The Beginning Of The End

No, really, what is this shit? I was in line at a checkout in the big Carrefour store ( a huge shopping center type store we call a Grand Surface like an upscale Walmart) in Brive-la-Gaillarde and the couple in front of me were buying a typical load of garbage. I always find it a kind of socio/anthropological research project to try to profile the people in line in front of me at grocery store check outs by the contents of their shopping cart. You know you've pegged a serial killer when you see a cart containing only 10 giant economy size cans of bargain brand manicotti and 6 bottles of cheap scotch. I should talk. I went into the big shopping center to get organic unbleached flour for my wife, but you get into the store, go into a sort of twilight zone trance and a simple 2 Euro purchase magically expands to 45 Euros. The flour, a box of the very hard to find Schwarzkopf Ultra Violet hair color that is part of my wife's life support system, a box of dwarf haricot vert seeds, 2 doggie IDs...(my dog, J.Edgar is extremely creative in making his dog IDs mysteriously disappear!) Listerine Mouth Wash, some kind of l'Oreal face cream that is also part of my wifes life support system and a bag of frozen artichoke hearts which I have been looking for so my wife can make a pasta recipe our buddy Enzo sent us.  I realized what I had done as I was unloading the contents of my shopping basket on the checkout belt. There was actually another woman in front of me in the line, a kind of butch, but very friendly looking woman with 2 big bottles of Italian red wine. She saw me checking out the strange pile of goods on the belt in front of us and smiled as if we were sharing a joke. I was transfixed by a can at the end of the procession, something I had never seen before or could have even imagined existing. The label said Panzani Ravioli Dessert, sauce chocolat, fourree a la banane. The picture on the can didn't help at all. In case you need an English translation, that would be, Panzani Dessert Ravioli, with banana filling in chocolate sauce, in a can. I started to giggle and the woman in front of me saw what I was giggling about and started laughing as well.  The folks making the purchase seemed to be ignoring us and we stowing their purchases in their shopping cart. The woman in front of me said she could not imagine what it was. I said I had never seen anything like it before and I was both horrified and intrigued. I don't know what you would do with this stuff. I

wouldn't take it on a camping trip to feed bears with. It probably has a long shelf life if in case you were stocking your survival bunker. In fact, I realized that I had witnessed one of the signs of the upcoming apocalypse. Forget Reverend Hagee and his dire predictions about the Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse last week. That don't mean shit! I went home and googled the product and found out that it was a new product made in France being test marketed at the Carrefour chain. It comes in Vanilla sauce with a strawberry flavored filling as well. The product revues I read all said that it was basically unedible chemical flavored glop. The couple buying the can were probably one of the first purchasers of these cursed cans as yesterday was the first day it went on sale. As far as I'm concerned, yesterday marked the beginning of the end of life on Earth as we know it.