The truth: Just a snack

And again a huge annoyance is waiting for me at the self-service checkout at Rewe. In my bag of rolls there are two pumpkin seed rolls and two pretzels. So in a broader sense, baked goods. And both.

However, the cash register has a different opinion. Pumpkin seed rolls and even another type of pretzels are listed under “bread/rolls”. Just not the pretzels.

A ruthless villain would now cheekily enter any pretzels and make off with the incorrectly labeled goods. But my moral compass wouldn't allow that. I also don't have that much criminal energy.

That's why I asked an employee for advice. Your information makes my blood run cold: pumpkin seed rolls are under “bread/rolls” and pretzels are under “snacks”.

This is absolutely sick. Who is being deceived here and why? Apparently the whole world has finally gone completely crazy. How are you going to convey something like that to people with a clear conscience? Tomorrow raisin rolls will be “fruit” and pretzels will be “vegetables”. Or “drinks”. This can only lead to resignation and disillusionment with politics among insecure citizens. He threatens to lose sight of the guardrails of reason and what can be considered. Who could blame him?

Against the backdrop of increasing skepticism about democracy, we simply can no longer afford such moral neglect. That's where civil society engagement is needed, which courageously confronts the dangerous nonsense and confronts the branch management: "Listen. But that's not how it works. Here 'bread/rolls'. There 'snacks'. Both are made of flour, salt and water. That's completely arbitrary. What should people think? What else should they use as a guide? The law of the street?"

But who has the courage? Sometimes screams come from the Rewe drinks warehouse. You shudder and wonder who is crying behind the closed doors, but you don't see anything or don't want to see anything and quickly move on.

However, a lot of people still claim that they don't see a problem in the snack lie: "Huh? Don't get upset! Just give it something. It doesn't really matter whether it's a snack or a roll," is how their completely thoughtless chatter murmurs in my ear.

But it doesn't matter. Because it is precisely this false framing, whether on a large or small scale, that causes hopeless confusion, especially among unstable characters. Because anyone who is already overwhelmed by more complex contexts - "we used to have six weeks at a time without heat in the summer" - is dependent, like a child, on a value system made up of reliable truths, tried and tested rituals and familiar coordinates: Those were the summer holidays and no heat-free; the earth is a sphere; Mom loves you; The “Tagesschau” comes on at 8 p.m.; a pretzel is baked goods.

Because otherwise the craziest legends will spread unhindered: Yes, a pretzel is a snack, Putin is just defending himself against NATO, Hamas is a queer anarcho-syndicalist partisan group, tomatoes are fruit and rhubarb is a vegetable. From there it's not far to the burning Reichstag.

If we simply wave through all of this out of comfort or fear, we will quickly find ourselves in the devil's kitchen. Because today it may be “just” an oh-so-harmless pretzel, but tomorrow it will be a tactical nuclear weapon that is supposedly “very easy to handle” because some label fraudster claims that the bomb is classified as “snack” or “other”.

You can do it with us: That's exactly what we signal when we don't denounce excesses like the pretzel bullshit with all the determination. Through letters to the management of Rewe, petitions to our responsible constituency representatives, demonstrations and educational press work. People, finally wake up! Otherwise we'll soon be nothing more than a snack for those up there.

However, what should really only be the last resort is violence. Here an explosive device at the self-service checkouts, there one at the baking machine or, as a little reminder, sometimes several, distributed throughout the store. Wummsdibumms – here you have your “snack”.

Of course only outside of business hours, because under no circumstances should people be harmed. Even if some will now argue, not entirely wrongly, that they definitely deserve it. But on the one hand, as I said, I don't have the criminal energy to do it. And on the other hand, I just want a better world for everyone, in which there is a certain order and everyone knows their way around and can shop without complications. That's hardly asking too much.