Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Al-Gouda Attacks New York; No One But Me Notices

I love my job in the Dole Fruit Canning Operations division, because who wouldn't love a job where every day was a bad I Love Lucy episode waiting to happen? Also, because we get to eat our mistakes. Still, every now and then, it's nice to take a stroll outside and let the air over midtown Manhattan take you away like an unmarked van outside an elementary school playground.

Then, there are days when the air over midtown Manhattan smells like smoked gouda.

I'm not talking vaguely like gouda either, and I'm not talking some isolated circumstance like just outside of a cheese shop or a haberdashery, which actually might have made sense. I'm talking 45th Street and Lexington Avenue, wafting all the way toward Vanderbilt, basically encasing the Grand Central Station Post Office in a smoke-tinted, cheesy funk. At 2:30 in the afternoon. On a Tuesday.

And where was this mentioned in the news? I'll give you a hint: IT WASN'T. Apparently, the powers that be at the Post, the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Daily News think the aroma of smoked gouda is perfectly ordinary happenstance. Birdcage liners AM New York and Metro let it go by without a blip. Even the normally astute news-gatherers at Gawker.com and the Huffington Post missed it, I guess because the headline wasn't quite as sexy as Britney's pregnant little sister or a chemical attack on the Newscorp building (or even what the Newscorp employees got in their holiday gift bags this year).

"Stench of Popular Dutch Cheese Covers Midtown Post Office" [massive spit-take] --- how is that NOT grab-you-by-the-collar, slap-you-in-the-face, yank-the-waistband-of-your-underwear-over-your-head headline writing?
Dear Journalistic Establishment,

You have disappointed me again. It's becoming a nasty habit of yours, and I don't think you want to make me get Jesus and Santa Claus involved. Or Oprah. She will put the smackdown on your silly ass faster than you can fail in your responsibility to accurately and impartially report what's going on in the world.

Unhappily,
Smokey Robinson

2 comments:

Sarah said...

This begs the question: If a misplaced wheel of cheese rolls its way through midtown Manhattan and no one is around to see it, does it still smell like smoked gouda?

Smokey Robinson (aka Matt) said...

Yes. It does still smell that way.

And also, yes.