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I had an email conversation with someone over the last two days, which, in another industry, might have gone something like this:

Customer: “My light won’t turn on.”

Me: “Make sure it’s plugged in.”

Customer: “It still desn’t work.”

Me: “Try changing the bulb.”

Customer: “No, it still doesn’t work.”

…

Customer: “Hey, I plugged it in, and it worked!”

I have to wonder: did this person misread my advice as “make sure it’s unplugged?” Did he simply ignore it? Did he think it meant “check to see whether it’s plugged in, but don’t change the situation one way or the other?”

Why do you call up tech support if you aren’t willing to follow the directions we give you?

The worst part is, he probably thinks he solved it himself and we didn’t help at all.

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Katie and I were shopping at Whole Foods yesterday, and I saw a box labeled “Nature’s Burger.” It was a mix for making a vegetarian burger patty.

One of the strangest things I’ve seen in vegetarian/vegan products is the suggestion that somehow meat and dairy products are unnatural, but that processing the hell out of a few dozen vegetable distillates into something that vaguely approximates the experience of ground beef is “natural.”

I mean, I’ve seen slogans like “Nature’s alternative to cheese.” Do they find this mysterious vegetable-based mass lying around somewhere? No? It requires industrial processing? Well it’s not natural, then, is it?

In a similar vein, the abbreviation of organically-grown-and-processed to simply “organic” can make for some rather amusing phrasing. The coffee grinder had a sign explaining that it was used for both organic and conventional coffee beans, and if you wanted to ensure that your coffee “remained organic,” you should grind them at home. And yes, I knew what they meant, but I couldn’t help thinking, “What, they’re suddenly going to become silicon-based?”