Dear Readers,
Every once in a while I have these brilliant ideas out of nowhere that I must proclaim to the Universe. Yeah! Really! Brilliant ideas just come to my special brain, while I'm sharpening pencils with a pocketknife alone in my room, or when I'm staring at the sky, or when I’m bathing and leisurely admiring the beauty of my body. I just think of great things! Brilliant things!
And then sometimes I wonder if I really thought of the brilliant idea first- or if some other mortal thought of it before I did. Sometimes I think Jablork thought of it first, and he whispered it to my brain. (Remember Jablork, faithful Telemoonfa Time Readers? Jablork's the troll that lives inside my jaw and uses his cute little explosives to blast through several feet of rock. He was originally featured in one of my poems, This Thing with my Jaw.) Anyway, it could have been Jablork, or it could have been an angel, or a ghost, that told me the profound profundity that I am about to impart to you.
Anyway, here's my brilliant idea:
Imagine yourself sitting down to enjoy an average meal in which you use salt and pepper to season your food. How about mashed potatoes? Yes. OK. Mashed potatoes. Follow me so far?
So you're eating mashed potatoes and they taste a little bland, and naturally you reach across the table towards the salt and pepper. Now comes the crucial question: "Which do you use first, the salt, or the pepper?"
Maybe this scenario is not something you think about. Maybe it's like asking you if you put on your left shoe first or your right shoe first in the morning. Well... pay attention next time you use salt and pepper... but I bet I know what the answer is.
You use the salt first.
Yes! You use the salt first!
Brilliance!
But why? Why do you use the salt first? I can hear you asking it! (or maybe that’s Jablork. Shut up Jablork, I’m talking with my other friends!)
Because... and here is the grand secret... because you say “salt” first when you say “salt and pepper!"
Seriously! When was the last time you heard somebody say, "pass the pepper and salt, please." That sounds ridiculous! Ridiculous and un-American! The salt comes first, and the pepper comes second. That’s just the way it is! Whether you like it or not! It doesn’t matter how much you think pepper has been oppressed- it doesn’t matter how many friends you get to start saying “pepper and salt.” The proper way, the natural way, is to say “salt and pepper” and everybody knows it! “Salt and pepper” is more than just a socialized ordering, too. Saying “salt and pepper” is instinctual. (Shut up, Jablork! I know I’m exaggerating! So what?! Go search for gems! I’m talking with my other friends!)
Sorry about that outburst. Moving on, in fact, there are lots of phrases that have set orders, like, "bread and butter" and "pork and beans" and "Telemoonfa and Jablork."
Bottom line: you use salt first on your mashed potatoes because you say “salt” first. It’s kind of a postmodern idea: language shapes reality. But remember that the idea “language shapes reality” isn’t just a pretentious idea coming from godless, pipe-smoking, pretentious college professors- remember that God himself spoke the worlds into existence. He commanded with his voice, and the elements obeyed.
I don’t have all the puzzle pieces put together yet, you understand. I am only a lone voice crying in the wilderness… no, I shouldn't compare myself with John the Baptist like that... I guess I'm more like a lone voice crying in the sandbox at the neighborhood park. I’m an independent detective, hired by no one, tracking down the as-yet-inexplicable modus operandi of ALL EVERYTHING FOREVER.
But right now I have a hunch that somehow “salt and pepper,” black helicopters, the federal reserve, and the golden ratio are all part of it. And by “it” I mean ALL EVERYTHING FOREVER.
Sincerely,
Telemoonfa
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1 comment:
The phrase "salt and pepper" and the inability of Americans to tolerate the phrase "pepper and salt" is further indication of America's inability to reconcile with its racist past.
Salt = white.
Pepper = black.
We say "salt and pepper" because instinctively Americans have, as a whole, always considered whiteness to be superior to blackness, hence the prominence of the item "salt" in the phrase "salt and pepper."
America's abject refusal to speak the phrase "pepper and salt" with the same ease as "salt and pepper" is circumstantial evidence of America's refusal to place anything associated with "blackness" in a position superior to that of something associated with "whiteness."
You may say, "But wait, it is only a phrase, you are taking things to seriously."
First of all, words have power and the words we speak have the power to shape the way we think and act.
Second, as Telemoonfa has so capably explicated, who puts pepper on their potatoes before the salt? When given the choice, almost no one. And thus we see that the phrase "salt and pepper" not only is a manner of speaking, but has influenced the actions on American's who, by the act of sprinkling salt before pepper, are placing whiteness before blackness. And thus, the inability of America to reconcile with its racist past is perpetuated.
I hear you asking, "But what can I do?"
As American's sit around the Thanksgiving table tomorrow, stand up and unashamedly ask for "pepper and salt." When looked upon quizzically, repeat confidently, "I would like the pepper and salt, please." And then, as the items are passed to you, and as the eyes of the table gaze upon you, take that pepper shaker and sprinkle the desired amount of pepper on your potatoes.
Every movement begins with a single person, a single voice, a single act.
There was a rainbow in the sky this morning. The air cleansed from a welcome rain. It was beautiful.
The Boid
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