Early History

A thousand years ago, in an obscure unnamed temple in the highest mountains of Tibet, a scrawny monk was meditating. Actually, the guy meditated a lot in his obscure temple. There’s not a lot to do in the highest mountains of Tibet. Especially when you’re a monk who’s taken a vow of silence and won’t drink fermented water-buffalo milk. Face it, these guys don’t get invited to a lot of parties. But I’m getting off track. I better start again.

A thousand years ago, in an obscure unnamed temple in the highest mountains of Tibet, a scrawny monk was meditating. Suddenly, the monk was enveloped in an aura of unbridled evil. This could have been because his incense was way past its expiration date. Or perhaps the road to inner-peace was under construction, and the detour took him through a bad karma neighborhood. Or even the fact he was lactose intolerant and ate macaroni and yak cheese for lunch. He could’ve been very gassy, and in need of a bathroom quick. I know when my intolerant brother eats cheese, his aura takes on a smell straight from hell. And that’s a fact, but again I’m getting away from the topic.

All right then, Take Three: Thousand years ago, blah blah, high mountains, obscure temple blah blah blah, monk enveloped in an evil aura. Okay, moving on. Suddenly, the monk came up with the most hideous of ideas. One that would forever change how humans would look at the world. The only solution was to destroy the idea in both the physical world as well as the ethereal. I don’t know why, it’s a weird scrawny monk thing.

It’s just an idea

Anyway, the thought was he would write the evil idea on a soft clay slab, bake the slab into a stone tablet, then smash the tablet on some sacred rocks in a symbolic show of good triumphing over evil. Sounds like a lot of trouble to me, but those guys have a lot of time on their hands. Okay, so, he did all this except he had a heart attack before the ritual smashing and sadly, the tablet endured un-smashed. Don’t worry about the monk. Those guys have great health insurance.

The tablet survived years of storms, yak stampedes, conquering armies, and thousands of wolves peeing in it. Then one day a sherpa named Kahn Yu Shingh discovered it. He showed it to an anthropologist named I. Wisch. Even though the doctor knew this was a tablet of great evil, he was determined to give his discovery to the world. Kind of like those guys who created AI.

This is how the tablet came to be sitting in a museum collecting dust, and collect dust it did. It sat in its glass case for over fifty years until an intern decided to clean it. The evil words spoke to the intern in a way nothing ever had. He stole the tablet and replaced it with a placemat from some random burger joint. The replacement was never noticed because people were far more interested in the silly word-search, and find-the-difference puzzles than they ever were in that stupid dusty hunk of rock.

It could change the world

The guy left the museum and turned away from all the sciences. Going into marketing, as the evil tablet instructed, he worked his way up the company ladder. When he finally earned the key to the executive washroom, he showed the tablet to his manager. Who immediately fired his butt, because that manager wanted to claim the idea in the hopes of collecting a fat bonus. Sadly, the manager got fired as well, because the VP he showed it to wanted to claim the idea as well. Welcome to corporate America.

Of course, the idea was implemented. All evil ideas are implemented. It’s kind of a forgone conclusion. I mean, even Google whose company motto was, “Don’t Be Evil” couldn’t manage it. So, they dropped the motto in 2018. Apparently evil is a necessary component of corporate success. But I digress yet again.

With all that buildup, I’m betting you folks really want to know what this idea is. If you don’t, too bad. I’m going to tell you either way.

And here it is

There were only two words on that stone tablet, but their essence is seen everywhere. Even the federal government, (an evil entity to be sure), has forced this evil idea upon every food item everywhere. The two evil words are, “Serving Size.”

  On their own one may not see the evil in these simple words. That’s what makes them so evil. They feel like ordinary words. In fact, some naïve entrepreneurs have even tried to use the words for good. Sadly, they all failed. These words can not be made better than they are. Frankly, if you still see them as ordinary you have been completely taken in. Lucky for you, Mr. Ohh! is here to lead you back to the path of goodness. Well, the path of idiocy anyway.

Every food which has been pre-prepared must, by law, have the serving size clearly printed on the label. Supposedly, this is to inform the public about the product’s nutritional value. Thing is, there is no law about how big a serving has to be. As an example, I give you microwave dinners.

It’s growing

If you look at the label these are supposed to supplement your dinner along with a salad. Sounds good until you look at the serving size. I read one label from a theoretical healthy dinner. It said it had forty-percent on my daily requirement of salt. This was not so healthy at all. Then I saw the serving size. The package hypothetically was three servings. You can barely see the food with a microscope and you’re supposed to divide it into thirds. If you eat the whole thing, like everyone does, you’re getting one-hundred-twenty-percent of your daily salt. And you still need a salad to fill you up.

And it gets worse. I know Cheetos are terrible for me. Thing is, the label wants me to believe they’re not that bad. When you look at the label you think, “Yea, I can handle those numbers.” But if you look at the serving size it’s, “About seven pieces.” Nobody’s going to count out seven pieces, and just stop eating. Hell No! You’re going to grab a handful and let nutrition go right out the window.

And you can’t trust it

Dark chocolate is labeled healthy. And it probably is, if you only eat one M&M. My favorites are candy bars and bottles of soda. One twenty-ounce bottle of soda, can be up to four servings. I’m not kidding. Marketers sleep comfy in their beds thinking we’re actually paying attention to this. That’s like thinking a dragon is only going to burn down ten-percent of the village, and then leave. You know, because that’s the serving size.

On the other hand, according to the label on his sword, Sir Braveness would think he’d only have to slay one leg of the dragon, then go home to Lady Patience proclaiming a job well done. That’s good way to get your castle fried. Always remember…

Partial Dragons are Very Hard to Live With!!!