All night market purchases

Years ago, we saw a stand up comedian do a bit about all night markets. She wondered what motivated people to go out to the market at three a.m. One night she was behind a woman who was purchasing kitty liter and Vasoline. She fought a desperate urge to ask the woman why she felt a sudden urge to purchase that combination of products in the wee hours of the morning.

While chatting with the cashier at Walmart this morning, we mentioned this story. He laughed and said that he once found himself buying condoms and road-side flares in the middle of the night at a 7 Eleven. He said he needed the condoms, but that he was happy to have stumbled on the flares and thought they might come in handy sometime. He often wondered what kind of impression his purchase made on the cashier.

I offered that it showed that he was planning a head. One item in case he got lucky, and the other in case his luck ran out.

I think I made his morning. :D

Laundry-loving kitty

Our neurotic cat has a new hobby of late, dragging dirty laundry up from the basement and depositing it around the house. He is especially fond of the dining room. There's nothing like coming home in the evening to dirty skivies in the dining room. One day last week, I gathered up all the dirty laundry he had redistributed during the day. It was a particularly huge haul. See:


I really want a web cam to capture him dragging this stuff up the basement stairs. The beach towel would have been particularly impressive to see.

Announcing the next diet craze

Recently, I watched a show on the Food Network which was filmed in some asian country. The host of the show had gone out on a fishing boat with some locals. They would catch fish by using cormorants. These pelican-like birds who had their wings clipped, so they couldn't fly away. The birds would dive underwater to catch fish, but would find that they couldn't actually swallow their catch because the fishermen had clamped these annoying ties around their necks. The fishermen would then reach into the birds mouths and retrieve the fish. The still-hungry birds would dive to try to catch more fish.

I think I have stumbled upon the next big diet fad: a device that keeps you from swallowing your food. Admittedly, unlike the cormorant, humans chew their food turning it into really small particles. So, a simple noose or ring around our necks wouldn't prevent us from swallowing food. Maybe I could develop a surgically implantable strainer in the back of the throat that would keep all but the most microscopic food particles from reaching the gullet?

This really isn't a unique concept. People who go on marathon wine tastings typically taste and then spit out their beloved liquids. I just want to transfer this concept to the realm of the food lover. Yes, I realize that bulemics sort of do that. I just think puking really negates the pleasurable experience of tasting the food.

I really don't like to puke. I really enjoy tasting and chewing delectable bits of food. I suppose that swallowing could be made optional, and I'd still be pretty content as well as much slimmer.

Maybe I missed my calling. Maybe I should be a food taster for public figures. Then again, they want you to actually swallow the food to see if it's going to kill you. So, as long as the food doesn't kill you, it still has the potential to make you chubby.

Maybe I should become a bird. After all, the lucky little devils do get to consume multiple times their body weight each day. And, as parents, they chew up their food and spit it into the grateful expectant mouths of their chicks. I could really get behind that. Sadly, I don't think I could get my human son to agree to the practice. Besides, he really doesn't like as many foods as I do, regardless if they've been pre-chewed or not.

In addition to coming up with the cool throat-sieve, I should come up with a catchy name for the diet craze it'll spawn. The Cormorant Diet? That's probably more market-friendly than The Chew and Spit Diet.

Besides, the later kind of reminds me of one of my favorite modern children's books: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The story focuses on the town of Chewandswallow, where various weather patterns bring a variety of food from the skies. Yup, my kind of town.

In (humorous) honor of Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, the originator of Dungeons & Dragons, died earlier this week. In honor of him, my favorite Internet geek comic strip payed homage to him. I loved it and had to share: