Taye Diggs Vs. Supermarket Belt Dividers

The Case For Taye Diggs

Taye Diggs is a very attractive young man. He has a winning smile, loads of charisma, and sex appeal so undeniable that even people who normally date girls can't quite ignore it. How did Stella get her groove back? Two words: Taye Diggs.

We can't quite say how good an actor Diggs is, because the truth is, we've never really noticed. Diggs is so attractive that he could very well have been skating by this whole time on very little talent and we'd never notice. And when you factor in his double-threatitude -- the Broadway veteran has sung in Chicago and the current Rent -- it's either icing on the cake of his performance powers, or a clever diversion from any deficiencies he may evince as an actor. And, look -- we're not saying he isn't a gifted thespian. We're saying we don't really care that much either way.

Like many actors, Diggs is a wee tiny little person. (His IMDb listing claims he's 5'10", but we saw him in that episode of America's Next Top Model, and in the middle of all those Amazons, he was like Billy Barty; they had to contrive a reason to have the models lying down when they were next to him so we at home wouldn't mistake him for their cell phone.) And in these energy-conscious times, can't we all appreciate an efficient use of space?

The Case For Belt Dividers

Too often, the supermarket is the site of the breakdown in the social contract. Shoppers abandon groceries on shelves in the wrong aisles, run into each other's carts, cut the line at the bakery, and -- most commonly and egregiously -- ignore the item count specified in the express checkout lane. People, if the sign reads "1-8," don't bring eleven. No, your four identical Hungry Man dinners don't count as one item.

Supermarket managers know that, even on the best day, we're pretty crabby about being there, and they want to expedite our progress through the store as much as possible. The cashiers can scan our purchases by barcode instead of inputting prices by hand, as the items proceed gracefully along on the moving checkout belt. And in order for us not to have to wait for the shoppers ahead of us in line to have completely finished their transactions before we start unloading our carts, supermarkets thoughtfully provide belt dividers to separate our groceries from our neighbours': they don't accidentally end up with our grapes, nor leave behind their yogurt to get mixed in with our sundries. And if a wholesale grocery concern wants to sponsor these belt dividers by slapping the Oreo logo on them, so be it. (That's what we forgot to put on the list! We'll be right back, we swear!)

The Decision

This is such a tough call. On the one hand, we can appreciate the value of a performer who, with his mellifluous singing voice and cavernous dimples, unites us all in a shared crush. On the other, there's the importance of individual ownership: you carefully chose all those groceries, and you want to bring home with you neither more nor less than you selected.

Taye Diggs tips us a wink, and pulls us all together like the squealing teenagers he's just turned us into. The dude in front of us in the checkout line smacks down a belt divider behind his Corn Flakes, and that very belt divider tears us -- and our groceries -- apart.

And while we enjoy everything Diggs does...well, we recently started buying specific, hard-to-find items at the Whole Foods, which brings us into contact with all manner of clueless, entitled rich people whose apparent bafflement at such things as salad bars and debit-card readers makes us think they've just been sending staff out to do their marketing and thus have missed every technological innovation supermarkets have adopted since about 1978. These shoppers even seem confused by the moving checkout belt, and we've seen, seriously, at least ten of them put their purchases down and then keep scooting them back, away from the barcode reader, as the shopper in front of them finishes up her transaction. When we're near them, it brings us tremendous satisfaction to pick up a handy belt divider and smack it down, huffing. (It's a satisfaction only the passive-aggressive can ever know.)

Because of Whole Foods, we have really come to appreciate the usefulness of the humble belt divider. But hey, if we could figure out a way to press Taye Diggs into service to stop those same clueless, entitled rich people from taking their carts into the elevator despite the giant sign forbidding them from doing so, we might have to re-examine the issue.

The Winner

Belt Dividers