The Rabbi
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008
OK, this got MY panties in a twist. Velma and I are popping away in Springfield, having a good day when this little man walks up to me with a petulant look on his face. He doesn’t identify himself or tell me his name. “I understand you’ve been telling people that your product is kosher,” he says. I tell him that we’ve never told anyone that our kettle corn is kosher. In fact, when someone ASKS, we’ve always done a long-winded spiel about how rabbis have come by and told us that we COULD be kosher with the ingredients we’re using, but need to cough up some money and get certified. So we’ve always told anyone who asks, that our product is NOT kosher.
He then fires off a tirade about how this could lead to legal action against us and lawyers will be involved. At this point I assume this little nettlesome character is a rabbi. I tried to repeat what I had just told him…more slowly this time. He abruptly cuts me off and says that TWO people have told him that we’ve been telling people that it’s kosher, and we better stop saying it and that’s IT. (Including a curt little hand gesture.)
At this point I’m thinking how could anyone have thought that we told them this? Then it occurs to me–Steve has a funny satirical riff where he explains what our kettle corn ISN’T. (Free range, organic, low-fat, boneless, dolphin-safe, fair trade, kosher.) Click on the graphic on the main page called “Steve’s not quite true sales pitch” to hear his spiel.
You’ll notice on our website we blatantly spell out that what you’re hearing is NOT TRUE. Anyone with a flake of gray matter would realize that kettle corn CAN’T be free range, nor can something made with white sugar be organic or low-fat, there are no BONES in kettle corn. It has NOTHING to do with dolphins and nothing to do with imports, fair trade or otherwise. Therefore, it isn’t kosher either.
We thought Steve was being painfully obvious in his intent. It’s kind of like being sarcastic to someone, but they take what you’re saying to be literally true. Apparently, when some nitwit online listened to Steve’s silly riff, their little brains filtered out the part where we mention our kettle corn has no BONES or DOLPHINS in it and just heard the word “kosher.” Ah ha, now I think I got it. I start to explain all this to my diminutive antagonist. He doesn’t want to hear any of it, reiterates his threat, and gives me the curt hand gesture one last time, driving his point home.
When I told Steve all this, he couldn’t believe people could be so thick. He agreed that he’ll alter his spiel for the completely dim out there. It pains me to no end that I now have to put another “Velma sign” up saying our kettle corn is NOT KOSHER. What’s a “Velma sign”? Little notices that we hang from our tent telling the public FUCKING OBVIOUS things, just so we can’t be held liable. (There are un-popped kernels in it. Our stuff has sugar in it. It is made fresh.) I kind of scoffed at Velma for putting them up, figuring people in general can’t be THAT stupid. *HEAVY SIGH*
Velma here: Ha! I told him so!
Didn’t get a change to shoot any video this week. Both Springfield and Framingham turned into a record days so I was going nuts on both days.
