The Lighter Side of the Moon

(A young man walks into a Williams-Sonoma cooking supply store. He is greeted by a female sales assistant.)

EMPLOYEE: Hi! How can I help you today?
CUSTOMER: Hello, I’m looking to buy a birthday gift for my girlfriend. She likes cooking and I’m thinking of getting her something food-related. Like a whisk or something.
EMPLOYEE (giggly): Well, I don’t know if she’d really appreciate getting a whisk on her big day.
CUSTOMER (sheepishly): What do you recommend then?
EMPLOYEE: Have you considered any of our high-end specialty appliances? They’re a bit more expensive but they make a great gift.
CUSTOMER (confused): What are those? Appliances like a refrigerator?
EMPLOYEE: Oh, no. They’re a lot less useful than that. Here, come take a look. (walks toward wall lined with machines) This is a pie maker.
CUSTOMER: What?
EMPLOYEE: It’s an automatic pie maker. You just put the crust on the bottom, pour in your filling, close the lid, and it bakes the perfect pie.
CUSTOMER: Can’t you just do that in an oven?
EMPLOYEE: You could just do it in an oven, but this is not the ’40’s. You could just walk places, but the modern man drives.
CUSTOMER: I don’t think I follow that analogy…
EMPLOYEE: Alright, well what about this bread maker?
CUSTOMER (skeptical): That just seems like another oven.
EMPLOYEE: That’s fair. If you feel like cooking the Assyrian way. We also have the electric wok, if you’re interested.
CUSTOMER: Why not just put a normal wok on the stove? Isn’t that a lot cheaper?
EMPLOYEE: But with this you have the privilege of not using a stove.
CUSTOMER: Do you have anything else?
EMPLOYEE (becoming exasperated): Well, there’s the electric yogurt maker.
CUSTOMER: Excuse me? How much is that one?
EMPLOYEE: The yogurt maker is actually our second most affordable option after the panini press, at $129. But you do have to factor in another twenty bucks for the yogurt machine cleaner.
CUSTOMER: Why? What’s wrong with normal detergent?
EMPLOYEE: Well, normal soaps and dishwashers aren’t designed to handle appliances that purposefully incubate bacteria inside of then.
CUSTOMER: Yeah, that doesn’t sound safe to have in the house. Do you have anything less, you know, disease-breeding?
EMPLOYEE: The spice grinder is fairly sterile.
CUSTOMER: But what does it do?
EMPLOYEE: It lets you grind raw spices into the powders like you’d find in the supermarket in the comfort of your own home.
CUSTOMER: But where do you even get raw, unground spices? I don’t really have a contact with the Dutch East India Company.
EMPLOYEE: Actually, we do sell the spices here for use with it. They’re included with the grinder for an additional thirty dollars.
CUSTOMER: Of course they are. You know what, I think I’ll just go with the whisk.
EMPLOYEE: Are you looking for more of a dough whisk or a sauce whisk, because we have both. We also have an electric whisk if you want that kind of thing, too.
CUSTOMER: I think we’ll just order in dinner tonight.

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