Yesterday I was grocery shopping and was in the bulk section looking for some healthy snacks. In the granola area I saw this product: Golden Flax Pumpkin Seed Granola. Underneath that was a handwritten note that said "Contains no flax or pumpkin seeds." Actually the word 'no' was underlined twice but I don't know how to recreate that here.
WTF? Why would you include -- not one -- but two items in the name of your product that are not in that product? Are you trying to trick us?
"Hey honey, you know how my doctor told me flax and seeds will lower my horribly high cholesterol and stave off the heart attacks that run in my family? Well I found this awesome granola that has both of them in........GACK...THUD!"
Perhaps there are other products of yours I could try. Do you have any honey whole wheat bread without honey or wheat? Great! Also, I'm trying to pull a fun trick on my niece with scurvy. Do you have any orange juice that says vitamin C fortified but has no vitamin C in it? Super! What? It doesn't even contain any orange juice? Even better!
The most hilarious part, though, was that the disclaimer was obviously added later by a store employee because I went to another branch of that store today, saw the same product, and it did not have the handwritten disclaimer on it.
I bet a terribly ill person at the first store died because of that false advertising.
I work in a huge building.It’s a quarter mile around and sometimes during my breaks, if the weather is nice I’ll get some exercise by circumambulating it.One day last spring, I was taking my daily jaunt, when I noticed something odd about the dumpsters.There was one for cardboard, one for garbage, and one for tires (there is a garage where I work).What is strange is that there was none for normal recycling.
I am happy to say I live and work in one of the greenest cities in America, a city that makes recycling as easy as humanly possible (we don’t need to separate cans from bottles from paper, it’s all just one holistic triangle.).I work in a purportedly “green building” that sells Priuses. All this makes the lack of a recycling dumpster strange.But, the thing that makes our missing recycling dumpster almost creepy is that inside the building, recycling bins are everywhere here.Every major trash can is paired with recycling.
I’ve noticed lately that as I’ve grown older I’ve replaced the word “Lately” with “As I’ve grown older.”Here are some examples.Try both choices with each phrase, and see how they affect the sentence.
Lately…/As I’ve grown older…
… some of my hair has been turning gray.
… I’ve noticed my skin is more sensitive, and takes longer to heal.
… I’ve found I get impatient faster.
… it seems I pay less attention while driving.
… jazz bores the hell out of me.
I don’t like this.This “as I’ve grown older” thing.It makes changes sound permanent.“Lately” sounds like a phase.It is a season, while “as I’ve grown older” is a lifetime.You’re stuck with it, unless something changes again, probably for the worser (gray to bald, impatient to homicidal, etc.).
That hair will never be brown again, unless I cheat.But, I can do things to speed up healing times, and I really hope that I reclaim my patience and my automotive focus.As for jazz, I can take it or leave it.
People often stop me on the street, always with the same question. “Craig,” they’ll ask, careful to keep a respectful distance, “You are a man of intelligence and taste, with striking cheekbones and firm thighs, an experienced juggler, and acceptable actor. You make slightly over the average yearly income of an Alabaman. You know enough Spanish to make a Mexican respectfully embarrassed to talk with you. You have a basically clean driving and arrest record, at least for the last few years, and own many different t-shirts displaying the names of semi-obscure rock bands. You are everything that a rational woman would desire. How can it be you’ve never taken a bride?”
After I silently stare into the middle-distance of my soul for a few minutes, my interrogators will usually get uncomfortable enough to wander off. It’s painful for me to talk about, but I feel it is time I must explain thereasoning behind my singularity.
Five years ago, I was engaged to be married. She was all I ever wanted. Intelligent, poised, hot as Arizona asphalt. She was briefly considered to be the bass player for Sleater-Kinney, but opted out to continue modeling so she could pay off her Ivy League loans. And she proposed to me. How could I not accept? As we were debating whether it should be a beach or mountain wedding, the news arrived: Massachusetts had legalized gay marriage.
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Musings from the Improvisors