It's Just Stupor Mundi* Please Enjoy the Party

Written as a Nat Sci 1 reaction paper to the Orion (Jan-Feb 2004) magazine article, “The Chemistry Between Us” by Robert Michael Pyle. Inspired by Valerie Bloom. Dedicated to Alisa Baleva-- Man that PolSci Test was BAD. Go Sabaw! :))

It’s Just Stupor Mundi*
Please Enjoy the Party

Invited was I to a friend’s party this week
I went, lest be deemed an antisocial freak
The food looked marvelous, what can I say
And twice as good as I didn’t pay
An acquaintance, a friend of a friend is she
Chatted me up, as casual as can be
She looked at the noodles on my plate
Sighed and said “Monosodium Glutamate”
I said “Pardon, what do you mean?”
She replied, “On eating I wouldn’t be keen
The ham, in preservatives, was soaked
The cow ate herbicides before it croaked
Even the chicken of the sea kills
Because they ingest our oil spills
Oh, and fish are swimming in a dynamite sea
So I wouldn’t eat it if you were me”
I laughed and said, “Paranoid, are you,
I’m not biting off more than I can chew

Chemicals are in food, I know
But nowadays that’s the way to go”
She stared as I reached for a baguette,
I said “You’d like this one, I bet”
“No thank you,” came the reply,
There are free radicals even in pie

And don’t let me get started on the bread
I hear they have Bromate and Lead
Well those sandwiches do make me shudder
What of the Salmonella in peanut butter
And the water, people ignore me when I chide
But I just know it has Cyanide
That turkey is fat and fatty still with basting
Carcinogens are now among us thriving
And don’t touch the pickles in that jar
Do you know the effects of too much vinegar?”
“Where do you get this stuff?” I asked in awe
“In a science feature I once saw”
“Well then, to fruits and vegetables let’s turn
But do even they make your stomach churn?”
“Why, just imagine how that banana tastes
What with all the industrial wastes
And that corn, it still has pesticide
Tomatoes are genetically modified
A lot of those vegetables can cause pain
They might have been in an acid rain
The turnip is just as bad, I guess
The ground is fraught with toxic substances--
Avoid by all means that chicken sauté
‘Drenched in saturated fats,’ one can say
Fowl turns foul by all means
And think of the bacteria in those beans
You’d avoid grilled meat if you were smart
Lest you want platinum in your heart
Oh, those safe-looking appetizers
Are five and twenty fertilizers
Have you heard of Formalin in the juice?
I hope that was just a ruse
Milk has Mercury in the Flan, so that I won’t eat
You do know that death is a one-way street”
The conversation I should have given up
Out of politeness I turned to my cup
She said, “I hope that isn’t tea
Those leaves have chemicals, don’t you see”
“Well everything has chemicals,” I replied
I hope I didn’t sound too snide
“Chemicals are not all detrimental
In medicine they are sensational”
She picked up a can of chilled soda
Commented on the effects of too much cola
Looked at a man drinking gin and tonic
“Might as well be drinking Arsenic”
Then I wondered how right she was
How much truth in the information she has
And if there was veracity in what she said
Should I let it get to my head?
How will I enjoy this lifetime, fleeting
If threats in everything I keep seeing?
Laudability is married to culpability
When dealing with chemical insanity
Maybe that’s just the consequence
Of dabbling with the quintessence
The solutions are the problems too
The future is quite inconnu
And then she said “Au revoir,” with a curtsey
Smiled and added, “Enjoy the Party.”



*Literally translated: “The bewilderment of the world."