Truth in advertising

Remember when I went to Pittsburgh? I went for a conference about the greening of healthcare, which meant that most of the people there were environmentalist/environmental health people. These are people who care about things like fragrances and organic snacks. Care DEEPLY. (I'm mocking us, I guess, but I think it's actually good to care about organic snacks. Please feel free to call me for more lecturing on this topic.) Apparently the conference organizers communicated to the hotel that it was important to this group that the food be as local/organic/fair-trade-y as possible, and the hotel understood some part of this. However, the part they understood was that people would complain if they thought the food wasn't right. So they put labels on everything to make us happy. The plate of pallid cantaloupe and pineapple was labeled "Shade-grown & Locally Grown Fruit," and the coffee was labeled "Free Range Coffee." The muffin basket was labeled "Assortment of Health-Oriented Muffins."

I'm not making this up. Apparently Pittsburgh is an amazing place, where melons ripen in the shade in May, and the coffee beans are free to roam with the antelopes.*

*Last week Dutch informed me that she had had animal crackers and cantaloupe for snack. Then she thought for a moment and asked "Mama... is cantaloupe a kind of animal?"