California Dreamin’… of a long hot shower

By Jack Edwards

Even indigenous tribes in the deepest, darkest, most remote tributaries of the Amazon basin have been alerted by the media that California is facing a severe drought. California Governor Jerry Brown is working on a solution. The reaction from citizens in the remaining 49 states has been swift. They keep asking the same question: “California elected Jerry Brown governor again? Who was he running against? Charles Manson?” But I digress. (We love you, Jerry!)

Gov. Brown has signed an executive order. It requires all Californians to limit their future showering to using coconut water. And to prepare for the inevitable day when California depletes its coconut water supply (tomorrow), he has ordered all Californians to report to the Navy Seal Training Base at Coronado, California to learn how to take those three-minute military grade showers, and in addition, to learn how to improvise using non-liquid showering methods, such as sand.

As a general rule, I don’t care about California. None of us do. Frankly, we enjoy watching them suffer because we are envious of their great weather and conveniently located In & Out Burger restaurants. However, I must remind myself of our column’s official motto – “Jocularious.com: A marginally amusing rant providing practical solutions to today’s real and imagined problems.”

All joking aside, Gov. Brown has released a plan, and it’s getting mixed reviews. A recent Los Angeles Times (real) headline read, “Gov. Brown’s drought plan goes easy on agriculture.” The sense I get from my one and only cursory reading of the fine piece of journalism is that many non-farm interests, including golf course owners, aren’t happy. The mere notion that California’s farm industry, which grows half of all fruits and vegetables in the United States, is as important as the golf industry drives golf people bonkers. Where else but on a thick swath of lush green grass will middle-aged California residents get their exercise by driving their carts half sloshed (the golfers not the carts) from their flasks of Wild Turkey, as they blaze their way toward the nineteenth hole?

Farmers, on the other hand, sensitive to the plight of their fellow Californians, are carefully managing their media image. Chris Scheuring, an attorney for the California Farm Bureau Federation, is quoted in the LA Times article. (Note: This is real person, his real title, and a real quote – go ahead and Google it). Apparently attempting to quell panic, he reassured Californians, “Folks are still going to [be able to] brush their teeth.” This is obvious pandering to the entertainment industry. Example:

Jimmy Kimmel to his guest Oprah Winfrey: “Oprah, why are you standing way over there? Come sit next to my desk.”

Oprah: “Uh…. Thanks, Jimmy. I’m good from here.”

To put an end to all this madness, here is my three-point plan to save California:

1. You know that fake submarine ride at Disneyland? The one they call “Submarine Voyage”?  The one everybody’s so sick of? According to Wikipedia, that “lagoon” holds nine million gallons of water. Simple, we kill the ride and confiscate the water. As a bonus, we gain the appreciation of millions of Disneyland visitors.

2. We launch an ad campaign using California’s most popular natural resource: Sexy Hollywood actors. We use them to promote substituting micro-brewed beer for water. This is a double-whammy. One, we save water. Two, we ignite this important emerging industry.

3. According to Slate.com, ten percent of California’s water goes to growing almonds. Because I know you think I’m lying, here is an actual photo of an article headline off my iPhone-

Solution? We stop growing almonds and start growing cashews. If you’re tempted to disagree, go eat a roasted cashew right now. Uh-huh. Yes. They’re that good.

Now that I’ve solved California’s crisis, I’ve got to run. I’m visiting LA next week, and I’ve got to start packing my coconut water.

Finding My Inner Bird Brain

Birdfeeder

By Jack Edwards

You have heard the adage, “Try walking a mile in his shoes.”  Recently, I have tried to use this advice to repair a rift that has developed between me and my local bird community.  I enjoy birds, but I do not claim to be an expert at Ornithology.  You may recall from high school that “Ornithology” is Latin for “the study of ornery things.”  I assume this includes ornery birds.  In short, the birds and I are currently not of a feather.

We used to live in a house with a birdfeeder in the front yard.  This feeder looked like downtown Bombay at rush hour, except for birds.  I kept a book near the window with photographs of every bird known to man, so I could identify them.  Except only three species ever showed up: black-capped chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, and (please excuse my language) bushtits.  Sadly, these three species are the most boring looking birds on the planet.

Once in a blue moon, some exotic, colorful bird showed up.  I logically assumed that my usual boring birds got him all liquored up the night before, and he was still languishing in a drunken bird stupor, unable quite yet to fly home.  When this lucky happenstance occurred, I’d race to identify the visitor.  I would quickly study its coloring and note the shape of its beak.  Then I would hurriedly flip through the pages of my book and quickly narrow it down to about twenty different species – none of which lived on my continent.

I have a friend who is a “birder.”  For the purposes of this story I will refer to him as “Jim,” because his name happens to be Jim.  Jim is not just a birder, he is a proud birder.  You might even describe him as a (no pun intended) mildly cocky birder.  He’s crazy about the birds.  He keeps an Oregon list.  And he keeps a lifetime list.  He even travels to other parts of the world to look at birds and excitedly jot their names down on his list.  (And you thought stamp collecting was exciting.)  Even with the advent of nature programs available on high definition TV viewable from cushy lounge chairs, he still actually goes out “into the field” to look at birds.

But I digress.  Back to my main point, which is my ongoing problem with the bird community.

When I moved to my new house, I brought my experienced birdfeeder.  Only, big problem, the birds are completely ignoring it.  I know they’re around.  I hear them in the bushes, but they are snubbing me and my birdfeeder.  And, yes, I am taking this personally.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions or cast undeserved aspersions on my new bird neighbors, but I did some research on my gigantic mistake of a cell phone – the iPhone 6 plus (if a salesperson even looks like he’s going to suggest you purchase this phone, shove him into the nearest iPad display and run for your life).

I found the following key tips:

  1. Place the feeder in a quiet area. Check – It’s quiet as a monastery’s library.
  2. Place the feeder near shrubs or other shelter. Double check – There are enough bushes to start a commercial nursery.
  3. Place a birdbath nearby. Uh, no – I’m not running a day spa here.

So it turns out I was right all along.  It’s not me.  It is the birds – They’ve copped an attitude.  My battle plan is simple.  I’ll wait.  Sooner or later a lightbulb will go off above one of their little bird brains.  He’ll turn to his bird friends and say, “You know what guys?  We should change our attitude toward the new guy.  He’s obviously trying to meet us half way.  Look, he’s even wearing wingtips.  In fact, we should try walking a mile in his shoes.”

Porta-Potty Warning on the Eagle Creek Trail

By Jack Edwards

They are a wonderful, All-American family, except for one little thing. They might try to kill you. This family, who I will refer to for the purposes of this article as “The Marshall Family,” because their last name happens to be Marshall, strategically avoids giving off the impression that vacationing with them will result in your untimely death.  This impression would be wrong.

Our families recently checked into a resort lodge on a sparkling sunny afternoon and decided to go on a hike. The older Marshall daughter suggested we hike nearby Eagle Creek Trail.  It ended at a waterfall, she said.  That cinched the deal, and we all quickly agreed.  A few wrong turns later we arrived at the trailhead.

The small mountain rising toward the rim in the trailhead’s porta-potty was an ominous sign. In the literary world, this is called foreshadowing. This stinky pile was warning me that we would soon be in deep do-do.

Here is a picture of the trailhead sign:

We live in a world where companies inscribe their coffee cups with bold print warning consumers that the scalding hot coffee they just purchased might be (surprising as this may seem) scalding hot. Given this level of litigious insanity, the average American coffee consumer might expect this trail sign to be equipped with flashing neon lights and an audible warning system. Or at least some effort to alert an unsuspecting family that it had, best case scenario, a 50/50 chance of each and every family member returning alive.

The hike began pleasantly enough. We strolled along next to Eagle Creek, no doubt named because soaring eagles were such a common sight – back in 1852. Certainly, none were on duty this afternoon. The trail was smooth and flat with little elevation gain. I even wondered aloud whether the trail might start climbing. (More foreshadowing.)

Fully trained and certified mountain goats who have successfully completed Navy Seal training would describe the trail ahead as “challenging.”

At one point, the trail narrows to a width that only allows hikers to proceed single file. The good news is that this portion of the trial is bordered by an unprotected shear drop-off plunging hundreds of feet to certain death. (No kidding, people have fallen and died on this portion of the trail. Google it and see if I’m kidding. Hint: I’m not.) The Park Service, sensitive to the danger of visitors slipping and careening into the ravine below, thus creating the obvious problem for Park Service Employees of having to take time away from ignoring the waste build up in the porta-potties to retrieve these bodies, was good enough to install a state-of-the-art safety system. It anchored a cable along the rock face of the opposite side of the trail for hikers to clutch onto in a desperate attempt to survive. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take a picture of this portion of the trail because I was frantically clinging onto this “safety cable” and whimpering like a small child. Here is a much wider portion of the trail:

During our assent of this portion of the trail, a young man actually came bolting down toward us at a full run. On the way back down, I think I caught a glimpse of his t-shirt on the rocks below.

Two miles up (though it seems like only ten) is Punch Bowl Falls. I mistook it for New York’s Grand Central Station. It was so crowded that it was nearly impossible to take a picture that didn’t include other nature enthusiasts. We joined the crowd in procrastinating our return trip along this modern day “trail of tears.”

Moral of the story: If you vacation with the Marshalls, remember one simple safety tip, schedule your life flight helicopter in advance. If not for you, as a polite gesture to your surviving family members. They’ll thank you for it later (in heaven).

iPhone 6 plus: The phone that ate New York

iPhone 6 plus

By Jack Edwards

If you’re looking for a cell phone with all the convenience of carrying a boat anchor in your pocket, I recommend the iPhone 6 plus. Let me recount my cellular journey from the practical to the preposterous.

It was 2007. Phones were getting small, really small. In fact, they were getting so tiny that people with normal sized hands were having difficulty using them. People were hiring chipmunks to dial their phones for them. It was in this era of unobtrusively small phones that Apple first released the iPhone. It was much bigger than the others. Huge in fact. It stuck out like an aircraft carrier tied up at the local marina. “It’s about the size of a candy bar,” we kept hearing people say like a mantra. This sounded reasonable. We liked candy bars. Of course, few of us carried candy bars around in our pockets, but we still liked them. And sadly, we were all too comfortable with them. Sooooo, okay. We’ll end our quest for convenience and start carrying Hersey’s sized phones around.

Thus began the slow creep. We were lobsters in the pot. The water was slowly warming around us. The iPhone 4 was not much bigger. The iPhone 5 bigger still, but not by much. It was, after all, an iPhone 5. The sleekest, coolest phone on the planet. Then came the 6. Hello! The 6 was really stepping out there. The iPhone 6 was noticeably larger than the 5. Sure it was thinner, but this was one large phone. And larger still was The Behemoth – the iPhone 6 plus. I actually laughed out loud when I first saw it.

There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to buy an iPhone 6 plus. None. So I am naturally embarrassed to confess that I bought one. It’s an electronic monstrosity. The technological “Tall man” of the circus freak show. Sticking an iPhone 6 plus into your pocket is like pulling a Hummer in a compact parking space. It cannot be done with any semblance of grace or dignity.

I know a sign of maturity is the ability to step up and take responsibility for one’s actions. Not to shift the blame. So, imagine the guilt I feel blaming others. First is someone I’ll refer to as “Tim” because his name is Tim. Tim showed me his iPhone 6 plus and declared that it was the best thing since the invention of sliced bread. Then there was “Katy.” Katy is like the Mikey kid from that old Life cereal commercial that didn’t like anything. But guess what? Yeah, she was waving her new iPhone 6 plus around like she’d discovered the Sacred Chalice. The salesman at the store didn’t do me any favors either. He told me I could bring it back if I didn’t like it. He failed to mention this would involve a “restocking fee” equivalent to the gross national product of Uruguay.

The end result is that I am now walking around talking into phone roughly the size of a sheet of plywood.

True story: I was using my phone the other day, holding it in one hand, as one might do with, say, a portable cellular phone. And I when I reached across the screen to tap an app in the upper left corner of the screen, I thought I pulled a muscle in my thumb. I’m serious. I actually thought my effort to make that stretch might necessitate physical therapy.

My parting advice is that if you too decide to throw sanity into the abyss and buy an iPhone 6 plus, when the salesperson asks you if you want to purchase “AppleCare,” ask him if it includes medical.

In Pursuit of High Performance

Chair

By Jack Edwards

Guys like fast, exciting things.  Astute advertisers, even non-astute advertisers, in fact, even advertisers with IQs just below that of the average tube of toothpaste know this.  That is why they like to claim, for example, that their product can rocket from zero to 60 miles per hour in under one-tenth of a second.  We love to buy things like this, even if we (those of us not currently in jail) never have the nerve to test whether the claim is true.  We just want to brag to our friends about it.  We love “high performance” products.  We don’t want a car, we want a high performance car.  Even if it’s a minivan, dagnabbit, we want a high performance minivan, despite the fact that we know in our hearts that by the time we pull it out of our garage for the first time, its interior will be soaked with grape juice and coated with discarded fruit roll-ups (never mind any bodily fluids).  Nevertheless, even guys have their limits, and I hit mine last week like a gnat smacking a windshield.

One of my few peculiarities is that although I do not live in Los Angeles, and I have never lived in Los Angeles, and in a good year I might visit Los Angeles once, I subscribe to Los Angeles Magazine.  This allows me to be a “hip” insider when I do venture to the City of Angels.  Anyway, this month, I’m sitting in my reading room (with its distinct porcelain décor) flipping through the pages of this month’s edition, when I see an ad depicting an attractive woman sitting in a chair looking extremely relaxed, in fact, almost comatose.  Above her picture is the following ad copy (This is an EXACT QUOTE, you know I wouldn’t lie to you.  Well, I would, but I’m not lying about this): “Launching [insert company name I don’t want to get sue by], the world’s first performance recliner.”  There you have it folks.  It’s a Performance Recliner.  And, apparently, the World’s First.  So get ready for all the copycats to put their recliners on NASA’s launch pad and shoot their recliners off into the ad world.

Where they found the strength not to call it a High Performance Recliner, I’ll never know.  But I know this – they thought about it.  They sat in their conference room sipping coffee, staring intently at one another, and seriously considered calling it a High Performance Recliner.

Further down in the paragraph, they toss in the word “dynamic,” as if the chair is capable of leaping up and running the 40 yard dash in under 4.5 seconds. Now to be fair, it’s a beautiful chair, and as the woman reclining in it so aptly demonstrates, obviously extremely comfortable.

Unfortunately, the use of the word “performance” sends out a signal.  And that signal is: I can’t afford it.  Not only can I not afford it, the Los Angeles City Code prohibits me from going within two blocks of the store unaccompanied by a wealthy relative.  Short of cashing out my 401K, this performance recliner will never replace my tattered (but extremely loyal) BarcaLounger. All I can do is hope that in next month’s edition of Los Angeles Magazine, some equally savvy manufacturer decides to advertise a performance product that I might be able to afford.  I’m thinking something along the lines of “performance gym socks.”  Now, I’m not saying I could buy more than one pair of performance gym socks, but at least the next time I visit LA, I could feel like I’m in the “mix” with all the other hip big city shoppers casually displaying the decadent lifestyle to which I have become accustom.  At least in regard to my one new pair of socks.

Black Monday

Clock

By Jack Edwards

“Life is hard, and then you die.”  This is today’s inspirational topic.  While I tend to be a cockeyed optimist, there is a certain amount of truth to this worn-out statement.  Life is filled with difficulties – death, unfair taxes, but worst of all, a little something called “Spring Forward.”  This is a hellish government plot to steal an hour of our lives each March.  And this, of course, leads to  “Black Monday.”

Why, we ask, does the government heap this misery on us when we already face so many other hardships?  For example, take “Suggested Posts” on Facebook.  Where is the government to protect us from those?  “Suggested Posts” are like the Facebook version of that irritating neighbor who keeps dropping by uninvited.  (Related side note: This grief does not apply to Jocularious.com.  In fact, now would be a great time to share this post on Facebook.  And by “now,” I’m referring to “right now” as in, “this very moment.”  We thank you for your cooperation.)

I don’t spring well.  Never have.  Back in my high school PE class (which should really be called “PA” for “physical activity” – and very little of that) my less than energetic PE teacher (read that: worked on crossword puzzles on his clipboard while we physically educated ourselves) would have these “units” on various sports.  I don’t recall a unit on gymnastics, but during gymnastics season we’d horse around on the equipment which the gymnastic people so kindly left out in the open so that we could engage in what I must emphatically describe as Completely Unsupervised life threatening activities.  The good news is that no one ever sustained permanent paralysis.  Talk about a lesson.  This whole “pommel horse” thing is about two light years harder than it looks.  It’s like running full speed into the side of a midsized Toyota.  But I digress.  My fascinating original point is that this was when I first realized I didn’t spring well.  I lack a penchant for springing.

On a related topic, not only don’t I spring, I don’t even like to use a ladder.  I have slowly come to agree with my sister, who I will refer to as “Sandie” because her real name is Alicia, but she goes by Sandie.  My sister Alicia who goes by Sandie takes a very vocal position that middle-aged men don’t belong on ladders because they don’t have the same agility they had in their younger years, but they are sadly too stupid to know it.  Having learned this lesson the hard way, I am now one of her “anti middle-aged men on ladders” disciples.  In fact, I’m thinking of picketing Home Depot with a sign that depicts the outline of a potbellied man placing his foot on the first rung of a ladder with one of those circles with a line slashed through it.

As much as I abhor “Spring Forward,” I’m a huge fan of “Fall Back.”  Love, love , LOVE the “Fall Back.”  And, I have never met anyone who feels differently.

So here’s my idea.  We repeal the stupid “Spring Forward – Fall Back” law, and replace it with a new MODIFIED “Fall Back” law.  Every weekend, we would set the clock back one hour.  We’ll head off to work each Monday as refreshed as if we’d spent the weekend at a spa.  Now, I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, ‘Wait, doesn’t that mean during part of the year it would be dark all day?’  Yes.  But hey, most of us are inside all day anyway.

And I have a great plan to promote my idea.  We’ll all pool our money and purchase “Suggested Posts” on Facebook.  People will love them.

Handcrafted Humor

Handcrafted

By Jack Edwards

There is a popular book titled, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. That’s my policy too. I don’t let petty annoyances bother me which might irritate a less erudite man. (As you may recall from Sunday school, the Erudites were a tribe of short, barrel-chested people who were famous for their calm demeanor. For example, they rarely smote anyone with the jawbone of an ass. In fact, they rarely did any smoting at all, even with other donkey appendages.) This is also my mantra. It’s a rule I never violate. Except for today. Today, I am irritated. If, for example, I went to a donkey byproducts shop and tried to buy a jawbone, a responsible proprietor should delay the sale for a three-day cooling off period. Let me explain.

Our society likes to take a word, an otherwise perfectly good word that’s just standing around the dictionary minding its own beeswax not bothering anybody, and then proceed to beat that word to within an inch of its life. It kicks that poor word in the ribs. It leaves that word squirming on the ground in a dark alley to die. This crime is often perpetrated for the most time-honored of reasons: Money.

The most recent unsuspecting victim of this phenomenon is the word “handcrafted.” You can’t turn on your television, drive down the street or walk down the aisle of your grocery store without repeatedly tripping over this abused adjective. Manufactures are now slapping the term “handcrafted” on common everyday products, and then jacking the price up fifty percent.

We now have “handcrafted”: pizza, beer, ice cream, cocktails.  We even have handcrafted soap.  But the one that has me tempted to reach for a jawbone is this: Handcrafted Sandwiches.

Can someone please show me a sandwich slapped together at any time in history, going all the way back to the day the Earl of Sandwich sliced a loaf of bread in half with his sword and then smothered it with a thick layer of Nutella, that wasn’t handcrafted? It’s a sandwich. It’s made by hand. Do you really want to eat a sandwich made by someone’s feet?

“Handcrafted” used to mean something. It denoted using a skill to create a product that could otherwise have been mass produced – think of ornate furniture or a piece of fine clothing.

Today, every guy hocking ice cream at a crowded tourist trap is serving “handcrafted ice cream.” Yeah, I know, ice cream and beer are mass produced – but get this – so is this “handcrafted ice cream.” He didn’t put on his apron and whip up a cone just for you. There’s a tub of it sitting somewhere. He mass produced it. Believe me, he would have mixed up a bigger batch if his meager equipment allowed it.

Well, one might say, “handcrafted” pizzas are uniquely made – one at a time. Really? Have you watched them slap one together? Here’s my rule: If you can “handcraft” anything in under 30 seconds, you don’t get to call it “handcrafted.” Hear that Mr. Bartender serving drinks at an overpriced bar and calling them “handcrafted?” This means you.
And the worst of it is people buying into this baloney. You can spot them the moment the word leaves their mouths. They say it like this: “Doesn’t a HAND (grinding the ‘nd’ and pausing before completing the word) –CRAFTED (rolling the last half of the word in their mouth) beer sound delicious? Uhhh… “No.”

But I’m fighting a losing war. I’m tilting my lance at a handcrafted windmill.

There’s only one thing for me to do. It will take humility. It will take courage. It will take adding 11 strokes to the keyboard each week from here out. I will now be publishing a handcrafted humor column each week on Jocularious.com.

The Hugging Prescription

 

 

Hugging 

By Jack Edwards

I’ve been hugging like a maniac lately.  In fact, in the last month alone, I’ve have two people threaten to file restraining orders against me for my serial hugging.  But the fear of civil litigation is the least of my worries.  After all, this is the cold and flu season.  What’s a little litigation expense compared to a 105 degree temperature and the dry heaves for four to seven days?

In case you’re wondering, this is all Jill Daly’s fault.  She wrote an article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explaining that hugging produces a myriad of health benefits.  Apparently, hugging can battle heart disease, diabetes, depression and improve one’s immune system.  I don’t think I need to remind my regular readers that my own research on this topic began and ended with a cursory review of Ms. Daly’s article while I waited for the caffeine in my morning coffee to fully engage, but in my defense, the article seemed quite complete (it was certainly very long).

Ms. Daly’s hugging article discusses, and I am not making this up (Google it if you don’t believe me) work done at an outfit called the “Touch Research Institute” at the University of Miami.  Mind you, southern Florida already has all that great weather, and now they’re getting paid to touch each other.  (I’m not so sure this type of research is completely legal in the other 49 states and the Territory of Guam – I assume, just from general observation, that it is perfectly legal, even encouraged, in the District of Columbia). While I urge to you look up the Touch Research Institute, do not, I repeat, Do Not, Google “Hugging Workshops.”  First of all, I’m not quite sure how most computer filters work, but if you are going to ignore my advice, I suggest that you crank your filter up to DEFCON 1, before you hit the search key.   Yes, there are such things as hugging workshops, and if you ever come across someone who has attended one, and you would like to ask him about the experience, Don’t.  Run like your life depended on it.  Avoid that person like the plague.  Here’s a little insight from someone who has hit the “enter” key on this himself:  The word “cuddle” will fill your screen.  And no, these not necessarily one-on-one cuddles. Yes, it gets pretty gross, pretty quick.

My research into the health benefits of hugging failed to identify whether the nature and quality of the hug plays a significant role.  Perhaps the Touch Research Institute could jump on this.  For example, does the length of the hug correlate to the level of health benefit?  How about how tightly you hug the other person?  Is a two arm hug quantitatively better at reducing your stress?  I smell a federal research grant percolating as I type.  It appears that Jill Daly and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have plenty more work on their hands.  These are important questions about important work that deserves our federal research dollars.  In fact, it’s the type of important work that just about any desperate, burned-out congressperson in a tight race and looking to grease a few palms would unquestionably find deserving, and might motivate him to do “the people’s work” of slapping a two million dollar rider onto a soybean subsidy bill to once and for all get to the bottom of these important, lifesaving questions.  I think that every American who values health and home would agree that if this research – and the federal money driving it – only saves the life of one single hapless soul (perhaps a small defenseless child – or more likely, one of us pudgy couch potatoes) from a stress related disease, such as watching March Madness, then it would be worth it.

In the meantime, I feel my blood sugar rising from that batch of donut holes I just polished off.  I’ve got to go find someone to hug.

Carrot Cake Chaos

Carrot Cake

By Jack Edwards

Valentine’s Day dinner is a time to forget your diet and pig out. Really tie on the ole feed bag. So when I decided to celebrate by ordering carrot cake for dessert at an upscale restaurant, I naively expected carrot cake. The lesson I learned, or the “take-away,” if you will, from my soon-to-be-described culinary tragedy is this: When you order anything at a fine dining establishment, especially dessert, always play Twenty Questions with your waitress. For example, the questions I should have asked in response to the dessert menu listing “carrot cake” as an option, which, as I mentioned, led me to believe that they were serving carrot cake, were these:

Question 1. If a mouse spotted a serving of their carrot cake from a foot away, and no cat were in sight, or even on the premises, would that mouse opt to expend the energy necessary to wander over for a nibble, or would he scamper off on his way? In this incidence, I am confident my waitress would have answered, “A foot away? He would likely just go one about his business.”

Question 2. If I placed a serving of your carrot cake onto a pharmaceutical grade electronic scale, one of those scales that are designed to measure, with pinpoint accuracy, the slightest amount of powder, would it register any weight? Waitress, without hesitation, “Highly unlikely.”

Question 3. If I had a microscope so powerful that it was capable of allowing me to clearly see the individual parts of an atom, including each and every electron and neutron, would I be able to see a portion size of your carrot cake? Waitress, answering emphatically, “Scientifically impossible.”

Let my tragedy serve some purpose. Please don’t join me as a victim of a culinary avant-garde dining “experience.”

You see, when I order dessert, I generally would like the waitress to bring me dessert. It’s a fairly straightforward concept. And I think it behooves any restaurant and/or waitperson to warn a diner if they plan on what we folks who grew up in Alsea call “pulling the ole switcheroo.”

What this restaurant served me when I ordered carrot cake could most accurately be described as “the essence of carrot cake.”

Apparently, the idea of serving actual carrot cake was, unfortunately, too pedestrian. The picture above is what I got in response to my request for carrot cake. In my shock, I neglected to put my fork on the plate to allow you gauge how tiny each of these three bites of cake actually were. Each little circle was (and I’m being generous) maybe an inch across. These were “carrot cake bites.”
Let’s put it this way. When the waitress puts your dessert down in front of you and the rest of the people at your table start laughing, something has gone terribly wrong.

I hate new laws. The government should be banned from passing any new laws. We have too many laws already. That said, we need a new law. Here’s how it would work. You know how Thai restaurants put an asterisk next to menu items which are especially spicy? My new law would require restaurants to put an asterisk next to desserts which are really not desserts. This new law would prevent the dessert tragedy that I suffered from harming other innocent diners. Believe me when I tell you it was a roller-coaster of emotions. One moment I’m filled with guilt for ordering a rich carrot cake dessert to consume on an already overburdened digestive system, and then then next moment my guilt has turned to deep-seated anger.

If the result of my suffering can save even one person from this senseless tragedy…. No, it still will not have been worth it. I’m writing my congressperson and demanding my new asterisk law.

 

 

Cheeseburger Mayhem in Georgia

Cheeseburger final

By Jack Edwards

I just found out that I’ve been a repeat criminal since the age of 16. However, through luck or happenstance, or more likely, because I have done my best to avoid spending any more time in Georgia than absolutely necessary, I have eluded apprehension. Let me explain.

The Associated Press recently reported (and please divest your mind of any notion that I have conducted what you might consider “actual research” beyond a quick review of this newspaper article) that a Georgia police officer ticketed a man for the offense of “eating a cheeseburger while driving.”

My initial reaction was that this violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution because my wife never eats cheeseburgers. She’s lactose intolerance, so simply due to her unfortunate physiological circumstance, she is far less likely than I am to run afoul of this offense. Sadly for me, I am a Completely Lactose Tolerant person, and I have the belly to prove it. Frankly, my wife doesn’t even really care for regular hamburgers, which makes her even less likely to be picked off the street by the long hairy arm of the Georgia police.

In the Associated Press article, the driver was nabbed after a police officer observed him blatantly, “enjoying a double quarter-pounder with cheese as he drove down a highway outside Atlanta.” To be fair to the officer and my wife, it was unclear to me from my casual reading of the article whether cheese specifically played a role in the offense, or, more likely, that it was a “double” quarter-pounder, and the officer was concerned about the height of the burger, which as everyone knows requires that the eater stretch his or her mouth somewhat wider to bite, thus potentially causing momentary automobile distraction.

According to the apprehended driver, the officer confronted him by saying, and this is a real quote from the Associated Press article: “You can’t just go down the road eating a hamburger.”
McDonald’s franchisees and the American public who live under the harsh scrutiny and watchful eye of Georgia law enforcement will be pleased to know that after an investigation launched by the office of the Cobb County Solicitor General, the solicitor determined that it could not prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, and asked the court to dismiss the case.

As a public service to Georgia drivers now put on notice that their trip through the drive-thru might cost them their freedom, I must note that this driver may not be so lucky the next time. Sure, he was able to find a “loophole” and slip away unscathed this time (i.e. by a slight “technicality” referred to in Black’s Law Dictionary called “He Was Innocent”), but he shouldn’t just walk off thinking he has a pass to willy-nilly go driving down Georgia’s law-abiding roads eating any old thing he wants. He needs to think twice before so casually, for example, driving while eating an ice cream cone. Those things drip. Especially in Georgia. And any professionally trained George law enforcement official can tell you that those drips can cause accidents.

So the next time you consider visiting Georgia, first do your homework. Research the state. Learn about its history and culture, how it governs itself. Learn its state motto which (I swear this is true – look it up) is: “Wisdom, Justice, Moderation.” And then, if you’re like me, and have had the good fortune, and frankly, the statistically unlikely luck of never having been actually arrested, STAY AWAY FROM GEORGIA. THEY’RE CHARGING PEOPLE WITH EATING HAMBURGERS! Or, hey, if you’re the adventurous sort, and like to live on the edge, go for it. In fact, make it a Whopper!