Peanut Butter Dependency
by The world is running out of a precious natural resource. What are we going to do about it?
I enjoy taking the first scoop out of a jar of peanut butter. Do you know why? It’s because I’m an American and I enjoy making giant holes in untouched things for my own personal gain. The smooth virgin surface is pristine and untouched until it is ravaged by the end of my knife. One plunge of the dull blade of a butter knife penetrates, digging deep, scooping out what is for me to consume. It makes me feel powerful, like a god.
At first, I only take a little. There is no reason to be gluttonous. I’m done for the time being. However, over the course of a month or so, I do this many, many times, each time taking more until eventually there is no peanut butter left in the jar. All that’s left is the nearly-impossible-to-scoop film on the sides. Fuck that though. Who has time to be scooping out microscopic amounts of peanut butter from the inside of a jar? Do you know what I do? I go get another jar. Duh! They appear on the shelf at the grocery store and I pick them up and take them home with me. I’ve probably gone through hundreds of them over the course of my life, but they keep coming. They never stop appearing.
It got me thinking. What if the peanut butter does stop coming? It has to come from somewhere, right? What if the crops of peanut butter trees burn down? What if an OIL spill stops it from swimming into nets? What if the peanut butter wells dry up and the peanut butter mines are completely depleted? What would we do then? Eat almond butter? Fuck that! I’m an American. I don’t eat almond butter. That would be a change. That would be something different. I want my goddamn peanut butter!
If the world’s supply of peanut butter was running out, it would start getting more and more expensive. All the time, we’d see the price rise. The ones selling it need to make money. All of us would complain and even bad-mouth the providers, but we’d all keep consuming it and consuming it until it was gone, because we need it. I need it! I need to jab its easily-permeable structure with cold, hard stainless steel. I need to pierce the soft but thick consistency with my round blade of wrath. I need my peanut butter!
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