OxBlog

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

# Posted 8:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

IT'S A PARABLE FOR OUR TIMES: A woman in Florida makes a grilled cheese sandwich, then is shocked to discover (after taking several bites out of it) that it bears a resemblance, kind of, to the Virgin Mary. She places it in a bag and keeps it on her nightstand until....

2. ten years later, eBay having penetrated thoroughly even to the heart of darkest Florida, she lists it on eBay, as one does for miraculous appearances of the Virgin, in cheese, that you have been keeping devotedly on your nightstand for ten years, and....

3. with bidding on the Virgin Mary cheese sandwich reaching $16,000, an entire cottage industry appears around the Virgin Mary cheese sandwich, including a nighttable to put your Virgin Mary cheese sandwich in, a lunchbox for your Virgin Mary cheese sandwich, watercolours of the Virgin Mary cheese.... you get the idea.

The internet meets popular American religiosity. Her son was reported to weep; but that was in danger of stimulating a second cycle of online-marketed food products.
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