Kraft Mac-and-Cheddar-Cheese

In the end, I guess, you get in your car and you're sitting in the sweet and blissful a/c. Pull into your parking space and don't remember how goddamn long it took you to be able to do that as smoothly as you can. Open the door, into the heat of the parking lot, and slam the door shut because it doesn't close properly if you don't. Now you're walking through the heat of the July sun, sweltering in your shorts and t-shirt, because that's what you wear, of course, as the person you are. You walk up to the stained pavement in front of the Meijer and you see the big red sign with the spikes on top of it to keep the pigeons off. There's a plastic bag blowing by.

The cigarette smell is faint and you ignore it; you just walk by and enter the sliding door, and then walk by the gumball machines, which are mostly selling little plastic toys, so they're not really gumball machines, but it's no big loss because the gumballs weren't really much good. The real entertainment from them was eating a brightly colored sphere, and that isn't so appealing when you're an adult (Well, of course it is but as an adult you can't really want that sort of thing). And so past the gumball machines, through the second set of automatic sliding doors and through the anti theft devices that are taller than you on either side; they haven't stopped any theft that you know of because no one with a brain is going to try and steal anything with the security tags that activate the anti-theft devices, rather, it's the tv 15 feet above you showing yourself from the point of view of a security camera, with a little red box around your face, that stops the theft. And you see the checkout lanes on your right, but you're not going there yet, but you still notice the self checkout lanes are all open and there used to be less self checkout and more employee checkout and more of the employee checkout used to be open, but it's not really that important because you came here to buy a box of microwavable mac-and-cheddar-cheese cups that you don't even need to pour water in because you're just too tired of pouring the water in and it'll save your sanity and you have to pour water in them and they don't even taste that good.

Here's the aisle. Not the regular ones, the ones that you don't need to pour water in. Blue and yellow packaging, hiding the (Let's stop dancing around the word Kraft now) Kraft mac-and-cheddar-cheese inside, only openable by a magic spell that your microwave can cast. You pick it up. Now, you walk through the slightly dirty-feeling Meijer. It's not dirty by any means, but it feels like when you went here as a kid the floor had less spots. And you would know, because when you were a kid you were closer to the floor, and also the smaller spots didn't have that little bit of blur to them that they do now, but you know that of course it was cleaner as a kid because everything's better when you're a kid, and things really do stay the same even though they don't ever stop changing. You know that fact won't change but there's not really time to dwell on that because you're at the self checkout now, and you've got to wait in line a bit because the store's pretty busy and one of the self checkout machines isn't working.

Staring at copies of trashy magazines, you learn that Prince Charles drinks 3 glasses of water a day using his special technique, allowing him to hide his pregnancy and lose 20 pounds of baby fat per day. That's nice to know; you'll drink some water when you get home, especially because you're actually pretty thirsty now that you think about it. The candy bars call their names to you until it's your turn to use the self checkout machine. The little screen above it shows you at an oblique angle, a little distorted from the lens, scanning the box and placing it in the bagging area. Insert cash or select payment type. Fiddling your card out from your wallet. Use pin pad to complete transaction. Grab the box and thank you for shopping at Meijer.

Out you go and you see those little black spots on the pavement that you learned once are chewing gum spat out and stomped and adorned with collected dirt. You've never seen anyone just spit out their gum onto the pavement, so it must be the construction workers who do it when they're laying the pavement, so that it looks right. It really is hot out here, isn't it? The sun reflects off someone's ugly gray car. It really looks kind of like your nice blue one. Driving home.

Now you get home and you microwave your Kraft mac-and-cheddar-cheese and you get a glass of water like Prince Charles told you to. And you swallow a big spoon full of Kraft mac-and-cheddar-cheese and one razor blade that you've just learned about.

And you're a little dizzy.

And it fucking hurts.

And you're a little sick.

You at least manage to abort the swallow before the razor blade goes into your throat. But your tongue is starting to hurt. The razor blade is in an awkward position just at the back of your mouth and you try hacking and coughing to get it out without swallowing it; and you're really quite panicked about this whole thing. The thought crosses your fear-addled mind that maybe it'll shave all the hairs inside your body.

With a final cough, the interloper flops onto the kitchen floor and sits there innocently, incidentally arranged with your spittle and blood in a way that makes it look like a five Michelin star meal with those pretentious single drops of sauce. But sauce forms neat and clean drops. Your blood drops are spikier, with tiny flecks all around, as if the droplet kind of shattered rather than splattered.

What now? Your tongue is burning and there's blood leaking from your mouth and it's really messy. You get a paper towel and put it on your, ow, tongue, that hurts and hurts not really that much now. Your mouth is dry in an altogether unfamiliar way now that you've got a paper towel in your mouth like an idiot (ow, it still hurts) and you aren't gonna drink your water even though it's good for you because then the paper towel (ow) would fall apart.

There's a first aid kit with some gauze in the bathroom. You could probably just wrap that around your tongue, even though it might have some difficulty sticking. It's a solution to your immediate problem, and as you go to implement it, the obvious question enters your mind. Why was there a razor blade in your Kraft mac-and-cheddar-cheese?

Sitting down on the couch now, you continue to mull it over, thoughts only slightly impeded by the awkward feeling of the gauze wrapped around your tongue. You pick up a different package of mac-and-cheddar-cheese, wary of its potential contents (another razor blade, although you don't know this), and examine it. Next to the nutrition facts, the package informs you that if you have questions about the product (you do), then you can call 1-877-535-5666 (you will).

Dialing the number on your phone; they pick up instantly, and you are greeted with a bit-crushed robotic voice. "Thank you for calling the Kraft-Heinz Consumer Center. Your call is very important to us. As part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, a representative will be assigned to you at the earliest possible opportunity. We are grateful for your patience."

Your phone begins to dispense muzak. It's a tastefully bland tune, except for one chord that is apparently too much for the compression a phone call must endure before being sent along the telephone lines. Each time it plays, it's loud and discordant, a metallic screech against the coolly euphoric melody. It's enthralling. A single error in design, a failure to work within constraints set for the project turns utilitarian muzak into a pomo art project, a scathing critique of itself and everything it stands for. The self-flagellating song pulls you far, far away, high into the sky, and you are cold and wet and freezing and the air is getting thinner and you're wondering how high this song c- "Hello, and thank you for calling the Kraft-Heinz consumer center. My name is John; how may I help you?"

It takes you a few moments to remember your name, and a few more to process the statement. "Hi John," you begin, "I wonder if you could tell me what your hold song is called?" "Ah, I'm afraid that is one thing I am unable to help you with," the voice responds. It's a voice that lacks qualities, even without considering that several have been assigned to it by the telephone it comes through. One of the few things it can accurately be called, however, is pleasant. "Is there anything else I can assist you with?" A throb in your tongue is an unneeded reminder of your motive. "Yes, there is. Um, I was eating—or, well, I was going to eat it—um, eating a cup of Kraft mac-and-cheese, when I, uh, found a razor blade in it. Um, in the—in the mac-and-cheese." Your speech is only slightly impeded by the injury and the treatment. "Ah, of course." The voice is unfazed. "Yes, some cups may have razor blades now. We're committed to the quality of our products and the suffering of our customers." It holds its pleasant, placid tone.

You do not hold a pleasant, placid tone. You splutter. The first coherent string of words that comes out of your mouth is "I cut my tongue open, for Christ's sake!" You smoothly follow it up with "And—and you—what? What do you mean? You... suffering?" The voice waits a second to ensure you're done speaking, and then happily states, "We're happy to hear that you were able to have such an experience with one of our products. And, yes, we are fully committed to the suffering of our customers. We've begun enhancing select cups in certain regions with deleterious ingredients, including razor blades, needles, rat poison, and more. We're always looking and innovating for new ways to harm our customers, and hope to roll out these programs worldwide."

"Oh." You hang up. You stare at the cup of mac-and-cheddar-cheese that gave you the contact information. Get up, off the couch, and into the kitchen. Carefully, pick the razor blade off the floor, wrap it in paper towel, and toss it into the garbage can. After thoroughly searching it to ensure your safety, you continue eating your now lukewarm cup of Kraft mac-and-cheddar-cheese.