Around the Knee Deep household, we’ve been on a health kick of sorts, re-investigating certain dishes, testing our palettes with new veggies and fruits, and generally replacing some of the foods in our frig with the hale and heartier versions. To make sure we know what we are really purchasing, we take a magnifying glass with us to the grocery store so we can read the fine print on the labels more carefully. I also like to use the magnifying glass to focus a beam of sunlight on a package of organic microwavable popcorn and heat it up so that I have something to snack on as I’m shopping.
During one of my recent magnifying sessions, I was silently approached by one of those slick inventory robots named Tally that scoot down the grocery aisles pretending they don’t see you. I think this android was a male because it bumped into me, which is what us guys do when they say hello. Women, on the other hand, tend to hug each other, reach out a hand and say, “How are you?” like they really mean it. Us guys, we bump each other, then try to recover by shaking hands. A lot of my guy friends shake my hand with a grip that feels like my fingers are going to snap in half. I think they really care for me, but it’s hard to tell when I’m wincing in pain.
Anyway, my Roboto visitor was only slightly more polite, sliding carefully away from me, then staring off into some vague personal cyberspace, a never-never land of algorithms and router droppings. Not able to make eye contact, its empty gaze and plastic grin made me anxious. I’d rather have one of my male friends put my hand in a vice grip than to get a stare with no social cues.
Nonetheless, I kindly offered Mr. Tallymaker robot some of my piping hot popcorn, thinking kindness matters, but in an election year, kindness has taken on a political overtone, and what is offering popcorn to one robotothon, may be just an excuse for them to call the manager and report a snack attack. (I think this was a reminder to me, and maybe to all of us, to shy away from eating microwaved foods when a robot is nearby – they are terribly jealous of microwaves and see them as boxy and old-fashioned). At that moment I could only think of dealing with this shifty Robby-Botta-Botta as I would a child, so I pulled up an episode of Blippi as a diversion on my phone and turned away.
I returned to checking out the labels on packages and cans, paying particular attention to that first item that indicates most of the contents inside – very vital information when you are trying to eat healthier. By the way, if the label lists mono-futamothyilate first on your soup label, you know you could also use the soup to rinse out your sump pump, hose down your garage floor, and maybe even bait for some late-night crawdad hunting.
Labels on fruits and vegetables are self-explanatory. If you buy a Gala or an Envy apple for example, the only ingredient should be “apple.” If you find anything else written on the label like corn starch or monosodium glutamate, I would be very suspicious that the free roaming inventory specialist, Mr. Tall Tinker Toy, might be the culprit. My conspiracy theory is that these androids are trying to change the names of common food items, starting with simple ones like apples. In the next ten years, I believe apple labels will have a thirty-digit security password requiring a minimum of two capital letters, five non-sequential numbers, an asterisk, an obelisk, and some Sanskrit thrown in for good measure.
Let’s be honest though, trying to make healthy choices is hard work in so many ways. Many food labels are crammed full of ingredients, all in such small print it makes my contact lenses want to dive out of their eye sockets. When there are too many items to list, a consumer can call a 800 number and request a list of the rest of the contents. It’ll come to you on a multi-lingual flyer that offers a free steak dinner at the Transfat Cafeteria, or a cruise on the Gluten Sea, your choice. The good thing about the cruise is that you get all the healthy salmon and king crab you can possibly eat, and maybe a bonus bottle of Dye #4. The bad news is that while on the cruise you will be required to wear orange overalls that inflate in case you fall overboard as they film you reeling in The Deadliest Catch.
In my scrutiny of labels, I’ve noticed that the Eye-Robots skating around stay clear of certain items stocked on the shelves. I think they know something we don’t know, something creepy and forbidden. I wonder, for example, why I have never a robot in the toilet paper section. Why is that? Is it because toilet paper is too unseemly or uncouth for them? I think it is. For one thing, TP has more texture than Mr. Tally-Doo does, which makes the android look rather sickly and anemic by comparison. No one wants to stand next to someone that makes them look anemic. Second, and more importantly, I’ve noticed these Ironical-Robots tend to prey on single, isolated items on grocery shelves. Toilet paper, by contrast, is usually a bulk item, and there is power in those numbers, so robots stay away from them. It would be very embarrassing for a Robot-O-Butt-O-Bot to be taken out by a twenty-four pack of Charmin toilet paper, but I could see it happening. It would be tough to show your face in the break room and admit you’d been pushed around by a couple soft rolls of toilet paper.
Also, I’ve never, ever seen a robot anywhere near canned items with tiny animals inside, like jars of sardines. They steer clear of scanning that sort of thing, because, again, I think the robot knows something we don’t about them, like that the sardines are still alive in there, and that when we add them to our Caesar salad for flavor, and eat them, they are going to be revitalized in our stomach, and take a final lap around our digestive systems.
Only once did I see a Mr. Robbo-Cop-Robothon near a can of sardines. As it scanned the jars of sardines, it began shaking rather violently and a thin bead of panic-stricken smoke began to rise out of one of its metal plates. The sardines, packed in like only sardines can be, had all swam to the front of their respective jars, kind of like an oceanic movement, and engaged the robot in a massive staring contest, which they were winning with ease. Thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of beady sardine eyes came full force to the front of their jars as if one unified school, directing a focused beam of eyeball power towards Mr. I-Ain’t-Got-Chance-Boto-Robo-Guy. I felt the power of the sardine force, I tell you, and I don’t even believe in this kind of thing.
Thinking I might be witnessing something that could go viral, I began videoing it all on my phone while nonchalantly chucking down a handful of freshly popped organic microwaveable popcorn.
Thankfully, that must have alerted the robot’s inventory mode to kick back in gear as it began to count each kernel of corn I was eating. I could see that Boto-Roboman was breaking free of the sardine hypnosis it was trapped in and it stopped shaking and came slowly back on-line. Numbers began flashing on the Tally-Guy dashcam, labels were being scanned again, complicated as they are, and customers all around me relaxed as the sardine scare subsided. I sincerely believe the shoppers around me were reading the labels with renewed interest and comprehension as a general sense of robotic well-being returned to the grocery atmosphere.
As I began to walk away, I felt something and I can’t be sure, but I think Mr. Inventory-Roboto nudged my elbow. Was it trying to tell me something about profit shares or the gross national product? No. I think Tally-My-Tally was trying to thank me for saving it from what would surely have been a catastrophic sardine incident. Yes, maybe it did want some of my popcorn. But I think what I felt was a Bro-bump like only a Roboto-Botothon can give. As I turned to say goodbye, it was sliding away, slowly moonwalking to the rhythm of its four hundred blinking LED lights.
“Did you see that?” I asked out loud, looking around for another shopper. But there was no one around, nothing but sardines, perfectly packed with other mysterious ingredients and water, I believe, from the Gluten Sea.