatability of cheese combined with gravy, nutritional facts, and the general aesthetics of culinary endeavor, with an attempt to locate the fine line between “comfort food” and “godawful mess” (I’m betting that the line, if/when found, will bisect a biscuit). But there’s a problem here. I’m not saying it’s anybody’s fault, mind you, but there’s a definite problem here.
When I read the title, some long-slumbering but profound thing suddenly stirred within me. I didn’t know what it was, didn’t recognize the long-denied-but-still-longer-harbored beliefs and instincts that were responding to the (apparently) simple clarion imperative offered by what seemed at the time to be a new Paine, if not a Luther or even a Galileo:
“Aww, fuck it, let’s just put everything we have in a bowl.”
Or, as it struck me with the blinding light, swiftness and force of a comet:
“Aww, fuck it, let’s just put everything we have in a bowl!!!”
I started slowly at first. Indeed, I was hardly cognizant of my actions until I had filled every bowl in my kitchen cupboard with the contents of my pockets, desk, medicine cabinet and briefcase. I found more, though smaller, bowls in the pantry: these I stuffed with socks, ice cubes, old newspapers and motor oil. Then I felt a twinge of panic: I was out of bowls and had more, much more, to put in them. Did the toilet bowl count? In my agitation I decided it did, at least for paperbacks and jewelry. But I drew the line at larger but decidedly non-bowl-like containers. And my apprehension only increased as I realized that, whereas I had been called to put everything I have into a bowl, I was using many bowls, with only the prospect of still more to come. In the resulting slough of despond, I nearly called off the whole project and went to bed.
Then inspiration struck. There were bowls large enough to hold all I had, indeed all I ever hoped to have. And there was one less than 2600 miles away, and poorly guarded.
Twelve feverish hours later, I had the truck rented, loaded, fueled, and pointed west – directly at the Hollywood Bowl. My bolt-cutters lay in the seat beside me; a Big Gulp Energy Drink resided in my slightly trembling hand. I was ready to embrace my destiny. Then, for added inspiration, I decided to stop at a 24-hour Copy store and read the thread whose title had inspired me.
Ahh, phooey. Now I’ve gotta spend tomorrow waiting around for the plumber.
