Getting Crude Over Crudités

Despite my best instincts, all too often I wade into the cesspool known as the World Wide Web. The very name bespeaks horror, bringing to mind creepy, crawly spiders or the CIA. Lately there have been videos called Reels invading my Facebook page which I try to ignore but sometimes get caught up in. (Sort of like a web.)

The other day I innocently clicked on one offering a recipe for a healthy alternative to a cheese board, the high-calorie appetizer platter currently "in" at fancy parties. This particular one featured sliced, raw veggies and peanut butter. One of the vegetables was celery cut into thin strips, much like is done when served with dips like salsa and hummus. Okay, fine, sounds good. But then I read the comments section and found that war had broken out! 

One person wrote that celery is not a food, it's a spice, and not intended to be eaten at all. In fact, "it's fucking gross," and she wouldn't feed it to her dog. Another wrote that her baby loves celery. The chorus descended upon her, aghast that she would feed her baby such stringy, stinky garbage! "What a bad mother!" Many people, like hundreds of them, were inspired to weigh in on this topic which matters not one whit. There were pros and cons, with lots of name-calling and insults hurled hither and yon. (Is calling someone an "asshole" because they like to eat celery ever appropriate?) I couldn't look away, sort of like when you see a train wreck.

If people are getting so infuriated and apoplectic over a root vegetable, then there is no hope for our country ever uniting around a political candidate, or anything at all. At the very least we should keep our shouting matches relevant, like about how dumb is Kamala Harris.