Dear Mr. Kraft of Crackers and Cheese, Parmesan Cheese and Other Sundry Food Munchies:
or
To Personnel: (Whoever gets this first)
After what has not been an Easy Day in my life, I’m sitting here unshaven and unslept writing this letter. It is therefore important, at least to me. Please read this.
I’ve never been an ardent fan of yours. Oh, a sprinkle of Parmesan on pasta, perhaps. Nothing more. I’m generally of the brie and camembert persuasion. It probably has something to do with the synonymous relationship I’ve formed in my mind between the words “processed” and “digested”. I’ve felt that Velveeta found its true niche in the world by aiming lower on the food chain, namely as a Last Gourmet Meal for ill-fated trout.
Today I’m a changed man. No trip to the supermarket will be made without gathering in some little packages with “Kraft” written somewhere on them. This should put a glow on your face, Mr. Kraft. My life will be spent in helping these little “Krafties” make the profitable, if somewhat ignominious, trip from your factories to our refrigerator to our stomach to our…hearts. Who is responsible for such radical change?
The answer is: Two employees of yours working out of Buena Park. They are truck-drivers who make the bi-weekly run, trotting big and little cheeses from Buena Park to Pocatello, Idaho (Who would have thought?) back and forth. We shall call them Angel and Charlie–Charlie, because that’s his name as I found out listening to Angel, and Angel because (1) I think he must be one and (2) I was too slack-jawed during my short acquaintance with him to do civilized, ritualistic things like asking names. I believe these men ought to be financially rewarded, and/or Knighted and/or Sainted, or whatever it is you folks at Kraft and Co. do for deserving employees. These two men, while tending your business productively, have not, as Jacob Marley says, forgotten to tend that Greater Business, Mankind.
Perhaps a little digression will help explain my passionate plea for their advancement in the local deification process.
I have the unfortunate habit of staying up many hours after my brain has retired. It is during these hours that I often raise, pun intended, dumb memorials to my own Stupidity. One of the particular avocations that I engage in when so affected is limited to my Driving hours. This avocation might be called True Insight and Revelation as to the State of the World Expressed by One’s Own Analog Fuel Gauge. You may have played this game. The risks are high but the consequent shots of adrenaline and fear equal two Dr. Pepper’s and a caffeine pill any day.
Yesterday I was driving my son’s little black Jeep from Bountiful, Utah to Torrance, California for reasons unfathomable to the normal mind. I had my two heart-treasures, both daughters, strapped in rear and shot-gun. As we breezed through St. George, the fuel needle dipped wistfully toward the rows of service stations. “Now, now”, I thought. “I drive this route all the time in my little ’84 Mazda and it’s hardly consumed the fill-pipe by now. We’ll think about this a little more in Mesquite.” And so we roared off down the throat of the Virgin Gorge. (Digression: How do they know?)
At Mesquite I continued my conversation with the Jeep: “Yes, I know it says empty. You guys always complain that it’s ‘belly-up-to-the-bar’ time, when you’re really padding with three or four gallons. You could probably make it to Vegas if we had to. My Mazda always does and never takes more than a ten-dollar bill when she finally drinks. At least Glendale. I hate Mesquite anyway and the gambling casino there crouches over the gas stations like some big ominous spider. When the numbers roll over in the fuel pumps, I never know if I’m going to get zero’s or cherries.” I barely heard the “You’ll be sorry…” as we hummed off past the big pulsing casino signs into the chilly Nevada night. About ten miles out of Glendale and exactly approaching Exit 100, I began my soliloquy. “See, I knew you could do it. I can always see past you guys…not a lurch, not a tremble and we’ve only got 10 miles to go. And Ben says he only gets 18 miles/gallon out of you. But then I am saner and more careful. It’s all in the foot-finesse, the care with which I accelerate and de-. No sudden stops, no tromping up the hill with the foot glued to the floor. I listen to you, and my superior sense of automobile perception allows you to do your job without strain and pain and turns you into a wonderful little Consumptive Miser.”
My self-congratulation, heart and the car’s engine stopped all at the same time. It didn’t complain, lurch or wheeze. Just began cycling down like a spinning top, a machine whose actions had suddenly become disconnected with whatever was happening at the gas pedal, where my foot was beating out exotic and insistent rhythms.
We stopped right at Exit 100. Big One Double ‘O’. “Man, this is Forsaken.”, was written all over our stricken faces. If you look up “Desolation” in the Big Webster’s Illustrated version, they have a picture of this place. Any life in the area which could even attempt locomotion had already exited stage left and left us rooted there with the poor abandoned plants. I had had the same difficulty with the Jeep that my Grandfather had with a horse he was training not to eat. It died just as it was getting the hang of it. The Jeep which had been flapping and creaking it’s soft top at decibels just this side of damage, now–beyond flicking its hazard lights–stood still as stone. Nada. Nothing. Zip.
My daughter’s few but pointed questions elicited no rational reply. I mumbled something about my state of credulity. As the situation and the little game I had engaged in began to dawn on her, I could see her mouthing the little prayer which had almost become ritualistic. “Please, Lord, whatever’s wrong with him, don’t let it be congenital.”
It’s at these times that Meaning of Life dawns. Here we were in the wilderness, live bait for things that normally dine on Flat Cuisine, in a car sitting on the edge of a little black strip of civilization under one cold full moon. Even though vehicles boomed by every minute or so, you realize you’re on foreign soil…strange, strange Strangers in a strange land. Nothing speaks the language. Nothing hears.
First, I think to myself, No Sweat. Cops, like trolleys, come along every few minutes. How long can it be? This may seem a strange state of mind to you. But police are an omnipresent fact of my life. They wait like wraiths to catch me at Auto Bumble, and then swoop down out of thin air, pad in hand. Their constant companionship has not been without expense. I now pay premiums to the wealthiest auto insurance company in America. I know. I made them that way. They list me as a line item on their balance sheets as a Fixed Asset. So I assure my little feminine flock that there is nothing to worry about: the Calvary is on its way. The boys in blue will pull up any minute behind, bubble machine flashing, a can of gas in the trunk, an Irish pat-on-the-back, and We’re on our way, chastened for our short journey into total dementia. No such luck. Hazard lights, hood up–we wait in vain. I suppose everyone deserves a few private moments without police observation, but it seemed to me that this time was ill-chosen.
After an hour, we are still there, me silent, my girls chattering–not conversation, teeth. So, then I think, No Sweat. I’ll simply signal one of these chaps who blur by every few seconds and we’ll be off to the nearest gas oasis, laughing off the dark hour spent on the shoulder of the road. So armed, with my trusty flashlight, which my son thoughtfully had stowed in the box between the seats, I climbed out to signal our distress to the many friends and fellow-travelers with whom, up to a few minutes ago, we had been journeying.
I tried several patterns with the flash light: slow arcs, and quick little vertical lines which increased in frequency with the vehicle’s approach. Now I didn’t expect everyone to stop, but this was getting intimidating. Rejection hath no more eloquent form then the screaming Doppler voice of 40 tons of diesel and steel. “nnNOOOooooooo…” Inside the next two hours, I got an average of one an hour to stop: one van, one trucker. They said they’d be back. I sent them off down the road to the next exit, where they disappeared into the black hole waiting for them, no answer, no response. I fantasized headlines: Man on Road Responsible for Disappearance of Two Men, One Van, One Semi.” Don’t these guys care? I’m here with two kids! Three hours, and this is getting serious.
However, I take heart: I still have religion and, at these times, I have it a lot more. Surely, St. Bernard of Petrol, the Saint of all dumb travelers, could have surreptitiously placed a couple of gallons in the tank while we’ve been sitting here. I’ve learned my lesson. Now we can go on. So I turn the key. Death-rattle. The engine won’t even turn over. The little flashing lights have taken their toll on the battery and we are now dead, count two.
Okay. So, then I think, No Sweat. I am not unknown for my resourcefulness. My sons think of me as He who Snatches Victory from the Jaws, Esophagus, Stomach and Bowels of Defeat. Persistent and Dedicated I am. However, my Talents at Extrication might not have to be so honed to their current razor’s edge if it weren’t for my other Talents of In-trication. Now, Exit 100 was built at a road which went under, not over. Thus the exit which we had just barely passed went down. There are, I brightened, still a couple of quarts of gas in the car. I will solve both my problems, two stones with one bird, by one brilliant scheme. I shall get the car moving swiftly down the on ramp, shoot across up the off ramp, the gas will run to the front of the tank, I’ll pop the clutch and VROOOMMM, we’ll race off under the stars (backwards and uphill) thankful for the multi talents of Stephen Alley. We attempt this. However, pushing and steering are tasks designed for two humans and so my eleven-year old becomes driver. I decide this is a good introduction to the skills of driving backward, a relaxed entry into the world of vehiclemanship. I’ll spare you the details, Mr. Kraft. The whole thing doesn’t work. She leaves finger dents in the steering wheel. Upon finding ourselves at the bottom with no way of being seen from the freeway, I push the car up the off-ramp. Yes, Mr. Kraft, Up. Sisyphus has nothing on me.
As I get back into the Jeep, my daughters say I look cold. They can see it in my eyes. How does one explain to one’s beautiful, talented, gentle progeny that he’s suffering from ASC, Acute Synapse Collapse, and that what they see there is not Cold but Vacuity; that one’s gray matter is bleeding out through one’s hair and being replaced with fat cells; that one’s Cortex has fastened itself to one’s Paunch and we may grow old at Exit 100. I give up. Life has triumphed. We’re establishing residence here, post box and all. Maybe the mailman will stop.
At that moment, a big white Truck with Kraft written in letters eight feet high, eases to a stop several hundred yards up the road. This truck doesn’t need running lights. It has halos. I exit Jeep, flashlight in hand, and pound towards it. Before I see anyone, I had decided the driver was one of the Three Nephites. You, Mr. Kraft, probably not one of Mormon persuasion, might not understand the drift of that. Trust me. It’s good.
I swarmed up the side of the truck, clambering at all the non-conventional footholds to come on a level with Angel’s smiling face in his big cab-over cockpit, ten feet off the ground. I say, I’ve got two cold little girls and one dead Jeep. Drive me anywhere, I say, but away from Exit 100. He says, sure, No Sweat and slowly backs 34 tons of cheese while I jog to the Jeep and say, It’s OK, kids. No Sweat. We have a miracle, a warm cab, and a short ride to some gas in Glendale.
We get to the station, after my daughters chat with Angel in the warmth of the big cab, mercifully not commenting on their Sire’s state, or lack of, mind. They tell him they were cold, and they had eaten the last granola bar. And he smiles, and laughs, and takes the truck up through the gears and down, and explains the big mirrors and why not to drive just there on a big truck’s flank. At the station, the guy at the counter stares blankly as I inquire about a ride back to the Jeep with some gas. Sorry, no way, nobody here but me. Don’t know how you might get back.
Me neither.
So Angel turns around the big truck, all 34 tons, comforts Charlie in the sleeper that the schedule will be OK, and heads back to 100. We get off and squeeze through the tunnel under the freeway. If you had put a second coat of paint on that trailer, Mr. Kraft, it would have been left on the walls of that tunnel. But with easy calm, like a man thoroughly competent at what he does, Angel gets through, lines up the truck and backs the 300 yards back to the little blinking Jeep.
Gas in. We try to start up, obviously no go. After a couple of hard-breathing attempts at pushing the Jeep, we decide to jump it. Seeing the big semi and the little Jeep the analogy of nursing came to mind. When my wife first tried it with my firstborn, she was anticipating a calm, quiet, intimate experience. He was not of like mind. He clamped on and tried to suck her toenails through her chest. The Jeep was of the same ilk. When we attached the electrical umbilical, battery to battery, the semi’s headlights dimmed to firefly luminescence–one candle-power. Finally, after twenty minutes of electricity coursing down the cables, Charlie and Angel pumping ether and gas into the carb, and futile attempts to pay them something, we are off humming towards gas and California.
Four Hours spent. Three lessons learned. One: Buy gas before you reach the quarter mark. Two: Engage mind and consider putting loved ones in unnecessary danger and risk before doing so. Three: My daughters thought to pray. I barely thought. And oh, yes. Four: There was an answer to those prayers. There still are Good Samaritans. Two of them drive a truck with “KRAFT” written on it.
That’s my story, Mr. Kraft. If you’re worth your cheese, you’ll do something for those guys. They made me a Kraft convert for good.
It’s little enough thanks for that night.
Sincerely, Gratefully, Abashedly, Humbly,
Stephen W. Alley