I want to write to you tonight about a disturbing trend. I didn’t think it was disturbing until a couple of days ago. I thought it was a harmless passing fad and a clever marketing technique. Now I see it as an insidious plot to pit human against human and bring about the apocalypse.
Carbonativity
I think Coke started this idea of putting people’s names on each can, which was no problem as long as you’ve got a common name. Now, Nutella is doing it and since it’s a stick on label they can customize it with any name you want. So, even if your name is Dingleberry T. Poopypants, you can have it on your bottle of Nutella. Still, I didn’t give it much thought.
Then, Helena gave each of the kids and me a jar of Nutella for Mikulaš (Saint Nicholas Day, December 5th) and each jar has one of our names on it. Later that evening Sam asked me if I’d got some Nutella out of his jar. I said “No, but it wouldn’t matter if I had. My Nutella is the same as your Nutella and we can all take from each other’s Nutella.” Nutella’s pretty darned popular in our household, and when these three jars run out, we will probably rush out and buy some more.
Sam accepted this explanation. Isabel was adamantly opposed. “No! It’s my Nutella. Do not touch my Nutella.” I tried to explain that if she could take from me and Sammy it worked out the same, but she wasn’t having any of my logic nonsense.
Her Nutella. If Helena’s just bought 3 unlabeled bottles there would have been no problem. Civilization is like that. We pin a label on something and then we feel obligated to respond to that label.
Sometimes, maybe, we should listen to a song and just try to enjoy it without trying to figure out it’s genre. Sometimes, maybe, when we meet people, we should ask them what they think instead of “Where are you from?” or “What do you do?” Some day, maybe, we will realize that the borders of the nations of the world are just labels, like thus stuck onto jars on Nutella. We’re all one people. It’s all the same chocolate.
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