Maybe Grandma Will Outlive Us All.
I just unpacked my groceries and read the labels I see so often I never read anymore. I noticed something new. Regenerative.
Everything is now regenerative. The eggs. The milk. The coffee beans harvested by smiling farmers on mountaintops. The beef from cows who apparently died while getting massages and listening to Enya. Regenerative farming. Regenerative agriculture. Regenerative packaging that will somehow heal the planet instead of clogging the intestines of sea turtles who never asked to be part of this narrative.
In the general big brand grocery store, there are entire aisles with packaged foods that didn't exist when I was young. Not just toddler pouches or cat niblet gravy treats, but "corn salad in rice, heat in 90 seconds." I pulled it off the hook in the aisle to see if this was a joke. When I was a child, I could only acquire such things in a local candy store in the "freeze dried astronaut food" section. There was never enough of it, and now it's everywhere, promising to regenerate my time if not my cellular structure.
Look at that, I think. I'm in the future. I've finally made it to the future I was promised, except instead of flying cars and moon colonies, I got corn salad in microwavable pouches. I dreamed to this point and not beyond? Where are my robot servants? Where is my personal jetpack? Instead, I have food that claims it can heal the earth while simultaneously being wrapped in packaging that will outlive my grandchildren's grandchildren.
The problem with living in the future is that you can see the end coming. I dread illness. Not in the normal way everyone dreads it, but with the precision of someone who has experienced the medical system up close and found it somehow both miraculous and barbaric.