Get with the times

I’m spending the morning in the park with my goddaughter, Katie. Everyone we see seems to have some kind of shake or smoothie. Katie wants one, too. I pull out a bottle of water from my knapsack. She declines. “Water is boring,” she says.

“Aloha Pineapple! Coconut Breeze! They worship these ridiculous drinks like the golden calf,” I say.

“What’s a golden calf?”

“Nowadays we use it as a metaphor for idol-worship,” I say, “but back in the days of Moses, people actually prayed to calves made of gold.”

Katie thinks I’m putting her on. So I tell her the story of Gomer, the last golden calf salesman in the Sinai region. “When Moses came down the mountain bearing commandments, you’d think that would spell the end for golden calf worship. But Gomer had a never-say-die attitude. He still thought his calves would win out in the end.”

“‘An invisible God with anger issues that no one can see except Moses?’ asked Gomer. ‘People don’t want to pray like frightened mice. They want to pray as one equal to another. And all those laws – don’t let this cattle graze with that cattle! It’s a lot of red tape. For such a powerful God, New God is surprisingly thin-skinned and bureaucratic. The Calf is a more laid back cud-chewing lord.’”

“I don’t remember reading any of this in the bible,” Katie says.

“People became fired up on New God,” I continue, “and so protesting mobs began to form outside Gomer’s showroom. But still, he remained undeterred.”

“Why calves?” Katie asks, getting into the story in spite of herself. “Why not cows?”

“When Gomer got into the business it was all cows, but as homes got smaller there was a need for an idol that could fit more neatly into a corner. And thus the mini-cow or “calf” was born. But New God’s resume was impressive: he’d divided the Heavens from the Earth; made man from the dust; created the universe. He was omnipotent.”

“But as New God picked up more and more momentum, Gomer began to worry. “‘I can rebrand and call them Festive Cows,’ Gomer thought in desperation.”

“Did Gomer save his business?” Katie asks.

“Nah. At a certain point he figured out that you just have to get with the times.”

Falling prey to the moral of my own story, I pull out my wallet and get in line for a couple of Berry Blasters.