One Man's 'Groceries'

Turning 'Em Weird

One more grievance against President Trump. If it weren't for him, I would never have learned that shrimp farmers cut or burn off one or both of female shrimps' eyestalks. Why? Because the less a female shrimp can see going on around her (though that is not how a shrimp farmer, or even Wikipedia, would put it), the sooner she reaches the age of mating with a male and spawning more shrimp. So much for feeling easy about eating farmed shrimp.

I learned about this cold-blooded abuse of shrimp from a review of a book entitled The Secret Life of Groceries, which turned up when I Googled "groceries in popular culture."

As we all know, Trump has recently been fascinated by the word groceries. An amalgamation of his recent public references to the word would look something like this:

"Hear the word groceries and you think, 'What?' Groceries, very simple word -- who uses that word. I started using that word, groceries. More people tell me about the word groceries. Sort of an old-fashioned word but I hear it more and more. A word that I used a lot on the campaign trail, is a beautiful word, very simple but beautiful word. People tell me that the groceries, the groceries, and what they mean is food. Sort of simple word but means everything you eat. It's a bag with different things in it. Such a basic word -- by groceries they mean every single item of groceries."