INDIGNITY VOL. 3, NO. 12: Post-Newtonian
BUSINESS DEP'T.
HELLO! THIS IS your editor, here, having a brief parasocial encounter with you to encourage your readership of this revived, higher-frequency Indignity. It's been fun on our end, so far. Would The Machines have sent yesterday's transmission if we had not been committed to our program of More Newsletter? Maybe, but they sure wouldn't have sent it yesterday!
Now we're moving on to even more material. Tomorrow, we'll have another installment of the award-winning MR. WRONG column. On Friday, I believe we will use the Indignity Paywall to deliver a particularly contentious opinion I've been holding. Unless I change my mind about that opinion between now and then! I plan to gather more information or evidence on the subject tomorrow night, to see if it confirms or challenges my beliefs. Buy a paid subscription and find out what happens!
What else should we do? The weather was so balmy and appealing today, it made me think about whether or not to go back to doing Weather Reviews. If you're a paid subscriber, tell us in our paid-subscriber comments if you think that's a bad idea or a good one. Another reason to subscribe! Thank you again for your interest and support.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
The Indignity Morning Podcast
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FOOD AND/OR DRINK DEP'T.
Snack Rave: Little Debbie Fig Bars
I PICKED UP a box of these while I was at the neighborhood grocery store. I wasn't expecting to buy them, but the neighborhood grocery is a place for serendipity—downmarket but upbeat, with tiny aisles and very full shelves. It's a real, small supermarket, not a big corner store, because it has multiple checkout lanes and it does not have a cold-drinks case or a sandwich operation. Also it's not quite at the corner; the corner has a corner store on it.
I was buying some tuna to cook into a quick pasta sauce, and a head of cabbage to have as an even quicker vegetable alongside the pasta. But the store has a whole shelf of Little Debbie products right inside the door. Most times, I walk past it with a fleeting, less-than-conscious moment of mingled avidity and confusion: I register the Little Debbie name, rousing memories of happy childhood snacking, and then the products don't fit the memories, and then I'm looking at the dried peas and beans.
My old afterschool sweets diet was built mostly on Oatmeal Creme Pies and Star Crunch Cakes, with occasional Swiss Cake Rolls or Zebra Cakes for variety. This neighborhood grocery is pushing Honey Buns and maybe Cosmic Brownies? Nutty Buddies? My brain can't even hold on to the details. They're treats, but they're not my treats.
This time, though, my eye fell on the Fig Bars. I had no particular memory of Little Debbie Fig Bars, if they'd ever even made it into the mix. I like figs, though, and I like Fig Newtons, and I was shopping hungry. So why not?
I truly do like Fig Newtons. I can recall sitting on a grimy couch in college with a box of Fig Newtons from the convenience store, realizing in that moment that I possessed the power and discretion to simply house an entire sleeve of Fig Newtons on my own, one after the next, if that was how many Fig Newtons I wanted to eat. (I may or may not have tried a similar experiment in adult autonomy and still-teenaged digestive power with a box of Oatmeal Creme Pies, on another occasion.)
The Little Debbie Fig Bars were better than Fig Newtons. In real, extended adulthood, on the rare occasions when I grab some Fig Newtons at the drugstore, the truth is that they seem a bit dry and dusty, compared to the idea of Fig Newtons in my mind. The Little Debbie Fig Bars were rectangular and individually wrapped, like the "full-sized" Fig Newtons, and they tasted like Fig Newtons, but they had a soft freshness—or synthetic freshness—to them, tender and appealing. I ate them gradually, by ones and twos, because I am not young anymore. When they were gone, I went and bought another box.
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