Virtual Food
Last Saturday, a particularly beautiful spring morning, I was walking past the 7-11 near my house. My lazy attention settled on an ice truck that was parked out front. On the side of the truck was a slogan, "Package ice is a food!" No it's not. Duh, it's frozen water. Water is not food.

Lately my dreams have been very lifelike and when things start getting especially odd I often realize that I'm dreaming. I figured this was one of those times so I decided to fly the rest of the way home. Why walk when you can fly? Being in a dream does have some advantages. After picking myself up off the ground, I looked again, less lazily. The truck was still claiming "Package ice is a food!"

During the very awake walk home, the mysteries seemed endless. Was it some Reagan-era throw back when catsup was declared a vegetable when used in school lunches? "Catsup is a vegetable; ice is food. Eat your lunch kids, before it melts". Was it some sort of dodge so people could pay for ice with food stamps? Was it a dentist conspiracy to get people to destroy their teeth?

The Ice Company has a Website, http://www.brandywineice.com, where they again proclaim that "Package ice is a food!" I e-mailed them the bad news that ice isn't a food. To be even more helpful, I suggested a replacement slogan, "Package ice is a bag of frozen water!" True it's not real catchy, but it's much more accurate than their current slogan.

While waiting for a reply I came up with some more slogans for them:
"Package ice is not just for external use only!"
"Package ice melts in your mouth and in your hands!"
"Package ice is a bag of very painful projectiles! Chill your beverage AND hurt your enemies!"

I'm still waiting for a reply, but it doesn't matter because I figured it out. Why is homemade ice not a food, but package ice is? It's obvious. One could get some nourishment from the bag, thus package ice IS food! Yum!

I'm done.

- Scoats