Salmonella Poison for the Post-Teenage Soul

Worst thing since sliced bread

2012-01-10T15:30:00.001-05:00

Dear Subpar Pita Bread,

I just wanted to commend you on so successfully ruining my lunch. Perhaps you haven’t heard the stories of me eating leftover cake off strangers’ plates in restaurants, but I have fairly low standards when it comes to enjoying something delicious. If I want to eat it, it’s hard to make me regret it. And you know what, other than leftover cake, is usually quite delicious? Turkey wraps. A healthy and refreshing yet portable meal that sadly promises to be the highlight of my otherwise bleak workday, during which I sit hunched at my grey desk putting in enough paid hours to fund my pointless existence. While hunched over a contract I am proofreading, I usually glance at the clock in the bottom right corner of my screen at least six times a minute, counting down the seconds until I can sit hunched over a distracting meal. Today’s meal: turkey wrap with a side of chicken soup. Today’s verdict: fuck you, Subpar Pita Bread.

Perhaps, as a piece of pita bread, you have never enjoyed a pita of your own. Perhaps you do not understand the basic fundamentals of constructing and subsequently eating a pita. It’s actually quite a simple concept to grasp.

1) Put pita on plate
2) Put toppings on pita
3) Wrap pita around toppings
4) Wrap mouth around pita

You’ll notice that these basic instructions do not include any steps that involve throwing the plate at a wall, hopping in a cab and burning down a local pita factory. You know why? Because a pita that can accomplish the four simple steps listed above will only result in the eater of said pita being temporarily satisfied with her life, which she will then continue to mundanely live out without any pesky interference from court dates or three-year jail sentences.

The problem with you becomes evident when one asks the question, “What is the point of a pita?” The answer, of course, is for this bread to act as a vehicle for far more delicious toppings to reach one’s stomach in an efficient manner that requires no utensils and very little cleanup. In this crazy world we live in today, foods such as the pita are more important than ever. The woman on the go does not have time to wash a load of dishes before getting back to her Outlook inbox. Equality started the day it became acceptable for a woman to eat like a savage with her bare hands and curse her miserable 9-5 existence like men have done since the beginning of time.

So, without the ability to safely house toppings, you, Pita, are a useless piece of perishable garbage unfit for any food bank. And this, Subpar Pita, is exactly how and why you ruined my lunch. Maybe you’re not familiar with the month of January, but it usually involves people making fleeting healthy eating choices to rid themselves of the eight pounds they’ve gained since baking that first test batch of Christmas cookies on November 25th. This is prime time for you to prove why you are a valuable member of the food groups and a better choice than a microwavable dish of Michelina-brand chemicals.

Today you were part of my plan to better myself, to eat nutritious meals that do not compromise when it comes to ingredients or shelf life. But you let me down from the very moment I removed you from your plastic pita womb filled with a litter of circular breads and placed you on my plate. In that short journey you developed a crack I immediately knew would interfere with my pita ingestion. But I accepted this small blemish on what otherwise appeared to be a tasty wheat creation. I very carefully placed my romaine lettuce, real turkey breast and tomatoes along the strongest part of your spine. I carried you back to my grey little desk, added some salt and pepper, and – in the daintiest and most gentle of ways - folded. That’s when you fucked everything up. You split open in three different places. A whole inch of you fell right off, exposing a thin inner wall of lettuce. My tiny hands now gripped what was basically a pile of bread chunks balancing a frightened mix of poultry and vegetables. My only option was to fully commit to this wrap, shoving it down my throat as quickly as possible. This is not how I like to eat. I like to take a bite, put the edible object down, do something efficient, then re-clasp and take another bite. Occasionally I like to sip some water or dab a napkin to my cheek. But you did not allow me to do any of these things. With every bite another fragment of bread would crumble to my plate below. This resulted in my hands and face getting messier than ever, but I had no freedom to reach for a paper towel. Lucky for both of us I have an aversion to white sauces and you were free from any mayonnaise, ranch dressing or other vomit equivalency. Had you been the lunch of a normal human being who likes to plop creamy slime all over the place things would have been far more disastrous. That being said, the inherent problem with avoiding sauces is that it results in a rather dry wrap, especially when white turkey meat is involved. So, while I may have been spared globs of pus-like wetness dripping all over my arms, my throat became more and more parched as I was unable to reach for my nearby water bottle. Not to mention that all the while my chicken soup was sitting by sad and alone. The whole point of the sandwich/soup combo is so that one can juxtapose the warm brothy goodness of the soup with the cool crispy freshness of the wrap. Perhaps after four boring wrap bites I would want to throw in a couple soup slurps to mix up the texture, temperature and taste sensations. You allowed me no such freedoms and made my tongue a prisoner of your faulty genetic makeup. Not only was I racing against your ultimate demise, but I was also racing against soup coldness. I had to ram you into my face simply so the rest of my meal could go unspoiled.

Now, had this soup I was waiting for been delicious, perhaps I could forgive some of your shortcomings and think, “Well, at least I had that tasty soup.” But this was not the case. Today I was conducting a soup experiment with a can of Smart Ones chicken noodle. I purchased this soup because it claimed to be low in calories and fat. I believe they abide by this claim by making their soup so tasteless and disgusting that the consumer throws half the can away, thereby saving some precious Weight Watchers points. I have never had a soup that tasted so little of sodium, and even after dumping a litre of salt and pepper into the bowl the dim yellow slop remained tasteless. The so-called chicken - the ingredient around which this entire soup is based – was so revolting my cat would have sent it back if I had passed him a tin of it. Tiny little factory-formed squares of pink that tasted spongy and dystopian. I had to use my spoon to fish them all out and slap them into my under-desk garbage. Had you not fallen apart on me, I would have experimented with this soup much earlier in the meal. Realizing it was disgusting, I would have consumed it first, leaving myself with a delightful turkey wrap to look forward to. Instead I finished my meal by begrudgingly swallowing some boiled carrots floating in yellow.

I realize this is just as much the soup’s fault as it is yours, but at least the soup was still, by scientific standards, soup. You were, by all standards, no longer a pita. You were a pile of rubble under which all my love of lunch was buried and suffering. I could have tried to dig it out but I knew if your remnants were to be the building blocks of any future hunger I would rather let my desire to eat slowly die.

I’m not sure why you chose to destroy my lunch and, subsequently, my work ethic. I treated you with respect. I used you well in advance of your expiry, I did not overstuff, did not tightly fold – I didn’t even do the bottom-end fold-over, which is really quite essential for wrap-wrapping. I knew you were fragile and tried not to hurt you. All I did was think of you and you couldn’t even hold it together for 20 minutes to make me happy. I don’t know why your creators are even in the business of pita-making. If one owned a car factory but only produced cars that could not drive he’d be run out of town. But maybe that is what happened – maybe your makers were run out of Lebanon, which is why they’ve had to bring their Lebanese-style breads here, selling them for a whole dollar less than the other pita breads. I’d vow to never buy a pack of your kind again, but, as I said, your pitas are a whole dollar less per package and I am just sssoooo cheap. I mean, I’m willing to eat leftover cake off restaurant tables. I clearly have no standards.

Sincerely,
Laura

Dressing Down Dresses

2010-01-17T02:20:00.000-05:00

Unless I am at a strip club, which I currently am not (and likely will not be in future), the last thing I want to see on stage is a fellow woman’s crotch. To be quite honest, the last thing I want to see in any given situation is a fellow woman’s crotch. I don’t believe this is simply because I am a wholesome young lady who wishes to be married some day and values traditional romance. I believe this is because crotches are rather distracting items and, unless I have set out to specifically view a crotch, a random crotch sighting will likely take away from whatever it is I did initially set out to see.

I have noticed a trend recently on the sketch and improv stages in Toronto that offends me as a performer, audience member and woman. It seems the hip thing to do these days it to improvise in a skirt – often a ridiculously short one, often with bare legs or non-opaque tights. Unless these lady improvisers plan to present a variety of scenes involving Lindsay Lohan getting out of a taxi, these hot little outfits simply are not practical. The entire point of improv is that things are made up on the spot (aka improvised) and thus one never knows what compromising situation she will be required to take part in. When a skirt is being worn – especially without opaque tights or vaudeville-esque bloomers underneath – an improviser has now limited herself in what she can do. When making physical choices she will now be judging every thought based on the cute little number she’s adorning. This means she will likely end up standing around awkwardly throughout the entire scene, just doing a lot of talking. And God knows women never shut up as it is. Anyway, she has basically rendered herself a robotic little trophy wife who daren’t move lest a wisp of hair stray out of place. She has basically made herself a talking mannequin on stage, but not even a cool talking mannequin like Jeff from Today’s Special who often danced about and sang semi-educational songs. More like the Tin Man after only his mouth had been oiled. And really – he was by far inferior to the Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion.

Now, let’s say the improviser in question is very in the moment and holds her commitment to the scene above her modesty. I respect this far more because she is doing what she is there to do – improvise, not sell the latest H&M creation – but this leads to a number of highly uncomfortable moments for the audience. As open-minded and liberal as any given audience may be, no one wants to feel like a pervert peering up a young woman’s dress as she straddles a chair. Sitting on a chair is an inherent problem as, unless the legs are crossed in the most ladylike fashion, the slight raised level of the stage paired with the slight lowered level of the audience puts viewers’ eyes at crotch level. A sceptic may argue, “Well, just don’t look!” but this is not as easy as it seems. When a female player is writhing about in a skirt a mixture of emotions is experienced by the audience. Some may feel a lusty emotion, wanting to catch a glimpse of the secret lady area as they are very sad and came to the show alone because they found zero matches on e-Harmony. Some may feel a concerned emotion, empathizing with the girl and trying to reposition her skirt using telekinesis. Some may feel an awkward emotion, as one would feel if she were to accidentally burst into an occupied toilet stall. Some may feel a horrified emotion, such as one experiences when passing a four-car pile-up on the 401 – not wanting to see the gruesome aftermath but feeling compelled to stare. Other people may be blind and their emotion would likely remain unchanged. In any case, these emotions have nothing to do with the scene at hand, which may also be evoking a completely different emotion. This inner struggle confuses the audience to the point that they are unable to focus on the scene, but only able to stare fixedly at the cellulite that appears to be located a mere two inches from the woman’s bottom. Thus, when leaving the show, instead of cleverly observing, “I rather enjoyed how that marshmallow scene explored the exploitation of natural resources in South America” a woman may observe “Ew, could that chick’s dress have been any shorter? I mean, you could totally see everything and the dress clashed with her hair anyway.” So basically the short, short skirt has undone all the hard work that was put into creating art on stage.

As well, although this observation on fashion is completely valid, passers-by who hear this remark may then judge the female audience member as being superficial, and then may judge women as a whole as only being concerned with fashion. The short, short skirt has now resulted in a major blow to equality. And how can women and men be equal on stage when women are putting these limitations on themselves? Women in general have a tough enough time in improv and comedy as it is. In a field long dominated by men, unless women are playing alongside top quality improvisers, they are often endowed as being wives, secretaries, nurses, victims, cats, or unused bookshelves in the background. To get to the top in improv, women have to deal with a lot of shitty roles, on-stage sexism, being yelled over – women do have to fight to get to a level at which the men they are working with aren’t total douchebags. But that means the douchebags are in the audience and they are staring up your skirt. Perhaps this is precisely it – perhaps women have fought so hard that they are saying “fuck you, men!” and embracing the skirt like the gay community has embraced the word “queer” or like Amy Winehouse embraced her rampant alcoholism. Thing is, the word “queer” can still hurt a gay man’s feelings and Amy Winehouse still had to go to rehab. Taking something bad and making it your own doesn’t mean everyone wants to see your cha-cha.

Basically, ladies, improv is not about looking hot or cute or sexy or like a total whore. It is about being versatile – sometimes looking like a fool, sometimes looking hideous, sometimes looking like a geek and, well, yes, sometimes looking like a total whore. If you want people to be stunned by your shapely upper thighs, stick around for drinks and change into your whore costume after the show. I guarantee this will be far more magical – like when girls take their hair down and remove their glasses in movies. The high school hunk always asks them out. Why? Because it turns out they were secretly impressed by the girl’s intelligence and quirkiness first and needed that magical moment to realize it. Or skip the middle man and start performing at Zanzibar. No one will ever complain that your dress clashed with your hair and you’ll make a lot more money than you ever will in improv.

Observation

2006-11-17T04:51:00.000-05:00

It is somewhat disconcerting when the man sitting across from you on the subway has blood all over his hands. And sleeves. And knapsack.

The True Love Cafe

2005-07-27T01:37:00.000-04:00

I find it funny that the "True Love Cafe" is located at the corner of Dundas and Sherbourne, because no one at the corner of Dundas and Sherbourne will ever find True Love.

Rock and roll-over legend

2005-05-26T19:42:00.000-04:00

Kurt Cobain was a cultural icon, so people are very protective of the music the man created. Sometimes someone will do a cover of a Nirvana song, which according to the “rules” is blasphemous because Nirvana music is precious and sacred. These covers will usually lead to someone who wants to be thought some high-status-Nirvana-number-one-fan saying, “Ugh. Kurt Cobain must be rolling over in his grave.” THIS MAKES ME MAD. These people try to show off by being all protective of Nirvana, but if they were actual fans they would know that Kurt Cobain was cremated and thus cannot “roll over in his grave” because his ashes are in a canister under a tree. Every time someone misuses the “must-be-rolling-over-in-his-grave” quote, the guy who invented the “must-be-rolling-over-in-his-grave” quote must roll over in his grave.

Backstreet's Back

2005-05-25T10:58:00.000-04:00

I have had the new Backstreet Boys song in my head for five days now. That hasn’t happened since 1998. At that time I thought it would never happen again. What is happening to the world? Why have they reunited? Who is listening? Who is buying? How did Howie get all that grease out of his hair?

R.I.Pope

2005-05-03T02:44:00.000-04:00

Alright, so now that the pope business is pretty much over and people have let their emotions settle and such, I would like to discuss this whole Pope John Paul dying business.

People were praying for the pope – praying that he’d go peacefully or die soon or keep living or something. I don’t know exactly what they were praying because most prayer is silent and most of the praying people spoke languages I couldn’t understand. But the reasons why don’t really matter. Fact is these people were praying for the pope. Now tell me – does the pope REALLY need anyone’s prayers? He’s the pope. He has dedicated his entire life to one big massive prayer. I think God knows what’s going on and has his eye on the whole situation. If the pope needs help from the sinning rabble, what hope is there for anyone else? If the pope does not have a prayer-free ticket to wherever the hell he’s going, then I think everyone should just give up now.

On top of this, with all these prayers being sent for the pope, this God character has got to be pretty confused. It’s like a whole bunch of spam in his inbox he has to waste his time deleting. Instead of praying for the pope, these people should be praying for the forgotten orphans who have no one to pray for them. God is probably pretty wrapped up in this whole pope business himself and maybe he needs some extra reminders about the everyday dying folk. The pope is stealing prayers from the needy! I don’t think that’s very nice. If the guy wasn’t on his deathbed, I’m sure he’d ask that people donate his prayers to others.

And might I inquire as to why this pope has been stricken with a disease, and is stuck in bed dying a slow death? Surely God has some control over this situation. Does he really need to test the pope? The pope has pretty much proven himself by being the pope and I don’t think he has to learn any lessons by having some illness. All it does is make it more difficult to pass God’s precious messages on to the public. Why the hell would God want a messenger who can’t relay the message? Is this really the best Supreme Being we’ve got? I mean, that seems like a pretty poor PR move to me.

And don’t you find it sick that everyone is just sitting at home watching TV waiting for some old man to die? I mean, clearly I think it is very sad when anyone dies, which is why I am developing a plan for a society of robots. But everyone’s just waiting. I’m sure at first they were very saddened by the pope’s poor health, but by the 2nd day of non-stop CNN coverage they were thinking “JUST DIE ALREADY!” That’s kind of a rude thing to be thinking about the pope. Plus, if these people care so much, why don’t they just let God do his thing and kill the guy off when he feels like it. There’s really no need standing around waiting. All they’re doing is wasting precious time from their precious lives – which, may I remind you, is God’s greatest gift. Do these people not trust God will actually let the guy die? They must witness this act so God can’t sneakily keep the pope alive behind their backs? Does it really matter if you’re the first to know the pope is dead? I mean, his status isn’t going to change.

And really, why does he have to wear that stupid outfit?

Melts in your mouth

2005-05-02T01:51:00.000-04:00

You know when you want to eat but you aren’t hungry? It happens to me often. I want the delicious taste. I want the act of chewing the product and swallowing it. But I do not want the feeling of the fullness in my stomach. If I wanted the taste of gum or a jolly rancher I wouldn’t have a problem. But right now I would really like the taste of nachos or chips or perhaps even some funnel cake. I don’t currently have access to any of these things, but that doesn’t matter because I know if I tried to eat them I’d barf.

Someone really must invent dissolvable food. Gum is no solution because it is too sweet for the salt cravings and the chewing hurts my jaw. Plus you cannot swallow the gum. You have to sit there chewing the tasteless piece of plasticine in your mouth until there’s a commercial or you have to spit it into your hand. If you were smart you would bring an extra napkin with you, but that is the inherent problem with gum – it requires too much thought. Jolly ranchers are even worse because you don’t even get the pleasant act of chewing. You have to wait for the thing to evaporate down your throat. And if the phone rings you have to shove the cube into the side of your mouth and the person on the other end thinks you are either really sick or in a secret cave. They might not call you in for the job interview and just pretend they have the wrong number.

We need to create food that has the exact taste and texture of its real counterpart but dissolves in 20 seconds like those Listerine strips. It could be made of the exact same material, just in chip form with an extra salty taste. Not only would this satisfy many a late-night craving, but it would also prevent people from gaining too much weight needlessly. They could eat all their favourite foods with no digestion process whatsoever. Compulsive eaters would be saved.

I would also really like for stage cigarettes to become mainstream. I will never smoke a real cigarette because I plan on someday running the Boston marathon and I distrust those nicotine patches. But sometimes when I’m stressed out I feel like I should be smoking. Also, I’m not good at conversing with other humans, and it seems smokers make friends all the time. All you have to do is lean against some building with a cigarette in your mouth pretending to rifle through your pockets and some dashing gentleman will run up with a match. Then you can just stand there and complain about stuff. If you have nothing to say, it’s fine because you can’t talk with a cigarette in your mouth anyway. And I really like the smell of matches, and it would give me an excuse to light more of them.

With fake cigarettes and fake food society as a whole would be much healthier and equally satisfied. If we can manufacture and embrace wigs why can’t we make fake pretzels? The big ones that are warm and extra salty. That’s all I want right now. I would pay five bucks for a single pretzel. Or pepperoni. Delicious salted dehydrated cow meat. If a cow walked by I would actually just take a bite right out of his flesh. I would eat the raw cow fur and all. I really want a steak that badly. But it would have to be a really mean cow who deserved it. I wouldn’t bite an innocent calf or a kindly cow who tells jokes and shares his cud meals with the others. It would have to be a cow who, when people call it “cow” they mean it in the insulting way, not the definition way. I would bite that cow right in the side. Of course, I would have to remember to bring my salt along. Oh, hypothetical cow, where are you when I need you?

Wait for it . . .

2005-04-20T23:01:00.000-04:00

You always see these places that advertise “key cutting while you wait” or “t-shirts printed while you wait.” These businesses put up these signs to make it seem like this is some sort of great time-saving bargain. But really, who wants to wait? It actually seems like quite a nuisance to me that I would have to stand there WAITING while some damned fool cuts my keys. I want them immediately or I want to shop and return on my own free will. I don’t want to stand there looking at engravable flasks for 20 minutes. If the signs specified the length of time I would have to wait, that might not be so bad. “We fix your shoes and you ONLY have to wait 10 minutes!” Then I can prepare and bring the proper reading material. I don’t want to randomly wait for an unknown period of time. When you enter a waiting room you’re often stuck waiting for three hours if Jimmy didn’t wash his hands and they played tag that day in gym class. I could technically be in that key shop for the rest of my life, the clerk handing me my spare car key as I take my last dying breath. I don’t want to die in a mall. Especially not in a store with such disgruntled staff as those who work in KeyMan Engravables. Seriously, those people are miserable, and the reason is because they have to deal with customers who pace about the store all day sighing and checking their watches. These places really need to change the wording so the message is clearer. The word “wait” is so negative. Why not say “guitar repair while you enjoy our lovely shop.” And do they really need to specify that you’ll be waiting at all? Clearly if I need a skate sharpened it will not instantaneously apparate back into my hockey bag. If you want something there will inevitably be some waiting involved. It just depends on how MUCH waiting! Why not put up signs that say “house built while you wait!” or “cure for AIDS while you wait!” They’re both true, and it sounds much more optimistic. I think I have a solution that will solve this dilemma. Uh – just wait my Mom’s calling me –

(Haha – get it? That ending was “ironic.” That’s what good writing is all about - the surprise twist at the end.)

I hate happiness.

2005-03-29T23:38:00.000-05:00

Many people think I am happy because I smile all the time. Fact is, my mouth is just shaped that way. I guess I am generally happy, but I am usually secretly facing inner turmoil as I stress and worry about everything and always expect the worst to happen. I like expecting the worst to happen, as if I set my standards low enough I will never be disappointed in life. But even when I should be extremely happy, all I can think about is the fact that the happiness will not last forever. Right now I am EXTREMELY happy beyond happiness. I want to skip through the streets singing upbeat Broadway theme songs doing cartwheels and twirling my purse while exclaiming, “wweeeeeeee!” And on occasion I will partake in one or all of the above activities. But every time I feel the urge to prance about with glee, I realize that some day the wonderful man will leave me, the people I love will die, my friends will leave the country, my favourite band will break up, the nicest coffee mug will smash, the delicious bread will get mouldy, the scentful candle will melt, and so on. The sun might come out tomorrow as Annie says, but the next day the sun might detach from its axis and plummet into the earth killing us all. If I stop to smell the flowers a hornet might fly up my nose and sting my brain erasing all my memories. I might look through rose-coloured glasses, but the glass might shatter and stab my retina, forever destroying my ability to see.

I realize that I should just appreciate what I have at the time and not fret about the fact that some day it will all be gone. I should live in the moment and take life as it comes and go with the flow and other various clichés. But I would much rather just control things and decide my own fate. If our minds were controlled by computer chips like they will be in the near future, I could simply program certain people to love me eternally, and others never to die. I could also program those I hate to die horrible, horrible deaths. And then I could program the police to not lock me away after I commit said murder.

The world would be a much better place if I were an orphan with a hideous deformity. I would be unloved, so would have nothing to lose. I would be unlovable, so could never be hurt. And I could probably just work in a factory and make some good money so I could eat delicious meals often. If we were all robots with arranged marriages and were programmed with absolutely no feelings the world would be a wonderful place. No one would ever feel pain-pain-pain-pain (unfitting desperate WestWorld reference) . . .

Being happy makes me so miserable. All these years I thought Grumpy Bear was the one who still had to learn a lesson, but really he was the leader! He was the only one who knew what was going on! He is the messiah. Bow down – bow down to your new leader. Wait – how were the Care Bears born? There’s Grams Bear and Hugs and Tugs, but there is no Gramps and everyone else appears to be the same age. Are they all related? If so, how did Hugs and Tugs come to be? No wonder Grumpy Bear was always so mad. He is clearly living in a sick, sick society of multicoloured bears. I should have seen it. Why didn’t I notice the signs earlier?!

I have decided to start a petition to remove the Care Bears from television. Our children should not be watching such smut. If you want to sign it, email me and I’ll add your name to the list. Together we can do this! We can save the future generations! Don’t you care? Don’t you care about your own children? What’s wrong with you?! You self-serving sadistic ignorant bastard.

What the hell?

2005-03-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

One day, not all that long ago, I was in dire need of undergarments. So I went to one of the fancy little underwear stores at the mall to peruse a selection that offered comfort, quality and style. I made my way into one little hut and began to glance about. I came upon a table with a sign that said 3/$15. This deal seemed acceptable, so I began to assess my options. Now, this store had a very clever plan. They had a fine oak table, upon which the underwear was kindly laid in pristine, straight rows. Row one, the row farthest to the left, was a row of size small. The row was arranged according to colour, the top inch of each pair visible so one did not have to partake in an unclassy rummage. Next to this row, in the middle, was the size medium row. On the far right, the large row, and on the shelf below sat the extra-large pairs.

For all of you who have been dying to know since you met me, I usually invest in size medium. So, I stood gently prodding the medium row for the colour and style combinations I enjoyed. As I was happily searching, a sales representative obligatorily approached me from the side.

“Can I help you find your size?” she asked.

I clearly did not need help, as I was clearly looking through the medium row, so I responded, “no – I’m fine thank you.”

But instead of walking away like a regular disgruntled sales person should do, the woman hesitated. She made a slight motion, as if she felt she should leave, but then remained, gazing upon me. She made a hesitant move, then a hesitant sound, and then blurted,

“Well . . . are you looking for size extra-large?”

My eyes stopped scanning. My torso slowly rose. My head slowly turned to the left. I affixed my eyes into contact with her eyes. My hand let go of the size medium it was holding, letting it fall to the table in a repulsive crumpled heap. I opened my mouth and paused.

“Nnnoooo.” I said clearly.

I turned back to the table, made a disgusted face, and abruptly left.

What the hell?

Paper

2005-03-14T23:42:00.000-05:00

Think of all the paper we use. Every day I am given useless sheets that I drop directly into the recycling bin. My floor is covered in paper. I have binders full of paper. Imagine if someone had come up with a different invention instead of paper? Perhaps the paper inventor had various designs and finally decided on the blank white sheet. Perhaps his other design was a wooden sphere you could chisel or a bucket of quick drying mud you could etch. But instead we have these thin crunchy little rectangles that slice your finger and get all bent and get strewn about. Why must they be rectangles? It would be more aesthetically pleasing if they were round, and then there wouldn’t be the dangerous corners. They could at least be square – that would make folding and origami easier. And how ridiculous is it that we have envelopes. We have invented a secondary piece of paper to contain the original piece of paper. Why isn’t paper just naturally also an envelope? Think of all the time and money we could save!

Right now I am writing on a fake piece of paper. Paper is so important that they have even created fake paper in form of a computer. No offence to us, but why the hell is what we say and do so important that there be this much documentation? I personally feel kind of ripped off as a human. In the past they could only write on chiselled rocks with quill pens so no one bothered to keep any records. But think about how much they’ll know about us in the future! Somewhere, some child will find my politics essay locked in a shoebox and will marvel at my intelligence. Think of all the people who lived in medieval times who we will never know existed! Their existence had no meaning. But we all have 65247621345 documents we have had to type and write along with videos and pictures of ourselves that will one day be in a museum for the kids to see on their boring field trips. Except their field trips to the museum won’t be that boring, because they’ll have robots making hot chocolate for them on the way there, and then at the museum the information can be directly implanted into their minds. Plus the children will all be dolphins.

Cereal Killer

2005-02-24T14:08:00.000-05:00

When I was a child I used to dread visiting my grandparents’ house. Part of this dread was because their house was filled with tacky souvenirs from Cuba and clowns made of seas shells and crocheted square dance creations and pictures from 1962. Part of this dread was because if we stayed more than 24 hours we’d end up leaving early in a huff because we couldn’t take it anymore and then we wouldn’t talk to them for two years. But the thing I dreaded most was what lurked inside their cereal cupboard.

My grandparents always made sure they had two types of cereal available. A box of Shreddies leftover from 1973 and a box of Rice Krispies that had always freshly been delved into. See, although most Grandmas bake delicious treats for their grandchildren and help them make gingerbread houses and serve ice cream for dinner, my grandmother somehow got the idea that Rice Krispie squares are the most delicious delicacy in the world. Despite my father’s pleas for homemade cheesecake and fudge (his favourites from his youth – also proof that my grandmother owns recipes) we would arrive and my grandmother would say in a sly manner “I have some treats I made for you!” as if we should dance with glee and twirl in a circle. In my younger years I would sometimes twirl as I would imagine a delicious land made of candy and joy. But then, alas, I would open the bread box on top of the fridge and inside would be a homely pan with some tinfoil plastered on top, emitting the sickly smell of marshmallow glue.

At first I enjoyed the Rice Krispies Treats, as my own mother did not usually make said desert because she actually loved me. But as the years passed, my enjoyment of Rice Krispies treats deteriorated almost as fast as my grandmother’s skill of making them. In the beginning, the Rice Krispie Squares were moist and delicious with the desired amount of viscosity and flavour. But as time passed my grandmother got lazy. She started skimping on the marshmallows and no longer insisted on using only the freshest cereal. Then she started making backup Rice Krispie square batches far in advance, so she would not have to rush about the day before her guest’s arrival. Her Rice Krispies got staler and staler. Then came the year of my Uncle’s wedding. All us children would be hanging out at my grandparents’ lair for a couple of days. This meant a higher quantity than ever of Rice Krispie Squares was needed. Clearly, moulding Rice Krispie Squares was not my grandmother’s priority, so she made the extra-large batch 10 weeks in advance to get it out of the way. So when the offer of a delicious desert treat was made to us children, we begrudgingly acted pleased and accepted the offer. Out came the pan and an old rusted butter knife and we were left to serve ourselves. When we plunged the knife into the snappy mass, the knife bent in half and the square remained intact. The Rice Krispie square had become a cement block. We had to use a makeshift chisel the burst the cement apart. Then we had to gnaw on these blocks, chipping our teeth and overworking our jaws. We felt obliged to eat the squares as we didn’t want to make my grandmother feel bad (especially since my grandfather had just ruined my uncle’s wedding) so we had to smash them off the kitchen table until they shattered and swallow the bits like jagged Krusty-os. We got through the first square, but then spent two days of my grandmother forcing us to continuously eat them (my grandmother believes that everyone should eat non-stop at all times). Then when it was time to leave she somehow cracked the block apart and sent little margarine containers full of Rice Krispie barf along with each of us.

But that is not why I dread the cereal cupboard, as the Rice Kripsie Squares are kept in the breadbox on top of the fridge as previously stated. I dread the cereal cupboard because I do not like Shreddies and I do not like Rice Krispies. And even though I don’t usually eat breakfast, as previously stated my grandmother believes that everyone should eat non-stop at all times. So one is FORCED to eat breakfast at my grandmother’s house even if they are not hungry. So because my mother knew that I was anti-Shreddie and anti-Rice Krispie, and I was usually a young child, my mother would invest in those 10-pack variety deals of the mini boxes of Kellogg’s cereals.

As a child I always found this to be exciting as these variety packs allowed me choice and the boxes were cute. But as I grew older I realized the inherent problems with the variety pack.

First of all, they have a bunch of cereals back to back so you can only see five when the package is on display. Of course they put the best ones at the front. So you see Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops and Corn Pops and Raisin Bran and think you’re getting a deal. But what you DON’T take note of is that in addition to these delicious brands you also get two boxes of Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Special K, and All Bran. The variety pack is just a SCAM to get parents addicted to the cereals their children refuse to eat! And you think you’re getting ten portions of deliciousness, but really half of the portions are despicable, and you could have saved money by just buying a singular box of the cereal of your choice.

So let’s say you don’t care about the scam and your parents happen to love All Bran, even though no person in their right mind would. There is still the issue of the actual eating process.

The entire point of the mini box is to avoid the unnecessary dirtying of a pristine bowl. So they perforate the box top so you can eat straight from the carton. First of all, they should probably avoid marketing something towards children that requires a big steak knife to saw open. I am sure many a child has been seriously injured when the knife slipped while sawing across Tony the Tiger’s face. Then when you open the flaps you find that you have sawed through all the cereal, ruining the loopiness of your Froot Loops and creating extra crumbs that made you shudder and dye the milk pink. And if you are a rather young child who is just mastering knife use, or perhaps even an overzealous Dad, there is a chance you would penetrate too deeply, nicking the white bag at the bottom. This leads to milk leakage and you stain your grandma’s placemat. Also, you have to use extra milk which is a waste of money, and transfer the remnants into a bowl which defeats the entire purpose. And the reason bowls are rounded is because it is much simpler to grasp milk and cereal in a circular motion. The mini boxes have corners that are difficult to dig in.

I just remembered a cereal that has ceased to exist. Remember Smacks? The ugly cereal with that beast frog mascot that talked like some barfing saxophone player? And the cereal pieces looked like dead crickets? I never tried that cereal because the commercials repulsed me. I wonder if they took it off the market because it was called “smacks” with has connotations of both drugs and violence. Or maybe it just tasted bad. Or maybe the frog got a promotion. It makes me sad when things go off the market. All the years spent on developing the recipe and designing the box and selling it to grocery stores and inserting toys and convincing children to beg their parents for it – all gone to waste. But I guess it’s their own fault for making a frog with a baseball cap on the mascot for an unappealing children’s cereal. Everyone knows reptiles don’t move product. A dolphin would have been a much wiser choice.

ET phone homeless.

2005-02-07T01:13:00.000-05:00

Right now the local dump is being plagued with hundreds of non-biodegradable cell phones. Zack Morris might have loved his huge grey beast in 1993, but nowadays even Screech wouldn’t be caught dead with that thing. Nowadays kids need the cell phones with flashing buttons and digital cameras and mechanical arms and can openers. The phones must have the capability to download a Nelly ring tone and must fold to the size of the filling in your right molar. Now, the pioneer 10-pound cell phones are being tossed in the trash like Nelly’s old band-aids.

But the future landfill crisis is not the only fear that keeps me awake at night. The very streets I walk to get to school in the morning are landfills littered with their own style of useless, smelly trash – the homeless. As I cut through the park I am asked by a scruff with a shaky beard and a green dusted coat if I talk to God. I say no and ask God to make the man go away. I then pass a bench where a rather large fellow in a toque and popping eyes recites a little poem about symmetry. I quicken my pace, only to run into a chub woman with a hat with beads piled on it fastened with a bow who is muttering to herself about why she shouldn’t eat her toast. I was able to deal with these people until the other day when a man on the corner held a megaphone in my ear and yelled that he was happy I liked Satan because it meant God could love him more. While I have nothing personal against Satan, the megaphone was too much for me to handle. Although I have never been physically injured by one of downtown’s crazies, they interrupt my thoughts when I am pondering what flavour of tea I should buy from Tim Hortons and force me to quicken my pace when my knee hurts that day. I realize these people have mental and/or drunken problems and cannot help but talk to themselves and/or me, but it is very inconvenient. What if I was walking down the street and my future husband saw me talking to a homeless man and thought I was also homeless and thus never approached me to ask me on a date. We would never be married and our children would never be conceived. The homeless man has basically murdered my child!

Instead of proposing to send the homeless to jail for conspiracy to murder my child, I have arrived at a proposal that will save the taxpayers money, help the environment, and ease our unfounded fears of the people on our streets. I propose that we take all the broken cell phones from the dump and give them to the homeless.

It has already been proven that the homeless are incapable of making friends or finding true love. How often do you see homeless couples or homeless people at the movies? There is no hope for these people and they clearly insist on making the normies uncomfortable instead of keeping the insanity within their own circles of grossness. Cell phones cannot help the homeless achieve a higher state of mind, but they can help us normal people feel a false sense of security and avoid distractions as we proceed with our meaningful lives.

If a man is walking down the street talking to himself, you tense up and prepare to swing your umbrella in his face. But if a man marches at you while talking into a cell phone, you assume he is a successful business man and tip your hat at he scampers by. You clearly have no proof the man’s cell phone works, but chances are it does. If we donate useless broken cell phones to the homeless, we can also train them to hold the device up to their ears while muttering to themselves. So when the beaded hat woman trots by rambling about eating corn for dinner, I will assume she is arranging an important meeting with a client. And the really scary people who yell swear words will seem extra-important, as only a big CEO at a multi-billion dollar company would have the power to swear at someone without losing his job.

Not only will this ease our fears of walking the city streets, but it will improve the homeless image. Clearly the homeless are behind the times when it comes to fashion. Grunge was clearly out of style by 1995. But with trendy cell phones they will gain more respect in the community. Giving off an image of importance makes others believe you have power. With hope, if this test works out we can move up to giving the homeless unwanted ties and dented briefcases. By 2018 I predict our garbage problem will be down 5%, general fear on the streets will be down 75 shares, and respect for the homeless will be at an all-time high. And if there is one issue that is dear to my heart, it is respect for the homeless.

Silence of the humans.

2005-02-06T01:25:00.000-05:00

I think people should stop speaking. This is definitely the best solution to all of society’s problems.

Do you actually care about what anyone else has to say? Sure, it might be mildly interesting, especially if the person is telling a story about how they were seriously injured, but will your life cease to go on if you don’t know how the story ends? Are you really going to suffer and lay awake in bed because you do not know your friend Gabrielle’s entire life story? Will this change you as a person? What happened in Gabrielle’s past will in no way affect what happens to you in the future. It makes no difference if she won the 1972 dance contest. And quite frankly, her opinions on who will win the next World Series aren’t helping either. She barely even watches baseball, so why does she think her guess is any better than yours? Her telling you she thinks the Pittsburgh Pirates will win can only lead to two possibilities. A) you agree, B) you do not agree. Either way, the world has not been changed except 10 seconds of your life are gone that you will never be able to reclaim.

When other people speak it just gives you less time to think. And then when they finally shut up all you can think about is what an idiot they are. It hardly seems fair that just because someone likes the sound of his own voice he should be able to hold your mind hostage and infest it with his words. If nobody spoke people could think all the time and society would be much more advanced. We probably would have found a cure for AIDS by now if Marvin didn’t keep talking about his damn son to the other scientists. People are dying and yet speaking is a priority! What kind of sick world do we live in?

Dating would be much easier if there was no talking. You wouldn’t have to go through all the horrible conversations at the beginning. Sure, you would never know if you actually liked the person, but that really wouldn’t matter because you would never be able to fight anyway.

And just think of the poor people in society who have speech impediments or are already deaf. Right now they are the scum of the earth, kicked aside when any old regular talker comes waltzing through town. But if no one spoke, everyone would be equal and the world would be a much happier place. And besides, some people have loud and annoying voices and I want to rip out their vocal cords. Silence = safe vocal cords for everyone.

Students everywhere would be able to get their homework done because they would not be talking about boys on the phone. And there wouldn’t be any children screeching in the park across the street to give them a headache. They would also have a much easier time in school because they could never get in trouble for not listening or talking in class. And no one could really make fun of the loser students who still bring lunch in a lunch pail. Verbal abuse would stop, and now physical violence would be the only resort. One step at a time.

Telemarketers would be unable to phone. You wouldn’t have to worry about not understanding the voice at the Wendy’s drive-through. You wouldn’t have to decipher confusing accents. No one would be ale to ask you for spare change as you peacefully trudged to work. Nickelback would go out of business. And if you asked someone to dance at the school prom he wouldn’t be able to say his leg was broken.

If no one spoke there would be no disagreements and no fighting. We would all be happy and could just live in our quaint houses sipping tea and petting cats. We could all assume we were right about everything, which would make us feel more intelligent, and self-esteem would be at an all-time national high. We would no longer have to dread going out in public because someone might say hello, or because we might see an attractive male and have to act all suave. The world would be a precious utopia and we could frolic about in silent glee. Wars would cease. Social awkwardness would be a disease of the past. You and I would at last know true happiness. Well, unless you’re blind. Which you aren’t, because you’re reading this. So there.

Grandpa University

2005-02-04T13:28:00.000-05:00

There are many things I hate about journalism. I hate the fact that I have to interact with human kind. I hate the fact that I cannot blatantly lie. But the thing I hate the most is telling people I am a journalism student. I try to withhold this precious information as long as I can, but if someone asks me what I do it is my journalistic duty to tell them the truth. Luckily, most people do not acknowledge my existence and shove me out of the way so they can get on the subway first. I don’t mind, as I am not in a rush and they could be on the way to their child’s ballet audition, and I really don’t want to talk to the random stranger anyway. But there is one segment of society that is never in a rush, never takes the subway, and never has a child at a ballet audition. This segment always has time to not only acknowledge that I do indeed exist, but to delve into my life like Jessica Fletcher into a murder. This segment is the grandpa segment.

It happens everywhere. I might be sitting calmly in a seat at the theatre, or scrounging through a bucket at a garage sale, or standing in line waiting to vote in the federal election, when some random grandpa who I have never seen before ponders over with a wise little grin.

“Well, isn’t that a pretty smile if I ever did see one myself if I do say so!” he scruffs. I do not like talking to random people for a journalistic assignment. I do not even like talking to my friends. So why should I be forced to converse with some random grandpa just because he is having a lonesome afternoon? But you can’t ignore a random grandpa – perhaps I am a spitting image of his wife Helena who just passed away two months earlier. Besides, many grandpas are from the olden days when murder didn’t exist and everyone was friends, so turning away in disgust might confuse him and cause him to vote for the wrong person, changing the country’s political fate forever. So I must acknowledge, and thus I squiff some homely rat noise and my eye twitches because I know what is about to come.

“So then, what high school do you go to, young lady?”

“Actually, I am in my final year of university.”

“My! But you look like you’re only 12 years old! When you get to my age you’ll be happy! Heheheh. COUGH. So, what are you majoring in?”

“Journalism.”

“Ahh, so you want to be a writer! I can tell you love writing!”

“Actually, I am in BROADCAST journalism.”

“Ahhhh, BROADCAST! So, you want to be one of them beautiful lady news anchors and read me the news every night as I eat my broccoli stew!”

“Um, actually . . .”

“OH! I know! You want to go overseas and be a foreign correspondent in Iraq! Oh, you be careful! You know how the people over there are with their guns and other languages and such!”

“ACTUALLY I am more interested in camerawork and editing.”

“Oh (insert look of utter disappointment, confusion and disgust) . . . well, you know Maricia VinKenny?”

(Okay, just because I am a journalism student does not mean I WATCH THE NEWS!!! I hate the news. And clearly I have never heard of this person in my life.)

“I think I’ve heard of her.”

“Yes, well when she was at CBC she started as a lowly cameraperson, too. Then, ONEDAY CNN offered her a MAGICAL job as a REAL reporter like you see in the movies! Her soul was saved! And you must have seen that controversial interview she did with Palestinian Foreign Commissions Leader, Rabutal Maghastan.”

“Actually, no, I did not see that interview.”

“YOU ARE A JOURNALISM STUDENT AND YOU DID NOT SEE THAT INTERVIEW!!! How could you? You’d better not tell your teachers, because they would be very disappointed! As a journalist you have to watch everything! You have to read every newspaper everyday! That is the only way you’ll know what’s going on in the world! You must LOVE the news! Otherwise you will FAIL and you will live a MEANINGLESS life of NOTHING! You must read every book ever written and carry around a notebook so you can write down everything you see! For instance this conversation with me – THIS could be a story!”

So it could be.

Now, this tale of woe goes against the ethics of journalism as I have created a composite character of a grandpa, though everything said (except those made-up names) has ACTUALLY HAPPENED at various times. Maybe someday they’ll make a movie about me. But the POINT is that FIRST of all, WHY must the grandpa ASSUME that just because I am a journalist I want to write for some big boring paper for the financial section! Granted, in 1929 they only had the big paper presses, but how dare he. And SECOND and MOSTLY of all, how DARE this random grandpa, who has clearly done nothing with his life since he is spending his Friday afternoon sitting at a voting table watching people drop slices of paper into a firmer paper cube, give ME advice on how to be a journalist! HE IS NOT A JOURNALIST! I KNOW MORE THAN HIM AND I DON’T CARE HOW OLD HE IS!!! I paid $5000 a year to learn from ACTUAL journalists – could it be that all I had to do was hang around enough bus depots and I could have had my entire education AND MORE free! Perhaps instead of ethics class, we should have grandpa class and just invite random grandpas off the street to tell us how to be better journalists. In fact, why don’t they just create GRANDPA UNIVERSITY and have an entire school based solely on the teachings of random grandpas. It would be cheap, as there would be no campus. Every class would just be a field trip to a craft sale or mall food court. And the grandpas still think a quarter is a good tip, so they wouldn’t have to be paid much. At the end of two weeks you could get a degree, typed in an extra-large font, to hang on your wall above your orange needlepoint wall-hanging. You could go into the work force at a much younger age, and if you work at one of those places that does mathematical tricks to help you retire early, you could be retired by the time you’re 53! And the sooner people retire, the quicker they’ll get lonely, and the earlier they’ll become a nuisance to society, and the more readily available the next batch of grandpa teachers there will be. If only my name were on the ballot.

The world is a horrible, horrible place.

2005-01-26T02:34:00.000-05:00

May I reiterate:
The world is a horrible, horrible place.

Raisins

2005-01-23T21:14:00.000-05:00

(The raisin chronicles have been in circulation for some time now, but I thought this would be a suitable home for them)

I really hate raisins, but they are extremely good in some chocolate bars, such as Hershey's almonds and raisins, and, my personal favourite, Glosette raisins.

Alone, I hate raisins. They disgust me. Not only in taste, but in texture, smell, and sight. Though I truly like grapes, so I do not know how they can end up tasting so bad. But I only like grapes when they are very firm and sweet. If they are sort of mushed they are, as raisins are, repulsive.

Wine, I find, is disgusting as well, and that comes from grapes, as raisins do.

Actually, if I was forced to eat a lone raisin, I could do it. I would not enjoy it, but I could do it if it were a matter of life and death. Or if someone was paying me. Or even as a dare at a really crazy party.

But what I truly cannot stand - ever at all - is a hidden raisin. They are the devil. The muffin looks innocent - you think that it may perhaps be a delectable snack - but then, after the first bite, the truth is beheld. Like Snow White's apple, the muffin is filled with evil. Raisins are lurking inside! You then have to dispose of the entire muffin, because to you it is inedible, and you bit it, so surely no one else will want it, unless they are a close friend or family member. But perhaps raisin disliking is hereditary, and therefore a family member could not help you. And is a friend who likes raisins really a true friend? Giving it to a homeless person would just be insulting and degrading. Not only due to the contaminating bite, but also due to the presence of raisins.

I'm sure that if one were to do a survey, he or she would find that a majority of the population is anti-raisin. It is rare to here one request raisins, or choose raisins. However, it is quite common to see the shunning of raisins.

This leads to a very interesting question. If so many people hate raisins, why are they present in so many foods?

One has to be careful when purchasing any sort of baked good, as the raisins are often baked inside or camouflage themselves. Sometimes they can even pass for chocolate chips.

Purchasing is not the only threat: there is also the grandma threat. Depending on the grandma, raisins could be baked into random desserts, even if raisins to not suit the dessert's style. This is why it all depends on the Grandma. Firstly, not all grandmas like raisins, and therefore they will not all place raisins into pure batter. Secondly, some Grandmas do not follow the stereotype and do not bake all the time. Thirdly, some grandmas are very talented bakers, especially those who might have had a job baking in a factory, and they may know when to and when to not put raisins in batter. However, there is the remaining group of grandmas who are poor bakers (perhaps they were good bakers at some point in their lives but they are growing a tad senile). These grandmas may not understand that raisins never go in certain foods, and that most small children are opposed to the raisin.

This does still not explain the people who give out raisins on Hallowe'en. In theory, they are most likely giving out raisins as a health precaution: they are against the high and presumably unhealthy levels of sugar that a child will intake on the evening. They certainly cannot hand out apples, as people may be concerned about razorblades, or poison, as per the apple given to Snow White as previously stated. These people feel that they are limited to raisins, however there are many other healthy snacks that may be distributed which are not nearly as repulsive. Any child can enjoy a healthy granola bar. Even a juice box is preferred. If they are pro-raisin they always have the option of grape juice. They could even compromise and give out Glosette raisins. If they give out plain raisins, children might egg their house. Luckily my father eats raisins, so if I get any for Hallowe'en I can just give them to him. If people choose to give out raisins, they can at least give out the Sun-Maid ones. The only thing worse than receiving a box of raisins is receiving a box of cheap raisins. I would rather get those candy kisses in the orange wrappers with the owls on them. And no one likes those. Even unsalted peanuts would be preferred, unless you are allergic to peanuts. Actually, I would rather receive cheap imitation raisins than cheap imitation pop. Imitation pop and imitation raisins both taste awful, but raisins do not crush your chips.

Actually I just remembered that raisin bran is my favourite cereal, so there is another aspect in which one can enjoy raisins. But they have sugar on them. I remember that there was an Encyclopaedia Brown story where that bad kid, Bugs Meaney, said that he was sitting in his back looking at the sky, thinking about why the raisins don't sink to the bottom of the box in raisin bran. The answer to the story was that it was 12:00 so the sun would have been directly overhead, therefore the bad kid could not have been lying on his back staring at the sky as he so claimed. I figured that out, so I didn't care. What I wanted to know was the answer to the raisin question, but it was not in the back of the book. I guess Encyclopaedia Brown wasn't so smart after all.

Raisins: The Saga Continues

2005-01-23T20:46:00.000-05:00

As previously confessed, I enjoy raisins in the form of Glosette Raisins and Raisin Bran. The other day I was at the grocery store, and was looking for a delicious cereal that I could bring home and love. There before me stood Raisin Bran with its smiling little sun mascot in the corner. But if the sun mascot had seen the price taped to the shelf below him he would have been smiling no longer. For a miniature box it was like $5! I began to shake my head in disgust, but upon shaking my head slightly to the left I noticed a box sitting right next door to Raisin Bran. This box, much like the Raisin Bran box, was purple. It also featured a scoop of raisins. There was no smiling sun, but sometimes I hate the sun when it shines in my eye, so I could deal with this. The box also featured the phrase “raisin bran,” but instead of being preluded by the word “Kellogg’s,” this was called “Extra Raisin raisin bran.” There were many similarities, but there was also one important difference. This box only cost $2.99! I figured that if that cheap brand was significantly inferior to the quality brand they would be kind enough not to trick me by painting the box purple, photographing a scoop, and using similar phrasing. I put my trust in President’s Choice – after all, he IS the president and I should blindly follow – and brought the box of evil to the counter.

The box sat with its cereal friends on my shelf for a few days. Then, one day, I decided I needed a break from the Cheerios so I opened the Pandora’s Choice box. As I dumped the breakfast meal into my bowl I noted a problem. The ratio of raisins to bran was opposite to what it should be! One would think that the ideal raisin/bran ration would be one raisin to, say, eight bran. This was a two raisin to one bran ratio! Kellogg’s Raisin Bran’s entire image and sales pitch is based on the raisin/bran ratio, so it must be an important factor to most people. Though I do have somewhat of a problem with the “two scoops of raisins” catch phrase, because they don’t tell us how big the scoops are, so the information is somewhat meaningless. Also, there are different sized boxes of raisin bran, so that means they either use different sized scoops, bigger boxes have fewer raisins than smaller boxes, or they use more than two scoops for the bigger boxes, which would mean they are lying. Actually, it is probably all regulated by a machine, or mixed in a big tub ahead of time, so they probably don’t even use scoops. But the point is that they are competent and President’s Choice is not, and really one would presume that the cheap brand would be skimpy on the raisins because they weigh more than the bran and are thus probably more expensive. Anyway, so there before me sat a bowl of raisins with some random flakes. It looked like a bowl of dead flies with dandruff. I poured on the milk and began my feast. Except every spoonful I took had six raisins and one piece of cereal! And I really don’t like raisins – I only like them in Raisin Bran because they add a flavour to the bran. I wouldn’t pour some raisins into a bowl of milk and chomp in! And the bran has little flavour, so one flake makes no difference whatsoever! I ate about six bites and had no bran left. I dumped the remaining 42 raisins into the garbage. So I was still hungry. I decided to try again, so I began to pour. Once again, only raisins leapt out. Curious, I pulled the plastic bag out of the box. To my surprise and disgust, the top half of the bag was 90% raisins. But the bottom half of the bag had no raisins whatsoever! Just bran! There had clearly been no mixing involved at the factory. They dumped in the bran, and then dumped in the raisins without any sort of recipe, like the lazy people at Tim Hortons who force you to drink a shot of pure sugar at the bottom of your cup of tea! If the bran was on top, I might not blame the factory. I might just think that during the box’s journey to the store there was some shifting and the heavy ingredients plinko-ed to the bottom (although it would be an unprecedented case of shifting in the cereal world). Anyway, so this problem had to be fixed. I had to stick my arm into the bag and hand mix. And the lovely pouring spout that I had delicately ripped did not allow enough freedom for my arm, so I had to rip the top of the bag almost all the way open, which means next time the raisin bran is going to blast into my bowl overflowing onto the counter. After my mixing was through, I tried to place the bag back into the box, but instead of being a sleek rectangular shape, the cereal had all lumped to the bottom creating dimensions too wide for the box. So I had to tilt the bag and level the cereal out, slowly gliding it back into the box. I poured the better-but-still-too-raisiny-ratioed cereal into the bowl. I thought this would be it, and I would now be able to enjoy my delicacy. If this had been a poorly mixed and ratio-ed box of high quality cereal, enjoyment may have ensued, but now that I was no longer focused on the ratio it became clearer to me that the inferiorly mixed cereal was made up of inferior parts. Bran flakes suck, but these were the blandest bran flakes I’ve ever had. And despite the fact that the box was newly borne from the shelf, the flakes tasted staler than the Shreddies that have been in my grandparents’ cupboard since 1991. But this unpleasant taste was overshadowed by the army of raisins. I like to believe all raisins are inferior, but these were the most inferior raisins I have ever met. They tasted fake, like they were just lumps of sugar ground into a gel. They also clung together, so I would dip the spoon into the depths of the bowl and fish out a horrible raisin creature the size of ten raisins, but mashed into one horrid growth. I would then have to do a dash to the garbage can balancing the raisin ball on my spoon like in the egg race you play during frosh week. And some of the raisins were independently misshapen and unpleasantly coloured. It looked like a bunch of sick potato bugs had drowned in a cat dish of milk and become bloated over the weekend. And it appears the people at President’s Choice are aware of their raisins’ inferior state, because they have blasted the raisins with pounds of granulated sugar. But the sugar just soaks off in the milk so the milk just tastes sour and the raisin tastes as repulsive as it truly is. I was running out of time, so I just dumped the rest in the garbage. I don’t know what to do with the rest of the box. I don’t think I can eat it, I wouldn’t offer it to anyone I like, and I rummaged my arm though it so I wouldn’t even offer it to a homeless person who was eating sandwich remnants from a trash can. I would take it to the park and feed the pigeons, but I don’t think feeding birds raisins would be a pleasant idea. I don’t want to throw it in the garbage because I only ate one bowl and there might be someone out there who could really use it. Perhaps I’ll invent some sort of craft that requires gluing raisins to construction paper. Maybe there’s a theatre group who needs cereal as a prop. Or I could do a science experiment. In grade 11 my science teacher made us do an experiment with Cheerios. We had to make them swing on a rope by using static electricity. I thought it would be really funny if I ate my Cheerio off the string. It was pretty clever, until my teacher informed us he had used the same Cheerios throughout his entire teaching career. He taught my Mom. I felt sick later that day, but it might have just been the power of suggestion. I wasn’t very good at science.

You ain't cool unless you pee your pants.

2005-01-22T01:39:00.000-05:00

I may not be down with the nine-year-old kids anymore, but I ain’t gonna deny that bedwetting is a problem. The commercials tell me it’s a problem and frankly I don’t want to research that topic so I’m just going to blindly believe the data. I feel bad for these kids and wish them a comfortable and convenient solution. However, this solution should not come at a greater cost. Over the last few years there have been a couple of commercials on TV with semi-repulsive children muttering through lost teeth that they wet the bed and they are embarrassed but now that they use new Good-Nites diapers they are all popular and cool kings of the castle. I am sure these diapers would help the average child feel better about himself, but what about the child IN the commercial? He probably has never wet the bed in his life. His parents just decided that instead of having his teeth knocked out in hockey like a normal child, he should become and actor and have his teeth knocked out at recess by the classmates who tease him for peeing his pants. The child is too young to know what he is reading and can’t object because his fancy parents in their fur coats and sunglasses can make him do whatever they want. But everyday that child must go to school with a bunch of normal kids who refer to him as “the dirty diaper” behind his back. Some people would argue that these other kids are being unrightfully cruel, but I think any nine-year-old in a diaper ad deserves to get his ass kicked. At least he has padding to protect him from bruising. Plus, this is apparently the entire reasoning BEHIND the diaper to begin with. The child feels insecure but with the diaper no one will know he wets the bed. But the star of the commercial has just announced to the entire WORLD that he wets the bed, so pain has been forced upon HIM by the very people who CLAIM they are trying to help children avoid pain! How dare the company that produces these things force children to testify for their products! Perhaps they feel having kids discuss their problems is the most effective advertising campaign. But do the allegedly good people at the diaper factory not think that sparing the life-long torture of a child would be fair trade for a slightly smaller profit? Could they not have just hired an ADULT (with no children in real life) to explain the product? Or what about a cartoon? If they can use cartoon bears to sell toilet paper I’m sure they could use a cartoon dolphin or something to sell a diaper. The diaper company is DESTROYING a child’s life just so they can sell more diapers. They are PROFITING from a child’s pain! And so are the parents. If the parents cared about their child at all they would not prostitute him to the world of diaper marketing. That’s really something to brag about at the next Christmas party: “Oh, well the child discussing his insecurities in the diaper ad is my son. No, he hasn’t done any commercials since because he had his face punched in at school and has to have total reconstructive surgery.” If the child did not wet his bed before he does now because he has nightmares of being beaten up at school every day. And if the child ever DOES see any of the blood money he made from the commercial – which I doubt – he won’t even get to enjoy it because it will go straight to paying his psychiatrist bills. These parents and the people at the Good-Nites company have basically murdered a child. They are EVIL. If my child wets the bed, and by that time Good-Nites have a complete monopoly over the nine-year-old diaper market, I will dedicate my life to hand-making diapers for my child, even if I have to make them out of my fine linen curtains and antique wedding gown. I would rather my child have restless sleep on crunchy plastic sheets than contribute to another child’s demise. Especially when the people who market the diapers are disguising this demise as care and concern for the child’s mental health. Like the diapers, I think these people are full of shit.

It's NOT a small world after all.

2005-01-19T23:37:00.000-05:00

Remember that annoying "it's a small world after all" song? Well, that song should be sued for libel because the world is not small whatsoever. It is a very big place with lots of empty space just sitting there. Have you ever driven through the prairies? There is nothing there except some random weeds and a couple of dead shacks. There is room for everyone to enjoy acres and acres of glorious loneliness. Why then - WHY - do some people think that there is no room left and that if they do not cling to the person closest to them they will fall off the world's surface?

The elevator is bad enough as it is. It is this claustrophobic dangling box that jets you around through a brick mountain. You enter this big jaw mouth and it whips you into the air and then you jump onto a ledge and it whips the rest of the people away. You want to be on the elevator for as short a time as possible, as all that's inside is a flickering light, some brown chipped walls, and a couple of ads for the United Way. And of course it is slow so by the time the elevator comes to get you there is a little crowd formed at the entrance waiting to get on the ride. So you spludge on, all tangled amidst some random lady’s scarf with a random man’s dog snorting on your foot. You beach your arm across some child’s face and lunge at the button that the big bubble-blowing creature in front of the button panel was not kind enough to press for you. You are crammed in the crunchy little corner beside some lankster man in a smoked jacket. You are going to floor twenty, the lankster is going to floor 19, the bubble-blower is going to floor 10, the child is going to floor 8, the man and dog are going to floor 7, and the scarfed woman who has nothing physically wrong with her is going to floor 2. So you wait hunched in the corner as the elevator halts and spews people onto their floors. Finally the elevator reaches floor 10 and the bubble blower bursts off, but the lanky man is still to your right. His smoky jacket sleeve is infesting your tidy sleeve. The elevator is now 80% empty, but does the lankster move? No, he does not. Even though he could have an entire HALF of the elevator to himself, he remains LATCHED to your precious inch of space. You do not enjoy being crammed in the corner, but you cannot escape. Your only route would be to step forward and around the lankster and migrate to the opposite side of the cube. But then you feel like that would be rude as that would put you right by the door and he is getting off first. So you remain snugged against this crummy man, who does not even understand what he is doing because he is daintily watching the numbers on the wall trade glowing status. So you ride up a big 9 floors crammed in the corner while all this precious space is being completely wasted! Why would you not take advantage of the space! Just like sometimes you are in class, and there are 86 extra seats. You are sitting at the end of some random row with 52 empty seats directly around you. Your lovely friend always sits beside you and you are awaiting her arrival, but suddenly this normal looking stranger prances in and waltzes over to your circle of emptiness. He could sit in any of the 52 seats directly surrounding you, but instead he chooses the singular chair directly beside you. So now everyone in the class thinks you are now best friends with this impostor, and when your friend enters she must sit in another lonesome seat so it looks like you had a fight. Perhaps a fight over the newfound stranger? So now you can’t pass notes in class and at halftime must escape the random closeness.

There are also the thrift store peekers. These peekers are delusional and think that you are a thrift store connoisseur who is skilfully finding all the great fashionable deals before they do. So as you joyfully roam, they lurk 3 inches behind you pretending to look at a knitted shawl. But you can feel their eyes twitching to focus on what size the cardigan you are glancing at is. Every time you put something back on the rack they quickly snatch it to examine it themselves. Soon you begin picking up hideous shoulder-padded blazers with stains and carrying them around the store with you. The peeker will float behind you all the way to the dressing room. You don’t try the blazers on, but instead just sit in the dressing room for 26 minutes working on the crochet blanket for your niece. Then you step out and place the tattered blazers on the unwanted rack. The peeker will snatch them up like Gollum and roll to the checkout. Finally you have had your revenge. But beware also for the Christmas tree peeker and the used CD store peeker. A good idea is to bring a sharp weapon with you while you shop. You could, perhaps, create a belt that has knives sticking out of it. That way, no one could get within 10 inches of you and many people would stay away all together. However, this could be dangerous while shopping for clothing or a child to adopt. A safer method may be simply to soak yourself in an unpleasant odour that will make people gag when they whiff you. However, many peekers are the types who stink themselves. I guess the best way would be to bring in a fake gun and a ski mask and yell at everyone to get on the floor. After you threaten to kill them if they move, you are free to roam the store as you please. You could probably get away without paying for your purchases, but I would argue that would be going too far.

"Baby"

2005-01-16T01:16:00.000-05:00

Why do so many songs have the word "baby" in them? How often do you actually use the word "baby" in real life, unless you are talking about an actual baby? Some people call their girlfriends "baby," but they are usually yucky men who have six girlfriends and eight diseases. If someone called me "baby" I would punch him. Well, I would at least look at him in disgust. And usually in songs the word "baby" is not being used to describe a specific person. The word usually just fills awkward space at the end of an ineloquent sentence. No one in real life just randomly says, "I was playing my guitar, baby," so why is it suddenly acceptable just because someone sings it? The "I really love you, baby" I might find acceptable because it is possible that the singer wrote the song while his girlfriend was there. Or perhaps he just hasn't found a name for his actual baby yet. But the random sentences should be left alone. Even worse than the single "baby" is the multiple "baby" or the "baby-yeah" combo. The multiple "baby" usually consists of just two "baby”s in a row, but sometimes can be repeated up to five times, especially if the singer is a male in his early twenties who can't play an instrument or do up all the buttons on his shirt. The "baby-yeah" combo is even more predominant, and is used by both real bands and those who dance around with chairs. The "yeah" is unnecessary because we know you agree with what you said, otherwise you wouldn't have said it. And the combination of useless words brings attention to the lack of creativity. I feel very sorry for the first person who ever used the word "baby" in a song, because everyone is plagiarizing and he/she is receiving no credit. No Grammys should be given to artists whose albums contain the word "baby." A good artist would come up with his own word. Why not fill up that awkward space with the word "pencil" or "Marvin" or "chinstrap." Any of these words would make just as much sense as having "baby" in there. If you sang "I walked down the road, pencil" people would probably just assume it meant something really deep. They would then talk about your band to all their friends because understanding your indie weirdness would make them seem underground and cool. Soon all the grade twelves who want to rebel would be writing their own songs that included the filler word, "pencil." You could create a musical revolution. Children worldwide would idolize you. Your uncle at the pencil factory would never have seen better sales. Bill Gates' shares would go down. You might score a date with Courtney Love. You could smash your guitar every night and could just buy a new one the next day. You could smash anything you wanted and would never go to jail. But I think a better idea than smashing the guitar would be to simply break pencils in half on stage. That would be just as violent but more fitting and original. Besides, that's the only reason people liked your band to begin with. And that's another reason the word "pencil" is so much better than "baby." You could never get away with breaking a baby in half on stage. That would mean you weren't the real mother, and the other lady would get the baby.

English

2005-01-11T08:47:00.000-05:00

They always tell you you should learn proper English because it will help you get a better paying job. But I think they should concentrate more on the fact that bad English can send you to jail for a crime you didn't commit. Imagine how many people are currently in jail becasue they accidentally confessed to a murder by saying, "I didn't do nothing! I didn't kill nobody!"

Newspapers should be banned.

2005-01-09T22:59:00.000-05:00

The high-brow members of society often preach to you that reading the newspaper daily is vital in today’s complex world. These fancy people often brag about how many various newspapers they read. For example, if you read the National Post, then the Globe and Mail, then the Toronto Star, you are more valuable to society than someone who reads just the Globe and Mail and the New York Times. Reading the Toronto Sun, however, actually puts you in the negative, so if you read the National Post and the Toronto Sun that is equal to reading nothing at all. These literates are too high-class to watch the news on television, or gaze at a computer screen. And while I’m sure they listen to CBC Radio One in their automobiles, it is difficult to hear over the clinking of wine glasses in the backseat.

But my mind is puzzled as to why newspaper reading is thought such a classy act, as it seems to be the scruffiest method of the bunch. I do not understand why any smart person would want to read the paper simply because of the newsprint issue. After simply turning one page of the daily news your hands are etched in black ink and it looks like you’ve been working in the mines. So after reading the newspaper you must find a suitable place to wash your hands. Sometimes this is not possible and you have to spit on your hands and rub them on your trousers. And if you were extremely classy you might be wearing white satin gloves. Granted, you would probably have enough money to buy a new pair daily, but if the glove factory went on strike that week you would be in big trouble.

Many people also read the paper as they eat their toast in the morning. This is a bad idea because the ink could easily be ingested due to cross-contamination. Also, if there was jam on the toast and you were still slightly tired, the bread could flip onto the newspaper ruining the Sears ad. This would be a waste of bread and could prevent you from getting a great deal on a new stereo.

There are some days when perhaps you were playing baseball the night before and were bitten on the face by a mosquito. If this wasn’t humiliating enough, you might accidentally scratch your face while reading the newspaper and show up to work with an unattractive smudge on your chin. Even worse, while waiting for a job interview the mischievous secretary might offer you the paper to read while you wait. It would be rude to decline, and you want to look smart, so you grab the pile of dirt. When your potential boss comes out, he shakes your hand, which is now grimy and rough. This is a bad first impression, and now his hand is also dirty and he will lose the Mckinvin deal. Silly Putty went out of style in 1963 because nobody liked these ink transfer games, and the newspaper factories should reconsider the durability of their ink.

They should also reconsider the newspaper size. Why does the newspaper have to be ten feet tall and eight feet wide? Someone with normal-sized arms could not possibly expand the entire paper. The dwarf community should definitely file a lawsuit. Those who can expand their arms to the full width of the newspaper are still restricted as there are no spaces in society a newspaper can fit. An expanded newspaper cannot fit into a phone booth or a bathroom stall or a booth at a restaurant or on the ferris wheel or in a power wheels jeep. It requires its own elevator car and takes up three seats on the subway. Every year millions of subway riders are injured when an untrained fool opens the paper only to punch an unsuspecting grandpa in the temple. Many subway riders try to do the fold over, which involves folding the even-number page backward behind the odd-number page so the width is halved. This is usually effective, but some days there is that random page in the middle that is all by its lonesome that you can not do the backward fold with, so you try and grip the ridges together as you do the flip, but then all the pages shift creating a big ruffled crumpling beast.

One who is conscious of the wonton size of the paper will do the clever businessman fold and won’t unfold it until he is in the safety of his office. This fold is accomplished by dividing the paper into thirds and tucking the flipbook edge into the spine edge slot. It is stable, compact, and effective if someone tells you they were fired and you need to hit their arm with something and leap back while exclaiming. But even though this fold is effective for those with briefcases or large arms the paper can be tucked under, it still does not fit in the everyday purse. You have to ram it in and it still peeks out, creating easy access for the pickpockets that plague our city streets. And if it begins to rain the purse carrier’s newspaper is doomed because of the cheap paper and ink. The purse-carrier could carry an emergency shopping bag with her at all times just in case, but this would be unattractive and would counter the beauty of the purse. You might as well just buy a backpack, but frankly you would rather have the purse than have to lug around a big pouch all day so the newspaper loses this contest.

But sometimes you cannot even do the special fold because on the weekend they try to please you by adding 26 extra sections of interest only to rich white people in their 40s who wear turtlenecks and a gold watch. The paper is too thick for you to fold and even a trendy knapsack might not do the trick. You would be better off just throwing these sections out right away, but you feel bad because you just paid $1.25 and the teenagers walking towards you will scowl if you don’t recycle. So you have to lug the big file home. The rich people who buy the paper feel like they will be smarter if they read the whole thing, so they sit there for 28 hours straight reading the car section, the fashion section, the food section, the condo section, the travel section, the life section, the shopping section, the economy section, the book section, the obituary section, the golf section, the technology section, and the crossword section. They read the wedding section even though they're married, the classified section even though they're employed, and the international section even though they’re racist. And by the time they’re done reading yesterday’s news it’s almost tomorrow so they are now two days behind in what is happening in the world. So by the time they get around to the next day’s newspaper, which is actually the previous day’s news, everything they just read will be out of date so they might as well have just waited for the next day’s paper to begin with.

But they insist that, even though at they end of every day they throw their precious papers with their fancy alliterated headlines into the recycling box only to be snatched away by the man in the dump truck, they are better and smarter people for reading the paper and that people such as myself are society’s undesirable rabble. And while I think newspapers should be banned, I must admit they have some uses. I have killed many a fly with newspapers. When I start fires in my fireplace I get exceptional joy from starting the fire with copies of Kingston This Week. Many homeless people would not have blankets without old newspapers roaming the streets. At Guide camp we had to make sit-upons by shoving some papers in a bag. I hated the sit-upon but it was better than sitting in the dirt. In high school we built our Santa Claus parade float out of papier-maché and without the newspaper our float would have just been some homemade glue plastered on a reindeer skeleton. And once the Polka-Dot Door taught us how to make a clever palm tree by rolling newspapers up and then shredding some leaves. In grade two my friend Rosalyn and I made one for a play about a cat and a purple banana tree. We thought our script was pretty clever at the time, but all I can remember is that I was the cat and I was solving some mystery and she was the bad person who was in charge of the evil tree. If I could rewrite it now I’d probably change a lot of things. But we were forced to write it then because we were the “enriched” students and this was our special time out of class. Looking back, I think the public school system failed me. Or “enriched” was code for something else.

Juice Boxes are evil.

2005-01-08T23:15:00.000-05:00

Juice boxes are supposed to be designed for children. They come in fun little packages with tea-sipping mice and flashing lights so kids will think drinking their grape punch from concentrate is a joy instead of desiring a refreshing soda. But whoever designed the drink box should have a mental assessment done. The person who designed the drink box straw should go to jail.

The average standard drink box comes in a pack of three. They are bound together like a little family of fun in a sharp piece of plastic. The plastic is difficult to remove. Sometimes you have to use a knife to get it off, or a pair of scissors. Sometimes the plastic cuts your finger. Children should not be allowed to use sharp objects, especially not sharp objects that are being used to cut other sharp objects. And might I add that this extra plastic seems rather wasteful. Juice boxes should be liberated and sold individually. Not only would this delete the problem of the extra plastic, but it would let a child be more adventurous. Instead of drinking fruit punch three days in a row, he could have fruit punch, orange drink AND raspberry punch! So if one day Timmy was not in the mood for orange drink (maybe he had an orange for breakfast) he could just switch and take another option. Not to mention people who have four kids. If someone had three kids life would be easy because there are three juice boxes. With four kids someone gets dehydrated. Or you have to do the mathematical equation that you have to do when buying the hotdog buns and hotdogs, which all leads back to a conspiracy between the meat and bread industries. Well it appears the juice industry has caught on to the classic hotdog scheme! With four kids you have to buy more than one package of juice boxes. If you buy two then you have 2 extra. You have to buy FOUR packages of juice boxes in order for each child to get an even number! You know how children fight if everything isn’t equal! You could always buy two packages and just throw the extra two juice boxes away to avoid a conflict. It would be a waste of money, but it would still be cheaper than buying four packages of juice boxes.

But back to the straw issue. The straw causes a majority of juice box problems. On the average juice box, there is a homely little straw in a slice of plastic glued to the exterior in a diagonal fashion. Not only is this impractical because it blocks the picture of fruit on the cover that someone at the factory painstakingly designed, but the glue is flimsy and sometimes it detaches. If you liked drinking soda through a straw but there were no straws available you could get by. You could just drink from the can like a regular civilian. But with a juice box there is no option. Sometimes a straw falls off of a juice box and is lost on the way to school. At lunch hour, Timmy eats his crackers and just at his pivotal moment of thirst discovers that he has no straw! A good mother might have given Timmy some extra straws to keep in his desk in case he dropped one on the floor, but most mothers don’t consider the straw factor because juice boxes were not in fashion when they were children. Plus, they don’t sell juice box straws individually, so if one straw is lost it causes a vicious cycle of straw-borrowing, and there will always be a box without a straw sitting in the fridge until one day the father decides to pour it into a glass. But he could have bought a larger container of juice if he had wanted – he was just trying to make Timmy feel better.

Timmy has no straw and no one will share because it would be unhealthy and counter-effective. Sometimes people try poking the metal hole out with a pencil, but it is very difficult to drink from the small hole. There is a limited amount of juice that can flow through the hole, and you have to tilt your head all the way back for it to work. Some people try expanding the hole with their pencil, but in doing so, their pencil lead touches the juice inside and they don’t want to drink it anymore.

There is always the little flap at the front that you can fold up and cut along the dotted like. The problem is a child who can’t read might not understand these instructions. And the Crayola scissors can only cut through construction paper, and even then they leave a rough and unprofessional edge. Besides, the spout would be too large for a child’s mouth and he would just spill the juice on his Ninja Turtles shirt and perhaps develop an aversion to juice.

There is also the danger of a cracked straw. This can be dangerous in different ways, as there are a variety of cracks. There is the side crack. This is the least dangerous because it simply makes the drinking process more difficult. Air comes in through the crack so the child must suck extra hard to attain juice. This could cause an asthma attack if the chid in question happened to have asthma. The pointy-end crack is also not dangerous, but frustrating. It makes the bottom scraps of juice unattainable as there is no proper suction due to the crack. This is a waste of precious and delicious McCain beverage. The dangerous crack is the even-end crack. A smart child will carefully examine the straw before use, but many children are preoccupied with trying to act cool despite their plastic Barbie lunchbox when all the other grade fours have trendy linen Velcro sacks. This straw can act like a crab claw and pinch the child’s tongue, causing a cut and perhaps some tears. This will make the child look like an even bigger loser.

The straw wrapper is almost as bad. The static electricity makes it cling to the child’s hand because she has been sitting on those orange plastic chairs all day. When she tries to throw it in the garbage, chances are she will miss. This is due to the static as well as the fact that the plastic is light-weight and flutters easily. The odds of the child picking up the wrapper are slim because most children are lazy. The janitor might miss it as it blends in with the floor and there the litter will sit for days! In a way this is better than the aluminium foil dot on the top of the juice box. Sometimes the foil is punctured out completely and falls into the juice. Who knows what health problem the juice box generation will encounter in the future.

Another problem with juice boxes is the fact that they come in a box. The corners are sharp and pointy and smuggle juice in the bottom that the straw cannot reach. This causes the child to create that horrid echoing slurp sound in the middle of class. Because juice boxes are not see-through the child can never accurately locate the remaining juice, elongating the slurping mode. Also, if one steps on the juice box it will explode. Sometimes a child might accidentally step on a backpack because there aren’t enough hooks in the winter. If the backpack was one of those cheap canvas ones the juice box would easily explode and destroy the child’s math book. Plus the child would be thirsty at lunch and have only his tears as a reminder of the delicate feel of liquid.

There have been a couple of attempts at solving the juice box problems during the past. There are reusable plastic containers with screw-on lids. These containers are cost-effective and environmentally friendly in the long-run, but they are dumb because they leak. The lid untightens slightly and Timmy’s gym clothes are stained red. These containers are also often difficult to drink from as they have flip-up spouts reminiscent of toddler drinking cups. Plus, after you are done the drink you have to carry the Tupperware home again, and if you did a craft that day you might not have room in your bag. Also, that means your parents have to wash the container every day, and it is difficult to wash because there is a narrow opening and you can’t get your hand inside to scrub. There was also the invention of the juice bag. They might as well have called it a barf bag because that’s what the idea makes me want to do. It does nothing to solve the straw issue – in fact; a bag of juice is more difficult to handle without a straw. It is just as fragile, and there is the added complexity of not being able to place the bag of juice on your desk. You either have to drink it all in one go, or be able to eat with one hand. If you were eating crackers for lunch and you had to put peanut butter on them that would be too difficult to do.

And another note of frustration: are juice boxes recyclable? Most say yes but some say no. It is never on the picture that people send to your house when they have a new recycling program. And sometimes at school we would put them in the yellow recycling bins but the janitors would pull them out and leave them there after taking everything else!

I think the best juice boxes are the square ones that are white and have the angled top – like a miniature milk carton. They have a higher quantity of juice, the juice is usually of a better quality, and they often attach convenient bendy straws instead of the cheap straight ones. But there was this one time in grade five that I brought one of those to school. I think it was called Fresh and Tasty and it was apple flavour. I was really thirsty that day but when I took a sip of my juice it tasted sour. Not fresh, and very tasty but not in a good way. I went to the back sink to dump the juice out. I didn’t just want to throw it in the garbage because the juice would have slowly leaked and then if someone threw out a pencil it might stab a hole in the garbage bag and the janitor would have to clean up the mess. As per the limited juice flow through the aluminium hole, I opened the spout to dispose of the liquid. The juice flowed out and was followed by a large chunk of rotten brown apple glob. I never drank Fresh and Tasty juice again. It was a bad lunch because I felt sick and was really thirsty. I would have just gone out into the hall and had a drink from the water fountain, but I had Mrs. McMahon that year.

Ice-water

2005-01-07T19:42:00.000-05:00

I used to have this boyfriend who would always order my drinks for me when we went out to restaurants. My beverage of choice is water, as I dislike the idea of paying $2.65 for a glass of Coke that came from the tap, and I find water pleasant and refreshing. However, even though when the male asked me what I wanted to drink I responded, “water,” when the waitress came the beast would always say, “Could we just get two ice-waters?” Okay. I requested WATER – not ICE-WATER, so what makes you THINK you can just go ahead and add the prefix “ICE” onto my beverage choice without my permission? If I wanted ice-water I would have ASKED for ice-water. But I asked for WATER.

First of all, what the hell is ice-water? Would ice-water not just be ICE? When water freezes it becomes ICE so there cannot really be an ice/water hybrid. What the fool meant was water containing ice. Now, I have a problem with this. I do not LIKE ice in my water. Okay, two cubes will not offend me, and usually when you order just plain water at a restaurant they automatically insert the ice. This is fine. HOWEVER, when you specifically REQUEST “ICE-water” there is a better chance that the server will put EXTRA ice into your water! So then you hear your beverage jingling towards you from across the restaurant. It arrives and you are thirsting to death and you take one little sip and suddenly you are doing the big straw blast noise because there is no liquid left – ONLY ICE. So then you have to stop eating until the waitress floats by and you must constantly harass her for refills throughout the night so she hates you and spits in your cake.

If the waitress catches on quick enough, she simply avoids walking by your table so she won’t have to grab the big pitcher again. In that case you must sit and WAIT for the damn ice to melt. You do the straw mix, thinking the friction will help heat the ice. You do the straw jab, thinking the straw will slowly flake the ice apart into smaller more quickly-melting pieces. You do the glass strangle, thinking the heat from your hands on the glass will heat the ice inside. Fifty-two minutes later you see a little drop of meltation form at the bottom and you desperately try and suck the drip through your straw to wash down the chicken wing. But the one drop is not enough to do a full quench. When you start to get really desperate you attempt the straw chopstick move. This is easiest when the pieces of ice are the ones with the indentation in the middle and you have two straws. With one straw and normal ice, you must do the glass tilt and try and glide one singular piece of ice into your mouth. But that is never successful, and all the ice just shoots down and rams you in the teeth. Then a piece falls on the floor creating a health and safety hazard. Besides, nobody likes an ice-cruncher.

But the space displacement is not the only problem the ice causes. There is also the temperature problem. I prefer water that is between room temperature and cool. When the ice is added to too great a degree the water gets so cold that the taste is destroyed. It stabs you in the throat and contracts your voice so it is all tattered and it does not make for pleasant dinner conversation. You are supposed to drink warm water before you do a speech, so why drink a big barrel of ice when you are expected to discuss your day’s misfortunes?

And on top of all the hatred for the ice-water itself is the hatred of the beast that ordered it. First of all, am I incapable of ordering my own beverage? Am I such an incompetent little child that I cannot look a woman in the eye and respond with a cowardly little “water?” Now, some girls might flutter their eyes and think this is all fancy like in the twenties when men tipped their hats, but the ordering of the beverage does not impress me at all. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate acts of chivalry – I do. I WELCOME chivalry. But this was not done out of chivalry. This was done out of evil so the big beast of a boyfriend could feel superior. And every time he asked for ice-water I would remind him that I do not LIKE ice-water, and did not REQUEST ice-water and that if he insists on ordering my beverages he should learn that I just like WATER. He would say there is no difference. HE IS WRONG!!! Yes, a glass of water is, scientifically speaking, the same as a glass of ice-water, except you can DRINK an entire glass of water whereas the ice-water has random chunks of hardness floating around in it! And even though I reminded him every time, the next time he would just ask for ice-water again! Does he not listen? Does he not care? Clearly not! If you run a fast-food establishment or a movie theatre I suggest you do not hire this man as he will clearly end up being one of those jerks that puts 10 gallons of ice in the little paper cup and then adds a drizzle of Pepsi so halfway through the movie you choke to death. Does he think he’s saving money? I’ll have him know fountain drinks are extremely cheap. And water costs the same as ice. If anything, the ice probably costs MORE because it causes wear and tear on the ice machine. LESS ice = more satisfied customers = more profits in the long run. I hope he opens a restaurant and it goes out of business.

Blogs repulse me.

2005-01-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

Despite my pure and utter hatred for everything that is the Blog, I have decided to create one.

I hate the blog for various reasons. Primarily, it is because of the word “blog” itself. Those who know me know I hate words that have more than one “b” or a “b” and “g” mixture. And of all possible “b” and “g” mixture words, the word blog is as repulsive as it gets. I mean, I hate the words “boogie” and “gob” and “boggle,” but BLOG gets the gold medallion. It sounds like a nerd barfing into a swamp. I want to throw up when I say it. Actually, I avoid saying it at all costs. When people drop the word in conversation I shudder and my eye twitches. Could they not have created a more flattering and less nerdster word? And the entire CONCEPT of the blog repulses me. “Oh, please read my diary!” Like, how conceited can you get? You actually think that people should take time out of their precious LIVES to read about how you visited your Aunt Sally and fell in a puddle so Uncle Fredrick brought you a towel. NOBODY cares about your life! Nobody – not even your best friends – want to read about your daily misfortunes and trips to the library. Please AVOID having a life of your own so you can SIT at the computer revelling in how wonderful MY life is. With everyone reading everyone else’s blog it’s a wonder there are any blogs at all! It is worse than reality television. At least when you’re watching TV you can leave the room to get some popcorn and there is movement on the screen to stimulate your eye muscle. And even though reality television is pure and utter garbage, at least a Fox executive thought it was worth paying a camera crew to shoot it. People write blogs because they do not have their own reality TV shows and they do not have their own reality TV shows BECAUSE THEIR LIVES ARE TOO DULL! Nobody would WATCH their reality TV shows. Which means that the only people who READ the blogs are either a) your friends, who are only doing it to be nice and just skim the paragraphs begrudgingly, or b) people who REALLY have no life and have so little to live for that they actually must live vicariously through everyday random people who clearly also have no life otherwise they would not be strapped to the computer writing some fancy old blog!

So, you ask, why, with all this hatred for said blog, have you decided to create one? Well . . . ‘twas a cold autumn night and we had ventured forth to a scruff bar to celebrate my friend’s birth. Inside said bar was a book entitled, “Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul.” Above the title it said, “New York Times #1 Best Seller!” Although my teenage years have passed, I thought perhaps this kindly book would bring pleasure to my soul and the souls of those around me, as that is what the title claimed. So I opened the book to a story and, in my best story-telling voice, read to an enraptured crowd of my poor, poor friends. The story was about some girl who went to a party and then threw an egg at someone’s house because her boyfriend cheated on her and then her mom made her apologize but then her mom wasn’t mad and then they laughed. When the story ended my soul died. There was no inspiration. The story was not enlightening or uplifting or encouraging or funny or sad or even well-written. It was pure and utter crap and I felt the urge to smash it, though you can’t smash a book so that plan was foiled. Clearly the only reason this book was a #1 Best Seller was because all the grandmas who still believe in chicken soup as a valid remedy ruined Christmas for their grandchildren by plastering the book in tape and thrusting it under the tree. This blog is my rebellion against Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. In this blog I will not discuss my day-to-day frolics. I will only discuss things I hate that you should hate too. I will attempt to not only provide no inspiration whatsoever, but to prove that the world is a terrible, terrible place and we are all doomed.

And, ironically enough, I had never read the book until that day because that particular BOOK disgusted me. It was all the rage when it hit the bookshelves in 1997, but I was anti-the book because I hate the word “soup.” In fact, if you disclude all words that contain two “b”s or a “b”/“g” combo, “soup” is my least favourite word. I think it stems from grade 2 when my teacher read us this book called “Soup” about some boy whose name was Sam and his mother was Jewish or something and her accent made his name sound like ‘soup’ when she yelled it. I think it was probably banned from the library. Anyway, that teacher was psycho and I hated her. Also when I worked at Swiss Chalet there was this girl I hated and every time we were low on soup she would screech, “THERE’S NO SOOOUUUUUUPP” in this nasally ditz hick voice. And I also had this really bad soup at leadership camp once that had chicken gristle in it. And the thought of cold leftover soup in the fridge with the skin squeaked on, only to be splashed into the toilet and flushed away makes me ill. Plus I think the sound of the “ou” combined with the unimpressive “s”/“p” combo is just generally displeasing. ANYWAY - the IRONY is that my HATRED for the word soup has led me to partake in an activity that contains a word I hate MORE. I feel so powerless.

So – do NOT enjoy this blog. I hope it makes you a more bitter and disillusioned person.