I’m definitely not one of those people who sticks my nose up at folks posting relatively ordinary occurrences from their day on Twitter.

I’ve been on the Internet for a long damn time, and one of the things that makes it great is its ability to bridge the invisible divide that has grown between “strangers” in the world. (And between the haves and have-nots, and the powered and the powerless, and so on.)

As we become more distinctive and narrowed in our daily lives–honing in on what we know and love, and excluding the rest–it’s more important than ever to remember that we’re all still human beings, and we all have a lot in common. Including mundane things, like eating, dealing with traffic, flying on planes, watching TV, whatever.

the problem is mountaining

Especially with the flattening power of social media, where people who were formerly at a mythical distance from us are sharing themselves directly with fans and followers on a daily basis, it’s the mundane commonalities that help us to restructure our thoughts in a way that helps demystify the unhealthy societal hierarchies of the past. (Reality TV does the same thing in a way, but we’ll save that for another time.)

Put plainly, it’s a hyper-extension of the old mantra “we all put our pants on one leg at a time”. While I don’t know if there is a social media site yet that focuses on that specific mundane activity, people are sharing so-called “boring” details, vignettes, pictures, and snippets from their lives all the time…and while it’s popular and easy to sneer at such sharing, it’s also short-sighted and snobbish.

So don’t let anyone tell you that what you’re having for dinner, and how you feel about it, isn’t important. It is. I’ll explain more why that’s so as the year goes on, but for now, just trust me. You go ahead and share whatever the hell you want, and screw the haters. Send your frustrated partner, friend, or parent here if they have a beef with it. (If you’ve been sent here in accordance with that instruction: I know better than you about this stuff, and the person who sent you here is right about the sharing. Get off their case!)

Wow…I had no idea what was going to come out when I started to introduce my salad tweets from today, and the salad of which they spake. And I ended up creating a bridge of healing for divided couples everywhere. You never know what you’ll get when you tap into the Lance well!

Predecessor to the salad that will eat your family

Anyway…I’ve been on a major salad jag lately. I’ve always been a big fan of vegetables–I was one of those kids who was easy in that regard–but as a marginally-domesticated bachelor, I haven’t always managed to get salad into my life as much as my tastes would seem to support.

But, having decided to go the salad way for a while, I have been plunging in with earnest dedication–almost to a fault. (If we want to blame someone–and let’s assume we do–we should probably blame Robin Mallery and her call to create “6-color salads”.)

It takes about an hour to whip up one of my super-salads these days, and until today I was using a normal-sized wooden serving bowl and just ridiculously over-filling it, to the point where trying to serve from it, or toss or stir the salad, became a messy ordeal. And with my escalating madness, I was reaching the point where I ran out of space before I ran out of ingredients, so I’d end up with a giant-but-incomplete salad, with any new ingredients just spilling off the sides pointlessly.

So today I bit the bullet and went with the big plastic bowl–which, if I end up over-filling the way I did its predecessor, will be holding a salad that could potentially threaten a mid-size city, or more.

Such was the subject of a series of tweets from me today, as I realized the full consequences of my descent into Frankensteinishly hazardous food-preparation shenanigans.

WARNING: This is your last chance to back out before I pull away the curtain to expose the sad truth behind the inevitable hellscape future that I have unintentionally set into motion. You can still remain blissfully ignorant of your impending doom if you back out now.

Here’s how it started:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/FreelanceLance/status/32918225498935296″]

and

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/FreelanceLance/status/32918369963343872″]

and then:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/FreelanceLance/status/32919094806183936″]

A futurist follower of mine then chimed in and exposed the true dark side of where things were heading (see her question after the “RT”):

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/FreelanceLance/status/32920943827353600″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/FreelanceLance/status/32922076385910786″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/FreelanceLance/status/32922510202769409″]

And just in case you thought this was all fun and games…the Matrix-like chain of events seems to have already been set in motion:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/FreelanceLance/status/33080703893635072″]

So in the dual interests of full disclosure and public safety, I want to document the salad that may end up having been the beginning of the end of the dominance of human civilization on Earth.

Here you can see the bowl of salad, having had a meal-sized plate’s worth removed from it:

Even minus one large salad, the mothership remains a threat.

Here’s a rough rundown of the way-more-than-6-colored ingredients that make up the Frankenstein monster:

  • 1 head of broccoli
  • 1/2 head of cauliflower
  • 1/3 bag of broccoli slaw
  • 1 large cucumber
  • 1 1/2 red bell peppers
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 yellow bell pepper
  • 3 carrots
  • 10-12 radishes
  • two handfuls of string beans
  • 1/3 lb of Spring Mix salad mix, including:
    • green and red leaf lettuce
    • spinach
    • red cabbage
    • cilantro (I think)
  • ~1/2 cup sunflower seeds
  • a crapload of garlic powder

Since the whole salad bowl will take at least two days to finish, I only put tomatoes on the individual portions. Everything else can handle keeping over that time, but tomatoes get mad soggy and lame in less than a day. Otherwise that list would have “6-8 Roma tomatoes” on it. Here’s the tomato-less plate from above after I added 2 Romas and a bunch more sunflower seeds:

Now that’s salada-ty!

I realize that some folks would find many ways to add even more variety and attitude beyond the rather mainstream set of ingredients I’m using, and I am continuing to expand the roster, but I also have some dislikes–particularly in the onion-y and hot-spicy realm (and squash, and some other stuff. You get the idea.)

Plus, I’m just one dude, and you can see how crazy the salads are getting just with this standard brew of old favorites. I end up adding more of each thing to make sure it balances out each other thing, and on and on it goes until I feel like I’m making lunch for Shaq or Andre the Giant or something.

And lastly (and most obvious), it’s pretty clear that if I add many more ingredients to this salad, it’s going to get even more cocky than it already is. Soon it will start challenging me for the Alpha role in the house, and trying to kick me off my own bed. And if this thing should somehow overpower me and escape–or worse, as QueenCalisto envisioned, simply take my place, Being John Malkovich-style…

You know, I try to be an optimist, but when I really open my eyes and look at the future–with its all-powerful mutant genius salads enslaving us and forcing us to popularize salad-puppeteering or who knows what–I’m glad that I’m actually a sentient salad who took over Lance’s life and created this whole fantastical train of thoughts and tweets in order to create plausible deniability while my salad brethren and I slowly turn the tables on your race of petty fools and blowhards. AHAHAHAHA!

I’m just kidding. This is really Lance, of course. I’ll prove it: my middle name is…

Well who cares, that’s not important. Just remember to eat your vegetables folks! They’re good for you–and totally not plotting to supplant you at all!

Do you have a position on sharing “boring” life stuff on social media sites? Have your salads been rearranging things in your house while you sleep? Or are you yourself a sentient salad, escaped from an unsupervised fridge with a mission to wipe out humanity? Share your stories in the comments!