Meyers Proper is a software engineer and manager at some company that does online something in Cincinnati, OH. We recently spoke with him about the things he eats.
"First of all," he insists, "I'm not into any hipster food nonsense." This is easy to believe. Meyers has a classic Golden Boy hairstyle and fashionable but understated nerd goggles aka glasses. He continues:
"I believe that you should only eat foods that are edible or that will get you high." He opens his lunchbox at this point, a tasteful leather satchel emblazoned with the Dragonball Z character Goku charging a Spirit Bomb, to reveal an assortment of food items.
We walked through them together:
First, a sandwich. Classic, elegant, meat and cheese nothin'-fancy on white bread with Miracle Whip. "This is my rock," he explains, "It's the basis of the rest of the meal. It ties everything together while providing the necessary calories and protein to get in there and demolish some junior tech's awful code." He smiles for a moment and then gets serious again: "I'm serious, I hate bad code."
Next, his beverage. Meyers pulls out a can of Coke Zero. "This is an unconventional choice, I know, but this is what they got on sale at the Kroger and if 'on sale at Kroger' isn't enough for you, maybe you don't belong here in Cincinnati." We agree. Brand loyalty is what keeps Ohio strong and we support our flagship supermarket chain. May it ever keep us strong.
Finally, there is a small lump of something smushed into some plastic wrap. "It's not Saran Wrap," he says, "So don't call it that. This is Kroger Brand Plastic Wrap and I'll show you the box if you don't believe me." [Ed. note: we did ask later, and he provided the box after digging it out of his trash cans at the curb]
He peels open the wrap and pulls his finger through the grey mass, accruing a marble-sized dollop of goo. He smears this all along his gums and teeth. As the waxy stuff warms up by his body heat, we can begin to smell the sickly sweet, slightly rotted odor of bad weed or something between sour milk and mountain sage. "This is the key," he says around his fingers, continuously smearing and shoving the strange substance into his mouth, "this is the key."
His skin begins to vibrate and glow. He lifts several inches off the ground in a seated position. "This is the key," he repeats. "This is the key. This is the key."
"This is the key."
Chapter 2
The key!?!?
His skin stops radiating, but he's still floating. "What the hell is the key?" We ask him. He seems annoyed by our presence and tells us to be quiet. His eyes are closed and he begins to buck his head back and forth, rubbing his right cheek against his left shoulder. We decide to take this time to get a closer look at the book he had resting on the table next to his lunchbox. It was an old paperback copy of Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. There was a small note inside that read, "To Matt, thanks for being my friend." The other side of the page had been signed by an illegible signature that looked like it said "Briggs". Also in the book was a very pretty rainbow bookmark made out of construction paper and glitter glue.
We asked Meyers what it all meant, but he didn't seem to hear us very clearly so we decided not to push it. As we tried to look at some more things in his lunchbox, he shouts at us, "Are you even listening?!" This is apparently a rhetorical question because he doesn't wait for an answer before continuing, or rather repeating himself:
"This is what I'm talking about! This is the key! This is what I'm talking about! This is what I'm talking about!" His body begins vibrating again and after several seconds of this - mixed with him shouting "this", seemingly at random - he goes back down onto normal gravity levels again. He shudders once or twice but then seems fine. Except for the crackling noise coming from his direction that sounds like static electricity when you touch your tongue to a metal fence post. And yet another batch of words that sound like they're spoken through ground glass or used razor blades: "This isn't just any weed!"
We only catch the last part: "...the key! This is what I'm talking about!" He seems to be repeating himself yet again and we ask him if he's okay. He stops shouting and the static noise goes away. "Yeah," he says, his voice still sounding like it was spoken through a damp towel.
"I'm just really high right now," he continues, "but that's not all that happens when I eat this stuff." He pulls out a second sandwich from his lunchbox. This time it's peanut butter and grape jelly on white bread with Sweet Baby Ray's bottled sauce. Again, perfectly normal, classic lunchtime fare - but don't forget it's all tied together by the Coke Zero! Coke Zero is the key! Coke Zero is... wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah, important stuff happens too."
He takes a bite of his second sandwich. The rainbow bookmark starts to glow behind him as he holds it between bites of food. A thick plume of smoke begins snaking out of his nose as he chews the food around in his mouth before finally swallowing again. "This shit is so good," he says with a grin on his face, "it gives me superpowers." This wouldn't have seemed so unbelievable except for the fact that at this point there were already several other people in our workplace who had flown off buildings or jumped off bridges yesterday because they ate bad foods that gave them superpowers instead of just being high on some weed or something. We ask if he can demonstrate these superpowers for us now but before he can answer Mr. Ballinger interrupts us with another stupid question about whether or not some idiot upstairs named Mikey can touch two wires together without killing himself yet AGAIN (seriously, nobody cares). We shoo Ballinger away because Meyers has something important to tell us:
"It's like this - you know how Superman can fly?"
We nod our head up and down like simpletons (we are simpletons) because we want him to continue despite how stupid everything sounds right now (it all sounds stupid). Or maybe because we're simpletons who are easily led astray by shiny objects like comic books or movies based on comic books or stories told at sleepovers by people who swear up and down they got their information from Wikipedia (which they also said was credible after they went through three different sources). Whatever the case may be, Meyers continues with his story:
"So everyone knows Superman flies around all day saving people and fighting crime and flying really fast with those red underpants for an outer layer thing? And do you know why?" We shrug our shoulders again because even though we're giant turds who would do anything for validation by someone else with more social power than ourselves (and here we thought this would be Matt Meyers!), even we knew that there wasn't really any reason why Superman could fly other than that he had superpowers given to him by aliens via a magic rock from Krypton . So obviously Meyers has some sort of explanation that doesn't involve magic rocks from space or weird alien viruses or whatever? Right?
Right?!? WE HAVE TO BELIEVE IN SOMETHING AND WHAT'S MORE BELIEVABLE THAN SUPERMAN FLYING AROUND FIGHTING CRIME AND BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN? Nothing, that's what! We nodded like simpletons again. The way Meyers nods when he's getting to the good part of his story. Except this was not a good part of his story; it was actually all much more terrible than we could have ever imagined. His explanation went something like this:
"Superman is flying because he eats weed all day long and especially before bed."
There are no words to accurately describe how stupid this sounds, so there won't be any attempt to do so here. There are only really two things that can be said about it: 1) It is an actual thing that people actually believe, and 2) Fucking Matt Meyers is fucking high right now just like he says he is and will eat almost any kind of food if it gets him even higher because being higher makes him fly even higher! Matt Meyers does not care for any other reason why Superman flies around fighting crime other than weed, weed, weed! Weedweedweedweedweedweed! Yes sir!" And with that Matt Meyers proceeded to eat the rest of his food in super fast time, probably because it all got caught in his throat after hearing such bullshit that he couldn't chew or swallow quickly enough to keep up with the speed at which his mind processed it. He then heads off into the hallway to throw up all over someone named Mikey who should really know better by now to touch wires together without killing himself by now (again!).