After writing my last entry, I realized that I left out a rather important element of the narrative. An element I was tremendously excited to shrare, as it seemed a valuable breakthough in the conceptual delineation of the heartbreaking gap between childhood & adulthood.
You see, as I was sputtering about the house, three sahes of excited about the oh-so-cool prize I had won, and having consumed, as always, far too much coffee, my brain wandered off into the legends of the young, beginning with my love of horror films, and wending its way to Dr. Seuss. I began an internal recitation of Green Eggs & Ham.
There was always something about that book, from the first time I heard it (most of us, I believe, heard the book before we ever read it), that didn't sit right.
Something about Sam-I-Am which seemed just this side of sinister.
What exactly the fuck was his motivation? Whay was he so consumed with the task of convincing others to eat green eggs & ham? I for one -even in if were inclined to eat ham, which I ain't- wouldn't go anywhere near green eggs, or green ham. That's just begging for all kinds of intestinal problems.
But I digress.
Sam-I-Am must have had some powerful motivation.
Sam-I-Am must have been a shill. He was a fucking salesman. A pusher.
That's right, unnamed man, your first taste of Green Eggs & Ham is free, and if you like it, you come back, you see me. Knock at my door, I'll give you more. Well, not give, you understand; there's nothing free in all this land. We'll set a price, we'll set a fee, and if you can't pay, I'll break your knee...
Or perhaps it's not so overtly sinister as that. Perhaps Sam-I-Am is representing a new "specialty foods" outlet. The only store, in all the world, anywhere, that Green Eggs & Ham are available. A premium price, for a premium product, step right up, and dry your wallet will be sucked.
But this is only the first stage. How soon before this snowballs into a full-blown dependency? One day the unnamed man is contentendly grumpy, the next he's a shivering addict; broke, alone, and sick. Not only has he become dependent on an unnatural food, but that unnatural food doesn't contain the nutriments required to properly sustain life. In order to maintain normal functioning he must now buy bottle upon bottle of supplemental vitamins & minerals.
This is getting out of control...
For shit's sake, the poor man has an eating disorder now. His weight is rising & falling like the cock of an octegenarian who's just discovered Viagra.
His teeth are rotting out, his hair is thinning... he's an absolute wreck.
Do you see? Do you see???
Don't talk to pushers, kids. Not on a boat, not with a goat.
