TheBanyanTree: “It’s Like Going to War”

[Pam Lawley]

Another entertaining read Monique - you're on a roll so keep 'em coming!!!

And I've always wondered about "Cupcake Wars"... really?!?!?!  poor
good-hearted cupcakes....

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> I heard this on a commercial the other day, maybe for The Next Iron Chef.
> You know, where chefs compete to become television stars, if they aren’t
> already, by participating in cooking contests. I love a good cooking
> contest
> as well as the next person, so don’t get me wrong. Cooking competitions are
> fun. But apparently for chefs, it’s like going to war.
>
>
>
> Really? Are people shooting at them while they’re cooking? Are bombs going
> off around them? Are IED’s littering the countertops? When they’re done
> with
> the competition will they return home with PTSD and an overwhelming urge to
> assimilate while being unsure how? Will they suffer bouts of anger,
> depression, and ennui? Or do they run the risk of not returning home at all
> when one of the competitors decides to Take The Competition Seriously and
> stabs them with a boning knife?
>
>
>
> Okay, it’s true that I have no actual war experience myself. When I was in
> the military we were, nominally, at peace, and though we played at war for
> practice, there’s no way it could have been anything like actual war. I was
> aware of that when I was told to please lay on the body bag and then climb
> up into the truck myself, because if they’d zipped me up into the bag I’d
> 1)
> be unable to breathe, and then 2) gotten hurt when they’d throw my body bag
> up in into the truck, which is what would have happened if we’d been at
> war.
> Also, at the end of the day I got to leave the morgue and go back to . . .
> work. There’s nothing like a real war to show us that indeed, there’s
> nothing like war.
>
>
>
> War is messy and icky and painful, and at the end the people who do get to
> come home don’t get awarded with a starring role in a television show.
> Though that’s not a bad idea, is it?
>
>
>
> “It’s like going to war,” except it isn’t. But hey, who am I to say?
>
>
>
> We love to exaggerate. Personally, I love to throw things in my writing
> like, “There’s absolutely nothing worse than . . . “ because, in real life,
> there are many worse things than whatever I’m saying, and while I’m not
> sure
> everyone else gets the irony, I do, so what else matters?
>
>
>
> We love to appropriate inappropriate words and use them in a different
> context, especially if they’re powerful words. A favorite of mine is rape.
> “I’ve been raped by the government!” “I’ve been raped by big business!”
> “I’ve been raped by society!”
>
>
>
> Whatever. When I hear this I immediately disregard whatever else the
> speaker
> is trying to say. If that’s the best they can do to describe what’s
> happening to them, I’m not inclined to hear any more. Maybe they’re right,
> and maybe they are being raped by amorphous entities who are holding them
> down and threatening their lives while . . . well, you know. Rape is a
> sexual assault. Maybe we should create a new word to describe what people
> think is rape, but isn’t. You go first. I’ll pick up on it later and find
> fault with it, if I can.
>
>
>
> It’s what I do.
>
>
>
> I’m going to work now, which is much like playing at war, in that I get to
> sit in a comfy office and get paid. At least that’s how I play war, I don’t
> know about you.
>