Deaks, Part One

"And through here we have the gift shop and supermarket display display. No, I didn't stutter, gentlemen," this inspires half-hearted laughs, "this is where we display the ideal freezer arrangement for the Sammy Deaks family of sausages and sausage products. We've done some serious research in our lab to determine how a shopper takes in frozen sausage, and the results have been surprising." And now ironic and doubtful looks. "No kiddin' gentlemen. See, I figured, prolly a lot like you would, a person at big old glass door freezer starts reading the boxes. She looks, or he looks, from top left to top right and then back to the next row. Startin', of course, at the box in front of her face. In that case, you'd want to put the sausages you're pushing 'bout five feet up, like our new Thai Spice-ages and California Classic Nots-sage, and put the old stand-by's, your basic breakfast and links, below and to the right. So the customer finds the sausage she set out to buy, or he, but only after he looks at some new and exciting options."

"Turns out, that's not really the casings--that's an old family sausage joke. A sausage buyer, well, maybe anyone looking at anything, doesn't really start by looking at the thing in front of her face. We got genius kids back in R&D like a sausage company shouldn't have. And they just finished a study on how our eyes look at things--got it published in a medical journal, would you believe? You make a jagged swirl, starting on the side opposite your writing hand, and then go back over it making little swirls along the big one. They said it was self-repeating. Graphed it out--you can see the funny shape over here, that's proprietary though, fellas--sent it in, and they're callin' it the Sausage Fractal! Doesn't that beat all?"

The lights over the supermarket display display are florescent and the sausage boxes are all bright red with a picture of the sausage they contain, wearing an explanatory hat. Picture of the actual sausage, picture of an actual hat. Corey thought that was the work of geniuses too, before his father's old friend Arnold showed him a picture he made of himself receiving the Heisman Trophy. The combination of the words 'sausage' and 'fractal' elicit some actual laughter from the men on the tour of the Sammy Deaks Headquarters, and Corey joins in, always thrilled by any sign of approbation. He also suddenly becomes aware of his upraised arms, having just completed their lap around the Sausage Fractal, and summarily deposits his hands back in his pockets. The men's laughter fades, and he cuts his off with a sigh. "Anyway, we're suggesting the markets do this kind of layout with the Cheese-Inside-sages in the center and wouldn't you know, we've seen a three percent increase in overall sales. Science has made a huge impact on the sausage industry, and I'm truly grateful to those little R&D guys. It's amazing what you can achieve with a degree in theoretical math."

A perfectly round sausage patty in a nightcap decorated with rising suns and a yellow pom-pom on the end lies on a plate next to some eggs over easy on a bright red box. The eyes of the men on the tour scan it at just the right moment: an achievement of theoretical mathematics.