Editor's Notes
written by Ken Carlson
And that’s when my wife said, “Those damn cracker people are screwing with me again!”
OK, let’s back up a bit. Once in a while, everyone has a moment when someone they know says something completely out of character, strangely out of context, and unwittingly involving snack treats. And here we are.
My wife does not curse often. She is devout, we have small children around, and she is not Redd Foxx. That’s not to say she is meek or that she is afraid to say what she feels, whether it’s her gently conveying that I drive like an idiot, or her affectionately advising me to stop driving like a moron. She gets her point across.
This summer has been very rainy and damp in the Northeast. Generally, I don’t mind. Temperatures have remained cooler than usual and I’m not a big fan of beaches, crowded and loud sweaty ones or those involving Bette Midler.
However, the rain does get in the way of a simple practice that I have come to cherish, enjoying quiet evenings at home, having dinner on our back deck.
In the current family structure, situations are requiring more people to work longer hours, spending more time commuting, and less time at home. The flip side of that is all the people who have lost their jobs in this wretched economy and may not have a home to spend time in at all. So, when I say I am thankful when we can pull it off, I mean it.
It’s nice to sit and relax for a few minutes with the kids playing in the yard, a steak simmering on the barbecue, some tunes and a drink close by, and my wife by my side. Now, I don’t want to paint too perfect or bucolic a picture. The deck is falling apart, the lawn looks like crap, the kids are probably fighting, the food on the grill is probably burnt, and cars drive by regularly with sound systems that allow them to share their music with friends in Mumbai. But it’s nice, every once in a while to have a moment to think that even though times haven’t always been good, and times will get tough down the road; for right now, things are OK.
So when my wife shouts out of nowhere, “Those damn cracker people are screwing with me again!” I’m understandably curious.
By cracker people, she was not making any sort of off-color or social insult. She is still not Redd Foxx. No, she was focussing her anger directly at the scourge of families everywhere, people who make crackers.
My wife bought some Ritz crackers. Yeah, we’re living the high life. For those who find our choice too pedestrian, let me just say that if you find something your kids will eat other than Mac n’ Cheese (the n’ is for nutrition, as in there is so little in it that they don’t bother to spell out the entire word), you buy it. It turns out she bought some a while ago, then bought some more this week, not realizing that we hadn’t finished the first box.
So, at our rickety outdoor table, there were two boxes of Ritz. My wife sampled one from the old box and found it a little stale. Apparently the chemical people who work for the cracker people only injected enough preservatives to remain fresh from the Neolithic era. So, she opened the new box.
After a few years of marriage, you pick up on subtle nuances in human behavior, survival skills in the wild. You learn that when women become mothers their senses become a million times more acute and sensitive. From a mile away, they can tell when one of their girls is giving her new expensive doll a Demi Moore hair cut with the sewing scissors. They can tell when their obnoxious husband is rummaging through the cupboards in the kitchen just an hour and seventeen minutes after dinner. Their eye for detail is amazing. Guys tend to deal in broader brush strokes. They can tell when they’re in trouble, but not sure why or how. They may be enjoying a quiet moment, until they figure out why. It’s what DJ Hazard describes as, “sensing a disturbance in the force”
In picking up the new box of crackers, my wife was able to ascertain that it was slightly smaller than the old box. What confused me was she was able to do it by touch and weight, holding the nearly empty, old box next to the nearly full, new one and noticing a difference of around 6 percent. She became agitated when reading the package confirmed her suspicions that the cracker people had changed the box size from 16 fluid ounces to 15.
My wife is the Coupon Queen. This is not code for someone turning tricks down in the Village, as far as I know. She’s just really into coupons. This past year, she began to dabble in the act of searching for bargains as an amusing diversion. But once she found many of her friends did it too, she became really competitive, scouring newspapers and websites, comparing different stores, mocking my receipts whenever I came back from the store as an amateur effort at best. I initially found the practice a jumbled, confusing commotion, but since our food budget has been cut in half and we’re still eating food, I have no reason to complain.
So the Ritz Cracker people fooled my wife. She thought she was getting a better deal, where she actually paid the same or more for fewer crackers. It’s part of the big picture. Newspapers are getting smaller, with weekday editions approaching paper towel status. NPR ran a story on working actresses in Hollywood making less for the same work as Beth Broderick said, “If I had a dollar for every time I was offered to star in a Web series for nothing, I’d be a lot richer than if I actually starred in a Web series for nothing.”
Comedians are taking hits as well. There are fewer corporate shows, fewer college gigs. Often, they’re being asked to accept less money. Does that mean they have to be less funny, do less time? I’d love to hear from any comic out there who actually had a booker tell them, “Hey, sorry I’m only giving you drink tickets for a gig I promised you 200 bucks. Tell you what, it’s OK if you bomb tonight. Go ahead and suck. It’s only fair.”
That’s not how life works. There are cracker people, who give you less and hope you don’t notice. And there are people who buy crackers, who either don’t notice or take it rather than leave it. If it were only Ritz Crackers we were talking about, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. Just don’t ask my wife about the Wheat Thins. It would drive her nuts!
Ken Carlson is the editor of the Comedians Magazine.
editor@thecomedians.org