Our implausible world can take almost any topic or subject, skewer it, spin it around in its rotisserie barbecue: give it a few and, voila! Everything goes out a nice, golden brown.
Just like Meals, Ready to Eat, or MREs -- field rations for military members in the familiar brown plastic packets, for example. The meals are popular with survivalists, campers, hunters, and others away from their ranges-in-home, let alone from antelope playing near the 'fridge.
Wiki tells us the U.S. government requires the following information be printed on each MRE case: U.S. Government Property, Commercial Resale is Unlawful.
So, what's the implausibility here? It's not true.
There are no laws forbidding the resale of MREs. The military can try to discourage resale, but there are no laws on the books. However, military members can receive disciplinary action for making a profit on the resale of MREs, which is illegal.
MREs show up on eBay, among other places, so often that wags have nicknamed them, "Meals, Ready for eBay."
As I type these lines, on June 3, 2013, Private First Class Bradley Edward Manning is...
