Halcyon Days

Between blogs and e-mailed newsletters, I get a lot of daily info on new products or services. Most of them are interesting enough to garner a little further research.

Occasionally, though, I run across something that makes me wish I could have that 60 to 90 seconds of my life back to spend on something more worthwhile. Last week, I was unlucky enough to see two such items on consecutive days.

One is just plain gross, the other just plain creepy.

One looks impossible, the other insensitve.

Both are crass examples of gimmicky marketing, and make me want to shake my head in resignation for human progress.

Thanks to Thrilllist Dallas, I am now aware of the latest bit of ridiculousness in that modern temple to gluttony better known as “restaurant food challenges.” A place in Fort Worth called the Cowtown Diner offers the “Full O’ Bull Platter” — a 64-ounce chicken-fried steak smothered in gravy with an accompaniment of six pounds of mashed potatoes and 10 slices of Texas toast.

It’s $70, but like any good restaurant serving up cardiovascular health-damning dares, Cowtown Diner will write it off the bill if one person can consume all of it in one seating, no time limit other than the restaurant’s hours.  Never mind that, for those of us who actually practice a little sanity with our meal portions, the mere picture of this monstrosity on its extra large pizza pan/serving plate is enough to trigger an uncomfortable tightening in the chest.

Think I’m being a little too dramatic?  Chicken fried steak dinners are among the most unhealthy options if you are dining out.  This is approximately eight (8) of those in one serving.

And then there is this to consider should you keel over from trying to tackle this or any other gigantic hunk of cooked meat with all the trimmings: You could carry on in this world as a box of pencils.

Yes, your survivors (maybe at the table with you for what became your Last Supper) can have your cremated remains recycled into pencils, which come in a box with a one-at-a-time dispenser and built-in sharpener, thus making the box an urn as the pencils are used. Your name and vital years are embossed on each pencil.

I would like to think anyone remembered this way postmortem would at least be used to write a bestselling novel or plans for a totally revolutionary technology. But, seriously, using what is left of dear old dad to jot down shopping lists and phone numbers?

Between these calls for clogged arteries and cremated novelties, I really don’t want to know the answer to the question, “Wow, what will they think of next?”