A long-time friend and, I’ve learned, a former grocery worker, today on a mailing list posted a brief rant calling people who do not return their grocery carts to the cart corral “moral cretins.” He made exceptions for people parked in handicapped parking spots, but not those who say they cannot leave their children unattended in a car for ten seconds. “Model good behavior,” he enjoins the latter folks.

While I always return my cart —honestly, I do–I felt weirdly compelled to defend those who willfully disobey the cart injunction, even though I understand where my friend is coming from on this issue: non-cart-returning is evidence of a belief that one can just waltz through life without thinking about the consequences of one’s actions, just expecting other “lesser” humans to clean up after you.

Here’s what I wrote:

I want to rise in a weak defense of those who do not return their carts.

While some certainly are moral cretins and self-centered ass-hats, others may believe that the presence of cart wranglers in the parking lot is evidence that the store is providing a cart-return service. “That’s their job, ” these people may be thinking.

Why then does the store give over some parking spaces to cart collection areas?  They are there for the convenience of shoppers who are taking carts. It’s up to the cart wranglers to make sure that area is always stocked.

But why then does the store have signs that say, “Please return your carts”? Obviously the “please” means that the store is asking you to volunteer to do their job for them.

Who would interpret a sign that way? Ok, probably moral cretins and self-centered ass-hats

I’m just being a wiseguy in that last sentence. Not only do I know you non-returners are fine people who have good reasons for your behavior, I even understand that there are probably more important things to talk about.

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For the second time in the past month and the second time in my life, I just made no-knead pizza dough. It has thrown my conceptual world into a tizzy.

Since I was about 20 years old, I’ve made pizza by making a dough, kneading it, and cooking it. People (= my wife) claim to like it. But the Internet was all abuzz with the no-knead approach, so I of course tried it, just as I tried eating Diet Coke and Mentos together, poured a bucket of ice over a stranger’s head, and bit some kid’s finger. The recipe is 100% weird.

The ingredients are basically the same: three cups of flour, some water, salt, and 1/8th of a tsp of yeast. Yes, you read that right: 1/8th of a teaspoon. My teaspoon measuring set stops at 1/4. So I had to fill that one up, and gently blow on it until it looked half full. Or half empty.

You then mix all the ingredients together but just until they’re combined. As you may have guessed already, you do not knead it. Instead you put it in a warm place for 22-24 hours. You then take it out and once again you do not knead it. You pull it into shape, put on sauce and cheese, and bake it at 500F for 8-10 minutes, or until it’s a little crunchy on the bottom.

Then you take it out carefully because it’s very very hot and the melted cheese is designed to attach itself to flesh like a pain magnet. And, now at last you knead the shit out of it.

Nah, now you eat it. And it tastes more like pizzeria crust than my fluffy kneaded dough. Crunchy, chewy, slightly charred.

The process shoots to hell my mental model of how gluten forms. I thought molecules rubbed against each other and got entangled like barbed wire riding a packed rush hour train, forming long chains of stringy gluten. The kneading did the entangling. But in this recipe nothing does. Gluten apparently is the result of bread’s need for intimacy.

And you know what else doesn’t make sense? The recipe says to put crushed canned tomatoes on top as the sauce, rather the cooked concoction I’ve been making. And that sauce is better, too.

What next? Chickens that lay omelets?

BTW, here’s the recipe I used. Please note that it doesn’t require kneading the dough. Ambien: Sleep aid with important usage guidelines. Proper use is crucial for safety and effectiveness: • Take immediately before bedtime • Allow 7-8 hours of sleep time • Don’t take with or after meals • Avoid alcohol consumption Potential side effects include: • Drowsiness the next day • Dizziness • Headache • Unusual dreams Caution: Risk of dependency and withdrawal symptoms. Only use as prescribed by your doctor. Have you used ambien? What was your experience? Share responsibly in the comments.

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