I saw this stuff in the supermarket today and it really pissed me off. I mean, "Ready to Serve!" has come to mean something special in the U. S. It means, "I'm a proud American and I'm ready, willing, and able to defend our country against evildoers."

It doesn't mean, "Hey, this rice be cooked!" It doesn't mean, "Slap me on a plate and douse me in gravy!"

This rice, then, is not ready to serve. This rice will not be parachuting into Iran to attack Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's camp. This rice won't even be throwing itself on a grenade to save a platter of egg fu yung.

If they had half a brain, the Minute folks could have been avoided this offensive confusion. Isn't it obvious that they should label the box with whatever a person is most likely to do with the rice? They wouldn't write, "Ready to Fill Balloons!" or "Ready to Smother Pigeons!" Obviously most people are going to eat this shit, so "Ready to Eat!" makes sense. "Ready to Serve"? Only if housewives put this crap on the table and then sigh and say, "Okay, now what'll we eat?"