On the way back from the farmer’s market today, I spotted a car with a spoiler. Like this one.
Cars have spoilers to increase their grip on the road. Normally the weight of a car is the only thing that forces the tires down onto the pavement…The way the spoiler works is like an airplane wing, but upside down. The spoiler actually generates what’s called ‘down force’ on the body of the car.
Like an airplane wing, but upside down. What could be more contemporary than an automobile with an upside down airplane wing on the back?
And this made me think, what’s the opposite of a spoiler?
Having just returned from the farmer’s market, my mind turned to the crisper.
Though I imagine most people don’t use it for its planned purpose, the crisper is intended to reduce humidity and keep produce fresh (or, crisper) longer. The crisper prevents produce from spoiling, or at least hinders the spoiling process.
Now, if the spoiler is an airplane wing upside down that produces down force, maybe the crisper is the equivalent of elevating the kitchen to the jet age?
Like what the character from Underworld, by Don DeLillo, has to say:
One of Erica’s favorite words in the language was breezeway. It spoke of ease and breeze and being contemporary and having something others did not. Another word she loved was crisper. The Kelvinator had a nice roomy crisper and she liked to tell the men that such-and-such was in the crisper. Not the refrigerator, the crisper. The carrots are in the crisper, Rick. There were people out there on the Old Farm Road, where the front porches sag badly and the grass goes unmowed and the Duck River Baptists worship in a squat building that sits in the weeds on the way to the dump, who didn’t know what a crisper was, who had iceboxes instead of refrigerators, or who had refrigerators that lacked crispers, or who had crispers in their refrigerators but didn’t know what they were for or what they were called, who put tubs of butter in the crisper instead of lettuce, or eggs instead of carrots.
