TOP DRAWER SATIRE

 

Eating Your Own Cooking
by
HL Carpenter

 

Fed up with technological complexity, poor or nonexistent customer service and a growing, incomprehensible maze of legislation? You’re not alone. A movement called “Eating Your Own Cooking” is gaining steam with millions of Americans.

It’s not a school for aspiring chefs. Instead the idea is to require CEO’s and government officials to cater to consumers by having personal experience with the products, laws and services they prepare.

“We want to turn up the heat on these folks,” says a member of the newly formed group.

On the menu at Eating Your Own Cooking:

- Having Bill Gates spend one day per month with a non-techie purchaser of a new computer, choosing a system and setting it up.

- Making every member of Congress prepare their own tax returns (help from the Internal Revenue Service is permitted).

- Calling on management of cable companies and other utilities to wait at home for scheduled repairs.

- Requiring car company executives to purchase vehicles at dealerships.

Proponents say Eating Your Own Cooking is an effective, cost free recipe for reducing much of the heartburn caused by half-baked products and legislation.

Dishing up results has proven difficult, however. Despite the healthy appetite mainstream Americans display for Eating Your Own Cooking, no government or business leader has expressed a taste for a plateful of real life.

“We hope this is just a flash in the pan,” says one worried executive. “Surely consumers don’t actually believe we can do those things.”

 

Originally published July 2007.