THE SALT JUNKIE CULTURE

By Greg Evans

There is no easier and more inerrant measure for determining the constitution of a person then by observing them at the dinner table.

I was sitting in a pizza place the other day waiting for my large cheese pizza to be served to the table which I eat every Friday night because Friday is pizza night. Occasionally I will have it on a Wednesday or Sunday but it doesn't taste the same as it does on Friday. I was sitting there observing the people around me eating their meals and certain practices struck me as not only disturbing but wholly manic behavior that made me feel unusually uncomfortable. With each order that arrived at a table the first thing the person did, before even trying their dish was reach for the salt shaker and start covering their food with the small white hypertension crystals. One seemingly normal person after the other in robotic fashion would pick up the salt shaker and begin shaking it wildly, contorting their faces and disjointing their wrists for the perfect shake and the sound, the chica, chica, chica, chica, chica, chica, was beginning to drive me mad. I ordered three Guinnesses from the waitress who suspiciously asked me for my ID and said I can't order beer for people who aren't here yet. "They are all for me dammit!" I howled and whipped out my taser with the full intention of zapping the liberal cow but she shrieked and scurried off to the kitchen. I was sure my time at the restaurant was now on borrowed time and I wouldn't have lost it if it wasn't for the hideous salt craze sweeping through the mountains like a reemergence of the crack epidemic of the 80's. Along with the excessive and unnecessary use of the sodium was the unmistakable and bi-polar affliction with the constant checking of the cell phone. Every three minutes these neurotics staring wildly at their cell phones. It was none of my business but I simply couldn't ignore the deviants. It was a miserable distraction. How can one expect to go out and have a nice dinner in a pizzeria or any restaurant for that matter anymore with everyone checking their damn cell phones throughout the entire meal . If I am at dinner with some schmuck who can't keep the damn phone in their pocket it will take a $400 trip out the window into the parking lot.

How far life has progressed with all the stupid cell phones and salt shakers turning us into schizophrenics. Not to mention the fact that the pizza is excessively salty and people wonder why they can't sleep at night and turn to sleeping pills and wonder why they end up on a dirty mattress in some flophouse in Queens ravaged by scabies. I don't trust people who cover their food in salt before trying it first. Most likely they are promiscuous sexual perverts with no convictions on anything but grotty photos uploaded to pin-interest and Facebook stalking. Salt used to have the value of gold, but now is worth about the value of the liberal vote. I probably lost about 600 readers with that line. The road ways and highways are peppered with salt junkies, haphazardly driving with a volcano taco in one hand and a salt shaker in the other. I heard a rumor not long ago that Prius was planning on building their cars with salt dispensers right there beneath the steering wheel. It's marketing genius in my opinion.

For whatever reason the snotty little waitress didn't squeal to management about my antics and instead brought me my beer. I chugged the first two in record time as a family of four scowled at me from the adjacent table. In what seemed like an eternity my pizza finally arrived and I wondered if each member of the staff took turns hacking spit bombs over the entire thing, but I figured I caused enough trouble in the place to send it back. Doing that in this day and age is a recipe for contracting Tuberculosis or Swine Flu. In my younger years working in the food industry if the food we served was poor or took too long and the customer was unhappy then we took it upon ourselves to produce for them a new higher quality dish. We took pride in our work back then and only one time did I ever encounter a dirty fellow who would spit on somebody's food if they had a complaint. He didn't last long and one day was dragged out into the alley by the security brutes and never seen again.

It doesn't matter what kind of eatery you go to, a fancy restaurant or a fast food chain you will be surrounded by the salt junkie culture and they are a ferocious. During one of my stints of low-level employment some years ago I remember how sought after a commodity the salt was and no matter how often it was refilled, it just as quickly depleted and people would be scurrying around the room, pulling out items from the cabinets in a furious rage, flipping over tables looking for any loose granules of salt that may have fallen off somebodies double cheeseburger. Even back then I remember contemplating opening up a salt stand right there in the break room and charging $25 an ounce for the white gold. The health habits of the majority of people you pass by on the street are absolutely horrible. People love to talk about their fad diets and their elimination of starches like potatoes and spaghetti, no bread and no corn, while shoveling a bunless triple cheeseburger with extra salt and a 54 ounce coca cola down their throats. The sugar phenomena is another story that will have to be covered on another day. The one sure thing about human beings is that they have always been the same and they will be the same until the world ends in the year 3797. Archeologists who have studied the ancient Egyptians found that many of them were suffering from excessive plaque build up in their bodies from eating "garbage", fatty foods probably laden with sodium. They were no different then Joe the Plummer gorging on a plate a french fried potatoes. Who are you kidding? I wouldn't ban salt. Even if I was the Mayor of New York City I wouldn't ban salt just because I disagree with the overuse of the substance it is the choice of the fat population to do as they wish. If people are offended by the usage of the term "fat" then by God stop eating McDonalds and start eating Quinoa. It's not rocket science but everyone is so darn sensitive. I don't make fun of fat people to their faces because I am a courteous person and I am not out to hurt people's feelings but I in my head I am dissecting the human race. Who doesn't do that? Everyone is judging each other from the wreckage of their outfits worn that day to the stupid hair do to the new gait to the ridiculous boyfriend or girlfriend. I know people judge me, they do it all the time. They send me crazy emails about how wrong I am about everything and how stupid my views are and how I should find the nearest bridge and take a plunge but the fact of the matter is that I couldn't give two hoots about any judgements of me. The wonderful thing about being an imperfect cynic is that nothing anyone says is any surprise!

So where does that leave us now? Maybe this will give you something to think about tonight while you lay in bed suffering from insomnia trying to subtly flip on the dirty showtime late night movies hoping that your spouse doesn't wake up and catch you. Or maybe you are a loser and your spouse packed up and ran off with your brother and you are alone with an empty bottle of wine staring up at the ceiling dreading having to go into the office in the mourning to listen to the boss complain about what a schmuck you are. But life doesn't have to get you down. The trick is to face it with a little sense of humor and the realization that that terrible day you are having is going to end and who knows, maybe the next day some Victoria's Secret model or a J-Crew model will sit next to you at Balthazar's for breakfast and beg you for a date. Talk about optimism. Maybe if you used 1/1,000 the amount of salt your used to, you might become as cynical and optimistic as me. The first major I ever considered during my freshman year at Manhattan College in the Bronx, NY was psychology. I have always been fascinated by people, human nature, human sexuality, human diets, human everything and I imagine you can tell this is the case from my rantings. We are not strangers in this world, we are individuals, granted some downright lunatics, but still individual souls and each one with a story to tell. But if you keep ingesting the records amounts of sodium you won't be around long enough to tell your own story. Einstein once said, "I'm not sure if I'm the one that's crazy, or if everyone else is!" You won't find that kind of wisdom in the salt shaker.