Whenever you go to a diner and order something, it comes with a side of coleslaw. You know, that wet light greenish confetti with little pieces of orange in it all contained by a dinky little paper cup. It comes with just about everything, excepting, perhaps, the chocolate milkshake. But come two in the morning when your friends decide that they probably should start working on that paper for the morning, the coleslaw is still there. Even the garnish may be eaten, but not the coleslaw.
I was wondering about this one evening (okay, morning) when I witnessed mass quantities of the goo still present at our table. I was still hungry and was even (gasp) contemplating the coleslaw. My friend Vin noticed my hunger-panged looks at the cup of confetti and decided that I should be told the Truth, for my own good.
Years ago, he said, during the thirties there was rationing and food shortages due to the Dust Bowl, Depression, and eventually the War. However, there were two things that no one ever really asked for and thus they always had extras: cabbage and mayonnaise. They decided that, for the good of the nation, something must be done with this surplus. So, in secret laboratories they combined the two shredding the cabbage beyond recognition and dalloping it generously with the mayo. This was placed in vats and shipped out diners around the country. They called this "Operation Rabbit." The diners were glad to get it because it filled up space on the plate and allowed them to give smaller portions (the same reasoning for garnish, incidentally) and the government was happy because hungry diners would solve the cabbage/mayo problem.
But they still wouldn't eat it. Even though people were starving all over the country, something still warned them away. The diners simply reuse the same little cup full because they refuse to give up. And if someone does eat it for whatever reason (perhaps they're foreign and simply don't know better) the diner owner takes out his key and goes to the dusty old vat in the back to make up another cupful. So please, no matter how tempting it looks do not eat the coleslaw. As Vin told me, who wants to eat anything that's three times older than you?
