Turkey Bacon, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Genetic Modification
Emma was a lovely lass, really: sweetness and light, chatty and bubbly, but my God was she thick as two short planks. I worked with her in an un-named British supermarket (I might remember more stories about it later and would rather not identify it too clearly) in the fresh meat section, diligently tossing slabs of dead animal onto shelves every weekend for beer money during my degree. Emma was a high school drop-out working there full-time. Anyhow, onto the story:

Our protagonist (moi): Dry, sarcastic, straight-faced. I'm also a reader, as such I quite often had a Fact Of The Day and would chip in to pretty much any discussion with an interesting titbit or factoid.
The ignorant (Emma): Lovely, thick, trusting.
The scene: She and I standing side-by-side, restocking the bacon, with a few of the rest of our number close-by.

Emma sees the case in my hand, full of the Mattesons Turkey Rashers (for those who like their bacon shit and bacon-free) and I see her brow furrow. "Where does turkey bacon come from?" she asks. Taking a second to compose myself, I turned toward her and - in one of my finest straight-faced performances in that job - nonchalantly replied: "Cross-breeds." She looked surprised for a moment but, presumably recalling all the other times I'd provided her with nuggets of information that no-one else seemed to question, was briefly sated. I can only imagine what was running through her head as she tried to work out the logistics of that, but after a moment or two she turned back toward me. I preempted her next question by reminding her of the huge size of some of the turkeys we got in around Christmas time - those were the ones they used along with small pigs. At this point I noticed that we now had a small audience of our co-workers who'd caught the conversation and were now standing behind us, out of her view, trying not to break the scene.

"Really?" I was trying so, so hard at this point not to crack a smile as I nodded seriously. "It's the same sort of thing as the beef ham, right?" My facade was slipping as she thought about this for a moment and nodded, her face showing the strain her poor brain was under trying to comprehend it all. "Or the salmon-cut beef." I know I cracked a grin at this one and I received a smack in the arm for my trouble but the guttural guffaws from those assembled behind us was worth it.

Yes, it was mean but I made sure to undo the damage afterwards by informing her of the truth - complete with interesting facts on the true logistical difficulties of pig copulation. It's still kind of worrying just how readily she ate it up, and somewhat damning of the schooling system in that area (another shining moment of her brilliance was when she asked if Hitler was "That one with that beard.")
(warmidea, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 13:38, Reply)