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I can be bought. For the low, low price of $80. You'd think my morals would be a bit pricier than that and honestly I myself was surprised but there you have it. Last night and tonight found me parking around back of a large building, sneaking in a door left cracked open, and then jogging up six flights of stairs to arrive sweaty and breathless in a tiny room full of...
Pizza.
I don't eat white flour, sugar, processed foods, meat with nitrates or even meat at all. I am repelled by foods with words like "lite" and "tasti" in their names. I avoid "cheese product" like the plague. I don't think I've eaten a conventional pizza in years. And yet there I was with 12 other women eating frozen "healthy" pizza like it was our last meal.
You see, I signed up to work for a marketing research company and every other month or so they call me in to test random products. The stuff I've tried in the name of research reads like a stranger's list you find in a grocery cart (anyone else fascinated by those??). I've done diapers, muffins, yogurt, cereal, ice cream and lighters among other sundries. And no, smart alecks, I did not wear the diapers, I used them on my children. Who also wore the yogurt and muffins. What can I say? Breakfast is a no-man's land at our house. If they could've figured out the lighter they probably would have burned the kitchen down to hide the evidence.
Although by far the best - and by best I mean "stops a dinner party conversation in its tracks" - product test I did was for feminine hygiene products. We had to save all the used products, wrap them in plastic with the business side facing out and then haul them across town in a huge plastic bag* which we had to return before they'd pay us. Ever contemplate how maxi pad commercials can claim their winged wonder is "67% more absorbent"? Well, you're welcome.
But back to the pizza**. I had to try eight different pizzas and fill out a survey of what I thought of them. Two forty-five minute sessions and all pizzas nibbled would earn me a nice 80$ check. Never before though had a taste test challenged my moral convictions. While it is true that I am currently a vegetarian - and like it - I have in the past eaten meat - and liked it. So was 80$ worth breaking a year-long streak of no animal flesh?
Apparently. I'm sorry chickens. It was nothing personal. I'm just cheap! Do you know how much "Chik'n***" I can buy with that kind of dough? If it makes you feel any better, I tried really hard to just nibble around the chicken pieces and not actually eat any. I'm so ashamed...
Have any of you ever sold out? How much would someone have to pay you for your used maxi pads? Please tell me so I can feel better!!
*Can you possibly think of a worse job that to be the official used maxi pad inspector?
**The pizzas were everything I'd expect of a "healthy" "lite" frozen "meal": disgusting.
*** I don't actually eat "Chik'n" either - I hate processed meat replacements. But it just fit so nicely in that sentence.
This post sound familiar? Most of it - with the exception of the feminine hygiene anecdote which I added tonight - ran two years ago. Fridays are Greatest Hits Day here at the GFE.
