Today, I called off work because I’ve hurt my back. That’s not what I want to tell you about though. While at the store to get meds for said hurt back, I saw, or rather, heard, something I do want to tell you about.
A woman was at the customer service desk returning a bag of unopened sunflower seeds. You know, the kind that are found in flavors like ranch or chipotle or just plain salted. Was it the flavor that dissatisfied her? No. Were they stale or perhaps outdated? Again, no. So what could be wrong, you ask?
Well, in a word, sunflower seeds. Oh, wait. That’s two words. Still valid.
A lengthy conversation was had, but what it came down to was: the woman does not like sunflower seeds. I’ll repeat. She was returning them because she does not like sunflower seeds. Yet, and here’s where it gets a little confusing, she bought sunflower seeds. One could presume the woman knows her own likes and dislikes. You know, as one does. But again, I keep coming back to the fact that she — not a husband or child or stealthy purveyor of disliked legumes, bought the sunflower seeds. To be clear, and she was nothing if not clear, she doesn’t like sunflower seeds.
If that’s not emblematic of society today, I don’t know what is.
Musings from a Tangled Mind 
When I visited America, I was surprised at some of the warnings I found on packaging that stated to obvious. The one that most stands out in my memory was one I read on a packet of peanuts: Caution: Contains peanuts. I would never had guessed.
Perhaps the packaging didn’t have a similar warning that it actually contained sunflower seeds 🙂
It’s sad to see that the overly aggressive marketing campaign of the sunflower seed industry is being so poorly received by the general populace. So much ingenuity and creativity went into those devices built into the new store shelves that fire bags of seeds into your shopping cart when you aren’t looking, not to mention the stealth technology in designing the bags so that you don’t see them in the cart or on the belt at checkout or in your bag until you get home.
INGRATES!!
This incident is so counterintuitive I don’t know WHAT to make of it.
People seem to want everything and everyone to somehow transform into something THEY can approve of. Or something along that line.