I know we’ve touched on how products today just don’t seem to have the same, well, productivity. (Quality, that is.)

I mentioned dish-washing liquid, and how the stuff I remember from twenty years ago used to lather like crazy; that one drop or two would seem to overflow any pot you put it in. Many of you wrote in about other things in life you noticed just didn’t seem to be very good anymore.

Today I think I broke every record, and this is a record no one wants.

I bought some grapes at our local Ralphs, a big chain around here, one we’ve been to twice a week for sixteen years.

There are six Ralphs up and down Ventura Boulevard, and we know all of them. Used to be, we’d make a family trip to one or the other and had nicknames for them, like Brown Ralphs or Elevator Ralphs. (I know: What an exciting life we show business families lead, eh?)

It’s weird, but we go to our local Ralphs so often, that each time we go to another one, it feels like we’re cheating on ours.

When the grocery workers went out on strike five or six years ago, we picketed with them with the kids and brought them coffee and sandwiches for weeks, and do you know why? Not because we’re such union firebrands. Mainly? It was because we knew them all personally. We knew who got married or had a kid, and who moved from one store to another and who got promoted, and they knew us, too, and asked about the kids’ ball games and said, “Oh, I saw you in this” from time to time, and we always said hello and passed a moment or two (and still do). Sad that little conversations like that are another small moment of civility we seem to be losing.

That strike was very sad, by the way. They hoped it would be over by Thanksgiving, and it wasn’t, and then by Christmas, and it wasn’t. They knew — and I knew — it just wasn’t going well. And it didn’t. I still remember chatting with one of the folks out by a driveway, and glancing around back. The trucks, driven by Teamsters, were pulling up, and the drivers got out to let non-union drivers take them the rest of the way in and unload them. Nice loyalty. How things ever move forward in life is beyond me.

Anyway, I think I know every inch of that store. (If I didn’t, at this point, I’d be a terrible idiot.) So I bought these grapes. We get fruit all the time, and always have apples, Machintosh in season (my favorite) and Granny Smith. We get bananas and berries, and melons and peaches and pineapples, and I make everyone fruit in the morning, every morning.

When I’m on the road, I know my kids will never eat fruit. If I’m gone three days, they will have no fruit for three days. Plenty of Lucky Charms or Reese’s cereals, but no fruit.

Here’s the thing: For the most part, the fruit… well, stinks, and it’s getting worse. Far worse.

I know just how long to let the peaches ripen, and then they taste HORRIBLE. Not odd, not dry, not green, HORRIBLE. I’m not saying this is Ralphs fault, you understand, I think it’s just the way things are grown.

The plums are HORRIBLE.

The oranges are HORRIBLE.

The strawberries are AWFUL, and sometimes HORRIBLE.

But today, the grapes were so much worse, it set a new standard, like a high jumper going a good foot above any other bar.

I got the black grapes, took a handful out while I was making breakfast this morning, popped one in my mouth, turned back to the cutting board to stir some eggs…

And then just stopped and looked up. Everyone was still asleep, the AM radio I always take out of the bathroom where I shave and carry into the kitchen every day when I chop was playing something in the background, and I just stood there and chewed this grape. And thought, “It can’t be. I must be wrong.”

So I popped another one in and chewed again. Then another. And that was it.

They weren’t horrible. They weren’t awful. They weren’t bad. They weren’t disappointing. They weren’t blah.

They were nothing.

NOTHING. It was as if I hadn’t eaten anything. It didn’t taste bad; it didn’t taste at all.

And that was a new low, a deeply sad step.

They were a scrumptious color, dark purple, almost black. Moist, luscious, large, inviting, dripping with droplets of rinse water and in our regular grape bowl. They were cold and ready, and just the right texture, just the right temperature and just the right bite.

Each bite down had just right resistance, just the right give, just the right take. They were, frankly, in every way perfect, a proud example of American produce. Except for one tiny thing.

There was no taste. Not bad taste, remember. No taste. Zero taste.

NOTHING. Each one was devoid of any sensation or flavor at all. It wasn’t like eating something, it was like MIMING eating something.

I’ve had Twilight Zone food before, but not this bad. I call it Twilight Zone food, because it’s like that episode where aliens build an entire small town and house and street like Earth, but only what they’ve seen through a telescope, so it all looks exact, but when they drug you and put you down in it, nothing works. The drawers don’t open, the music doesn’t play…

AND THE FOOD DOESN’T TASTE LIKE ANYTHING.

And that’s what I had today: grapes from the Twilight Zone. I had another one just before writing this. “They can’t be this bad,” you tell yourself, “They just can’t be.”

Ah, but they are. And that’s why this is new territory. It’s one thing to have bad fruit, the yuchhy peaches or the watermelon that seems to have so little flavor. This, though, is a whole other thing. Much worse.

We’ve gone past bad into nothingness.

What in the world kind of wine would this stuff make? Would it taste like water? Could you still get drunk on it?

What’s the next step past zero taste, no chew to it? No color? No weight? No… what? How far down can we get with a crop to where you can grow it, pick it and sell it, but there’s no actual “it” to it?

You now what’s even weirder? I know when I finish writing this I’m going to go upstairs to get ready for bed, and when I pass the kitchen, I’m going to stop and mumble, “It can’t be. I must be wrong,” and go back for another grape.

At least bad whiskey tastes like something.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND YOUR SLIPPERS TASTED BETTER THAN YOUR FOOD, YOU’RE STILL LUCKIER THAN NINETY PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD… BUT NOT BY MUCH.