Teaching To Eat

A large crate of ripe pomegranates caught my eye at the grocery store last evening. On both sides of the crate, tucked into sleeves were a bunch of pamphlets illustrating how to peel and eat a pomegranate.It had a child taking us through the paces presumably to cue prospective adult customers that eating fresh pomegranate does not require a PhD. Since when had humans become so dumb that they needed a how-to on peeling fruit. I thought this was a skill we had learned a while back. Maybe evolution taking us backward instead of forward.

We probably have marketing and ad agency whiz kids , who are determined to sell to us at the cost of undermining our intelligence, to thank for this. Even crows are better than us - they are able to operate vending machines, cross the road at the right traffic singal and enlist the help of pass cars to crack open nuts for them.