But when we trace those familiar haunts of ours, sometimes it can also cause an unnoticed complacency. I know this because I became a victim of my own complacency, in my own overconfidence.
Recently I decided to try a new restaurant, a Thai place that recently opened up in a nearby town. I have discovered that the restaurant is being run by a group of celery-activists of a different kind -- the WORST kind who are covert in forcing celery onto an unsuspecting public.
I know! Most of the time when they try to hide it, they go to great pains by putting, say, celery seeds into dressings or celery powder into spice mixes. But this... this is real chunks of celery that they lob into their food in tiny, limp, floppy celeryness that is nearly impossible to pick out, yet as deadly as if they had just stabbed you in the eye with some Crudités.
Oh, I long for the days when celery lovers had the nerve to lace their food with big, rustic chunks of celery that you could avoid like Vietnamese landmines.
No, my friends, this is ushering in a new age of subversion. Don't let your guard down.