Golden Poop

I saw an article today (click here to read) that introduced the world to America's latest accomplishment: the $25,000 dessert.

This chocolate sundae earns it's exorbitant price tag because it is laced with edible gold on a bed of edible gold and topped with - you guessed it - edible gold. A diamond crusted spoon is the eating implement of choice and the sundae goblet boasts a 1 car. diamond bracelet at its base.

The jewelry, I'm fine with. The spoon is, quite frankly, impractical to the point of being ridiculous. What are you going to do with one, diamond crusted spoon? Frame it? Buy another three sundaes so you can have a matched set?

But what gets me the most about this is the edible gold. Edible gold. Not gold you can wear. Not gold you can look at. Not gold you can save as a worthwhile investment. Gold you eat.

And what happens to everything you eat?

It turns, eventually, into poop.

I think this is a perfect example of greed swallowing us whole.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against treating ourselves on special occasions, paying a little extra for something we love, or (and here I do my mother proud) owning some beautiful jewelry. But when we accept that it isn't enough to just own gold or wear gold - now we must eat it too just to prove that we can afford it or to assuage our own boredom or to say that we are somehow on the top tier of society above all the poor, non-gold-eating people who eat their sundaes with plain old nuts - we are sick.

Really sick.

There are children in our own backyard who don't have coats or decent shoes or a parent who cares if they ever eat breakfast.

There are elderly people in our own backyard who can't pay for medicine or heat or food.

There are shelters that offer hope to homeless, abused people and are desperately scraping together meager donations to keep themselves going.

There are millions of children across the world with no family and no hope.

There are women, here in America, and across the world who've been abandoned by their husbands and lack the necessary job skills to provide for the children they love.

$25,000 brings home 6 orphans from Guatemala, 4 from Korea, 3 from India, or 1 from China.

$25,000 feeds, clothes, and pays the utilities for a struggling single mother family for an entire year.

$25,000 feeds an entire village in starving Sudan for an entire year.

$25,000 keeps the lights on and food on the table for a rescue shelter for at least 6 months.

$25,000 can bring hope, relief, and love. Or it can give us golden poop.