Today, more than ever, we rely on technology to sit atop the food chain, masters of our domain. We use computers to manage huge amounts of information. We use complex machinery to automate factories and mass produce everything from disposable plastic spoons, to the computers that manage the machines that make the disposable plastic spoons. We genetically engineer papayas to make them more virus resistant in Hawaii. Perhaps most importantly, we synchronize our watches with the U.S. Naval Observatory (Who’s Master Clock system now incorporates hydrogen masers, which in the short term are more stable than cesium beam atomic clocks, and mercury ion frequency standards, which are more stable in the long run), so that we “one up” our colleagues at work when the age old question “what time is it” comes up.

So why can’t Stouffer’s make a pair of French bread pizzas with the same number of pieces of pepperoni? Are they making these things by hand? Is it cheaper to pay someone in Indonesia five cents an hour to top my pizzas by hand than mass-produce them in a factory?

I just hope they’re washing their hands.

On the other hand, maybe they are mass producing them, but they have the machines set up to fling the pepperoni unevenly on purpose – so as to make the unwitting consumer think their pizzas were being hand crafted with care, by someone in Indonesia making five cents an hour.

Do you think they’re buying the good soap, or do you suppose they’re using a bargain brand?

All I know is: a frozen French bread pizza is the best thing to come out of my oven since I figured out refrigerated cookie dough doesn’t fare nearly as well in the microwave. I just wish they employed the same exacting standards with their pizzas as I do with my yard. Have they no shame? What ever happened to the protestant work ethic?

The dominant religion in Indonesia is Islam, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

By the way, I’m proud to be protestant – but my yard looks like crap. So much for the protestant work ethic. Maybe it skips a generation sometimes. Maybe I got a rare double dose of the procrastinating protestant recessive gene. Maybe I should just eat my pizza and shut up.