Ignorance is Bliss

Dear Pepperidge Farms,

I agree that you have captured the essence of a great pretzel with your Baked Naturals Pretzel Thins.  I am a fan. However, your packaging department leaves a lot to be desired.  It seems that on average there were about 12 wholly intact thins in my box. This is a problem.You see, I have this new app on my iPhone that allows me to track my caloric intake for the day.  I've become a bit obsessive about it. (I tend to do that.)  It's become like a game...it even has a bar code scanner.  So you see, I scan your little box of carby-crack...ahem...pretzel thins and there it comes to my iPhone...11 crisps 110 calories. I dutifully dole out my allotted 11 crisps. For a brief moment, I marvel at how health conscious and responsible I am being. My first few crisps are too soon replaced by a gaping void on my paper towel. I want MORE. Those are soon added to the carbohydrate cue waiting to become inches around my thighs. I reach my hand into the box to repeat process but all that my hand grabs are pretzel shards. How am I supposed to keep caloric track of these? I'm not. I don't. It is soon a prezel-shard free-for-all. I then realize that almost the entire box is gone. There's no point in saving this piddly amount - I might as well finish it off. Quickly assessing the salt to crumb ratio at the bottom of the bag I opt for the old "down the hatch" motion tipping the bag up to my mouth (my mother who tortured me with "etiquette school" would be so proud...no really, she did. ). Really bad idea...which brings me to another point. Could you please foresee that gluttons like me need protection from ourselves and either (1) make the salt actually affix to the pretzels in the first place or (2) dye the salt a bright neon color so that I may better assess ratio in the future.

and no this has nothing to do with lack of self-control. Thank you.

Southern Comfort

There's just something comforting about being home.Your body melts from holding the attention stance of being in an unfamiliar place. There is a lightness to your step and an effortlessness about your behavior.  You have conquered this place and know exactly what to expect from it. This is where you are rooted.

The drive from Bluffton to Charleston is a spiritual one for me. It used to be 45 miles of two-lane road along the coast of South Carolina. Breathtaking views of the Coast are interspersed with miles of forest and remnants of towns that once thrived in the Old South.  For most of the drive, the land revealed no signal of time or era or having been touched by man.  I feel a twinge of anger and regret at the sight of the large cranes and orange cones as they manipulate this beauty to bend to man's whim. I fear it will never be the same. It will never be the same. Almost as soon as a pit starts to rise in my stomach, the sultry smell of pluff mud and sweet grass brings calm over me. My lips begin to mouth the words of a familiar country song that comes across the radio as if it is an innate response.  I open the windows in order to take in every moment.  The chirr of the cicada signals it is summertime and sunset is coming. The whoosh of thick, warm air envelops me as if offering a hug.  I smirk at my moment of nostalgia thinking this, too must be the thought of each generation enduring "progress." So I concede to the four-lane highway like many Carolinians before me. Our beloved Carolina will never be the same but it will always be beautiful.  It will always be home.