3 Mulligans

Sometimes people complain about something they only partially understand, whether it’s politics, the music industry, the mystery of the pyramids, what “DVD” stands for, etc. “If they can land a man on the moon, blah blah blah…why do they have to lip sync Hee Haw?” They are not specialists so their arguments don’t hold as much water as someone who really knows what they are talking about. And I do this too. I’m sure that people who know more about marketing and packaging think I’m some dumb hayseed who knows nothing about government regulations and selling things. (They are right.)

However, I can’t possibly understand the label above, taken from a diner on a recent trip to Ohio. Even admitting my ignorance of marketing laws and licensing, and knowing that some subtleties of labeling exist, how can something contain milk and also be non-dairy? Sometimes just opening my eyes to peep at product labels, or going shopping at Kroger, is a deeply unsettling experience.

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Now roasted with the warmth of your hands!

It’s bad enough that someone buys “artisanal” coffee from a major chain, but to buy “hand-roasted” coffee is just gross. I’m sick of everything being “hand-Xed” even for things you can’t do with your hands. So in the spirit of MAD Magazine’s Scenes We’d Like to See, I propose the following expressions:

Now serving hand-toasted bread.
To avoid harsh sunlight, we now use hand-dried tomatoes.
Hand-watched VHS tapes now on sale.
Hand-stomped grapes just like on I Love Lucy!
Need help to get rid of hand-grown hairs in your bikini area?
Hand-tasted dump cake with cheesy frosting and Pilsbury Pull-Aparts.

Honestly, coffee beans are either roasted over heat or they are raw. There is no such thing as “hand-roasting” coffee beans, unless you are Superman. If he can make diamonds just by squeezing coal hard enough, he can probably roast a few coffee beans in his hand and pull a good shot of espresso. Barring that, please stop hand-cooking anything.

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