The Whole 30 Diaries — Day 13: Evacuation

I want to talk about another one of the significant changes that have come along with Whole 30. But, uh, well … I’m just going to use one giant metaphor throughout this entire piece.

You’ll get it.

Okay, so, imagine a giant trash disposal and compactor unit. Like that thing that Luke and Leia and Han and Chewie get stuck in during A New Hope. For years and years, this device has been working overtime. The corporation that has been using it has just been throwing all sorts of heavy trash and toxic waste in it, right? So, it’s had to empty itself every morning, and then maybe in the evening, if it’s been an especially busy day.

And when it empties itself, the results are frequently horrifying. I mean, regular refuse stinks, but because of the stuff that this company’s been putting in it, this particular trash could cause a can of Aerosol to turn it its gun and badge and leave the force to open up a restaurant.

So that’s the schedule, this trash disposal wheezing along to put out its frightening waste once — maybe twice — a day, limping along like the Blues Brothers car before they deliver the check. And it just kind of is what it is. It’s become part of life for the corporation.

Then, all of a sudden, the corporation gets a new CEO. He’s one of those hippie Hank Scorpio types with a t-shirt and sandals and ponytail. “What the hell is this? Our environmental standards are terrible,” he says, banging his fist on the table at a meeting. “We’re changing things right now! We’ve got venture capitalists to make happy and woke just-graduates to attract!”

So they stop throwing toxic substances and all the other bad stuff they’re producing into this trash disposal and compactor, and suddenly, things change. Now the unit isn’t taking in as much as it did, and the stuff that it is is relatively light and unobtrusive and easily processed by the system. Therefore, the system’s only got to dispose of its contents once every two days, at the most. Oh, and when it does, the production is quick, and the product is significantly less, uh, potent, than it was before.

Everything’s running much smoother, without the aid of any chemicals or nothing — just a tweak to the way things get done up top. The company feels better about itself, and the CEO is much happier.

“Shit,” one of the workers thinks, after a while, sitting on a stool in his workspace. “What we were doing before was really down in the dumps. Holy crap, this is so much better.”

So, there’s the metaphor, and there’s the entry. If you can’t figure it out by now, I don’t know what to tell you.

RANDOM PETER KING THOUGHTS

• Wow, Oscars. Wow.
• I’ve seen some shitty Academy Awards nomination days before, but this one is the lousiest. No Awkwafina? Todd Phillips for Director? No Dafoe in Supporting? No J-Lo? Yikes. That’s really bad. Really, REALLY bad.
• Alright, well, picks. The easiest to forecast? Supporting. Pitt and Dern are locks. Zellweger probably is for Actress. Actor? It’s Phoenix, 60–40 odds, with Driver taking up most of the other space.
• The nominations may have sucked, but at least we get to see two super-deserving people — Jonathan Pryce and Antonio Banderas — finally get nods. Good for them. So great in so many movies for so long.
• Going to be weird getting used to a new Red Sox manager this summer, after all of two years. I don’t think we’ll see Alex Cora for a while.
• I’ve been putting more potatoes into my diet now! I made an excellent breakfast scramble with onions and peppers and onions, along with scrambled eggs and turkey bacon. That worked like a charm. It looked just like beautiful, sweet diner food. Oh, I miss you so, diner food. Should I just go back home to Jersey for my first meal after this gets done? I could just go to the State Line Diner and REALLY make a 180 on this diet.
• Oh, you don’t know about the State Line Diner? You’re telling me you DIDN’T go to school in that little corner of the Garden State? Well, fine. Check out the diner menu here, ignorami. That’ll tell you all you need to know. Look at how many fucking choices there are!