I love America

On Friday night, just after midnight, while exiting the movie theater after seeing Juno, I remarked, "I'm hungry! I want some cheesecake!"

The doorway of Meijer was mere steps away from the movie theater. I wasn't really sure if they would even have cheesecake- and forget any impostor without the graham cracker crust; I wanted the real deal. Would it be frozen? Sold by the slice? Would I have to buy an entire cake? Would it be locked away in a refrigerator in the bakery section, which was unstaffed at that hour?

About 30 feet from the entrance, in the bakery section, I found an veritable smorgasbord of cheesecake varieties: chocolate, normal, large, small, crustful, crustless, with or without fake strawberry or blueberry topping... including a plain, personal pan New York cheesecake-- over 1000 calories of it-- for $3.99.

Think about how many people devoted their lives to fulfilling my wish for this product, which I wasn't even sure existed: someone manufactured cheesecakes for the supermarket, and recognized that not everyone likes cheesecake, so some people might need to buy cheesecakes just for themselves. They created the personal pan cheesecake, and then added strawberry and blueberry swirl to some of them-- but not all of them!-- so as to please the cheesecake purists. (Actually, I want more than just a swirl, so I loaded it up with jam.) Meanwhile, Meijer hired people to staff their store 24 hours, conveniently placed themselves next to the movie theater, and trusted that the customers would be able to figure out self-serve checkouts. All so that I could go from cheesecake wish to cheesecake reality in under five minutes, without so much as crushing a graham cracker.

No wonder Americans are fat.

Oh, and the cheesecake was surprisingly good.