30 Days and 30 Blogs Part 3
Day 4

I think we can all agree that it seems like people (Americans specifically) are getting dumber every day. Even if we’re not, it feels like corporations treat us like we are. Our media is dumbed down, our products have all sorts of safety warnings and features to stop us from hurting ourselves…clearly corporate America thinks we’re morons. Or so I thought, until I was at the grocery store the other day and I saw this:

So cucumbers are a good source of “terpenes & phytosterols,” huh? Great. WTF is terpenes & phytosterols? Does anyone walking through this supermarket know what those two words mean? This isn’t some high-end, Whole Foods type obnoxious liberal hang out…this is a regular Safeway. You can buy Cheez Whiz and pork rinds only a few isles over. Those words could mean “poison” and “otter farts” and 99.9% of the people wouldn’t know it. I don’t know what those words mean even now. (I know I could look them up and find out what they mean…but now I’m choosing to remain ignorant on principle.)

Yet they’re being touted proudly as though everyone has a working knowledge of these two obscure words and is in fact SEEKING those two things out. They act like they’re answering our silent prayers.

“Oh Lord, I need more terpenes & phytosterols, but I know not where to find them. Where can I…hold on…what’s this?! Cucumbers are a good source of terpenes & phytosterols?! Halleluiah!!! My worries are over!”

FYI-The title of this blog is in reference to a Jerry Seinfeld bit that I KNOW I’m coming dangerously close to ripping off. It’s from his CD, “I’m Telling You For The Last Time.” I was going to link to the bit, but I can’t find a recording of the CD on-line…only the video version where he doesn’t do that part of the joke.

He says, “They know we don’t know. They make up words all the time like ‘Now with an extra drop of Retsyn!’

Like we’re all going “FINALLY WE’RE GETTING SOME MORE RETSYN!!!”

Anyway, here’s the bit that leads up to that line. If you’re smart, the album is on Amazon and iTunes.