Nina In New York: Wake Up And Smell The Bacon, For Reals

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

In this new age of bleeding-edge digital innovation, where ideas are born and outmoded in a nanosecond and technological advancements in the mobile and social spaces leverage consumerism to a new level of brand mindfulness and connectivity . . . bacon.

Obviously. It stands to reason that all this Internet stuff would culminate in bacon. In its best move since debuting that dang song and also this durn song, Oscar Mayer has figured out how to marry the age-old American dream of Smell-o-vision with the universal truth that mornings start better when they smell like frying pig fat. The company has launched an iPhone alarm clock app, and is now distributing a limited quantity of an external device which plugs into your phone, communicates with the app, and releases the actual scent of cooking bacon when the alarm goes off. The rich tendrils of pork aroma curl delicately out of the phone and wind their way from your night table to your nostrils, which they enter, grip, and use to lure your levitating body out of bed and directly into the kitchen where you awake to find yourself halfway through cooking up a batch of Oscar Mayer bacon.

At least, that's how I imagine it works. I applied to become a beta tester as soon as I found out about the "Wake Up and Smell the Bacon" promotion, but was met with a video from their "Bacon Cut & Design Chief" informing me that I'd missed the boat. Better luck next time, he says. I will be back, Oscar Mayer.

Anyway, it seems to me like we might as well stop here. I mean, how can technology improve upon this? It's simple. It's human. It's inclusive (of anyone who owns an iPhone, anyway). It makes people happy. Probably, studies will find that over time it contributes to massive weight gain and perhaps creates a troubling Pavlovian response in its users to alarms and buzzers of all kinds. Perhaps one day we will read about people who, upon hearing a beeping or ringtone associated with their Oscar Mayer app, walk across five lanes of active traffic or disrupt a movie or concert or class or make a scene on an airplane in a desperate and uncontrollable attempt to feed their insatiable, zombie-like craving for bacon.

It sounds glorious. I want in.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!