Walking through the various teams garages today, I was shocked by the many varieties of sweets and crisps and other snack food. One job of the truckies. in a lot of teams, is to go shopping for mechanics and set up crew. So when everyone starts to turn up at the circuit, before any catering facilities are available, or fresh fruit can be purchased, you can at least eat something. Truckies try to cater for the ever changing needs of these younger guys. We are asked to buy this, or buy that but we just never seem to be able to please.
Few things irritate me more than this asinine practice of manufacturing food that’s “fun to eat” and which is designed with the sole intent of helping ineffectual parents coerce their damned offspring into consuming a meal.
In my day we ate because we were hungry – not because our snacks bore a passing resemblance to Scooby Doo or as an excuse to sculpt a cheese string into a mozzarella Rastafarian.
Food wasn’t meant to be some damned form of interactive play – it was meant to provide sustenance and we considered ourselves lucky if a few scraps found their way into our garage.
They turn their nose up at any food that doesn’t have a narrative, a downloadable theme song and come in a minimum of 14 distinctive fun-filled shapes.
Why the hell do we need to bribe damned young people into doing something that keeps them alive? I’m pretty sure that after 72 hours locked in a darkened garage without Haribo and Pringles even the most pugnacious of the little miscreants would see the light and happily chew on my training shoes.
What’s next? Colourising their oxygen as an incentive for them to breathe?
And it’s not just the pandering I object to. I’m no expert but if you ask me, making food “fun” is the primary reason behind so many young mechanics struggle to get under cars and are and causing a "girthquake", everytime they move towards a toolbox. They’ve been raised to believe that eating is part game, part entertainment and all around cure for boredom.
In my view, young mechanics would be wise to put away fizzy cola bottles and chupa cup lollies, get themselves some backbone and adopt the mantra used by my parents:
“You’ll eat what I put in front of you and you’ll damned well like it.”
As a team, we’d be healthier, happier and better off for it.
And the truckies would not be given such a big list of "THINGS THAT WE WILL NOT EAT".