Something Coincidental and Extremely Uncomfortable

So. I realized something yesterday at work, but really it had been bothering me for a while (you know, unconsciously). Anyways, I am working in the Bakery right now of the Ocean Isle Lowes Foods. It's fun, it's cool and everything, but...here is what is making me feel a bit uneasy.




Yes. I'm talking about "Good For You." Now, you may ask "Why does this bother you so much?" Well, I shall tell you.

I am reading a book right now that was a Christmas gift from my buddy Jordan Cranford. I have been attempting to read it for months, but life at Meredith College (taking all my senior classes before leaving for Japan in August) was just too busy. The book is Bootleg by Alex Shearer. I had wanted it for a long time, but it was no where to be found! If you've ever seen the ONA Chocolate Underground, this is the book that it was based off. The anime was awesome and the book is also spectacular! It seems like it will become one of my absolute favorites (along with books like Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and Alice's Adventures In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll).

Anyways, to make a VERY LONG story kinda short, the book is about a fictional England where a certain political party is elected to control of the government. The name of this party is the "Good For You" party. When the party came into power they started banning and making illegal anything that they deemed was "bad for your health." The number one thing banned: chocolate. Not only that, but sugar, honey, flour, ice cream, salt, etc. Basically the things that most people normally eat at least a little bit of. They replaced these "bad things" with "good things" which basically means things that are "so unappetizing you would rather starve than to eat them, but since you really will starve because there is nothing else to eat you must eat them."

Now again, you might be wondering why this has me freaked out about the Lowes Foods slogan of "Lowes Foods, Good For You!" I shall now illuminate the reasons.

In the world run by the Good For You party if you are caught with chocolate or some other thing that is bad for your health and has been banned, you will be arrested. Not just arrested, I mean arrested in the most horrible way you can imagine. You are taken immediately to HQ where you are either put in solitary confinement to loosen you up, or put in a interrogation room for what can seem like an eternity, but usually somewhere between 8 and 14 hours. For the "dangerous" people, i.e. bootleggers, this can be extended to over 24 hours of interrogation. It doesn't matter how old you are. Citizens have been arrested from the young age of six to the ripe age of sixty.

If they decide it is necessary, you will be shipped off to prison, or worse, to a Re-education camp. Your head gets shaved, you get abused by the doctor's, etc. You get "Chocolate Aversion Therapy" and many more rounds of interrogation. Most people, if they make it out alive, are reduced to no more than brainwashed representatives of the Good For You party. This is completely horrifing, don't you think?

So, when I am at work and I hear the announcements that are broadcast every 15-30 minutes that end with "Lowes Foods, Good For You" and when I am bagging bread and have to put a label on it that marks the bread "Good For You" I think that I absolutely must escape that place! It makes me feel SO UNCOMFORTABLE! It must just be a coincidence, but still I do not like it. I feel agitated when I come across that phrase....It gives me the creeps.

So what do you think? Coincidence? Or is it a secret plot of the Good For You party to try and gain control of the USA? I don't know for sure...but to say the least, for me, it is a bit unnerving.