2014-04-11
Explanation
The Joke
A woman in a supermarket exclaims "Oh my God!" about a drink, marveling that it is "chemical free," that the cylinder contains "no ordinary matter," and that whatever is inside "behaves like a liquid and can be metabolized by humans." She goes on: "What a time to be alive! Some company has compressed dark matter, or spacetime itself, to collapse it into this bottle, right here in the supermarket!" She notes it is "cherry-flavored" and "only 2.99," adding that "it would take more than all the energy in the universe to make this, and it is only 2.99!" Her companion asks, "Are you gonna do this all day?" She then exclaims, "Oh my God! This sodium chloride is organic!!"
The Humor
The comic satirizes pseudoscientific marketing buzzwords like "chemical free" and "organic" by having a scientifically literate person take them literally. If a drink were truly "chemical free," it would contain no matter at all -- or some exotic non-chemical substance like dark matter, which would indeed be an astonishing scientific breakthrough worth far more than .99. The woman is not gullible; she is sarcastically demonstrating how absurd these labels are when interpreted correctly. Everything is made of chemicals, so a "chemical free" product is a logical impossibility. Similarly, the final jab at "organic" sodium chloride (table salt, NaCl) highlights that salt is an inorganic mineral compound by definition -- it cannot be "organic" in the chemistry sense. The humor comes from the increasingly elaborate scientific enthusiasm the woman performs to illustrate the absurdity of food marketing language.
References
The comic touches on the widespread criticism of "chemophobia" -- the irrational fear of chemicals -- and misleading food labeling. "Chemical free" is a common but scientifically meaningless marketing claim, since all matter is composed of chemicals. Similarly, "organic" in food labeling refers to farming practices but has a completely different meaning in chemistry (carbon-containing compounds), and sodium chloride is definitively inorganic in both senses.