Just Horsing Around

(Two guesses where the "meatballs" come from.)

I started writing a blog about how I'm depressed and "oh, woe is me" and so forth and then I stumbled upon this news tidbit about Swedish furniture company, Ikea, getting caught selling horse meat in some meatballs.

This isn't an isolated event as quite a few places in Britain have been cited for their beef and pork being tainted with horse meat as well.

The first thing that came to my mind was, "What? Ikea sells food??"

Not only was I gobsmacked by the fact Ikea sells food...but I wondered how they packaged it. Was it all in individual little plastic bags when you bought, say, lasagne, and you'd have to assemble it yourself? Were you halfway through it when you noticed it was missing two noodles? Was there a toll-free number you could call for them to send you replacement noodles? How long does it take for them to ship out your noodles anyway? I'm figuring by the time you got your noodles you'd probably have to throw out the other stuff...and then you'd be left with only two noodles.

But seriously, do they do this "food thing" on an international scale? I never saw Ikea next to the Stouffer's or Hungry Man dinners. I think I would have noticed that. Do they even sell their food to other nations?

I looked, and according to some article, those horsey meatballs were sent to 12 other European countries. That's a bunch of irate people all talking different languages seeking justification as to how and why this could happen from a brand they probably trusted...and, perhaps it went something like this at Ikea's corporate office...

"We have just one thing to say about it, people -- just deal with it. It was only found in one batch and it's the same quality horse meat we've always used."

"Look, when you buy a product from a place that can't figure out how to get all your credenza parts into one box, you're going to have to realize we're really never going to figure out how someone managed to sneak horse meat into our production line."

"We have run several separate analyses on our products and found that horse meat is actually 20 percent better for you than the substandard sawdust we'd been using for the past 15 years."

"Look on the bright side...beef and pork have both been proven to cause arterial blockage...whereas no studies have been made on horse meat."

"Tainted meat...heh heh heh. We only did this so we could count up how many late nite comedians around the world used the word 'taint' in their monologues."

"Again, on the bright side...no one's ever died of 'mad horse' disease."

"All you neighsayers out there have been racing to track down someone to point a finger at. Right from the start...you were all quick to come out of the gate claiming some foal play,. Well, it'll behoove you to prove any wrong doing on anyone's part in our company. In the first place, you can't show we had any knowledge of this...and, in the end, you can bet we'll finish on top. We aren't going to issue some blanket statement on this other than you guys are definitely beating a dead horse over this whole issue."

Okay, that last one was a stretch.

Okay, I'll stop now. It wasn't that funny anyway...and puns were never a strong point of mine.

At least I didn't mention Sarah Jessica Parker...you have to give me some credit for restraint.

This was Day 26 of our 28 day quest into "We Work for Cheese's" maniacal writing contest. Today's prompt was "Deal With It"...and I tried. Now go and read everyone else's take on it..go on. You can do it. Hay, don't make me threaten you with another horse-related pun.

Sorry...I had to get one last one in there.