I have experimentally and scientifically discovered that it isn’t really possible to die of boredom, or it would have happened by now.
I have an oven that is so slow it takes it half an hour to get to 400 F. That sounds like a joke… I have an oven that is so slow….. Like, I have a sister who is so cross-eyed she can sit on the front porch and count the chickens in the backyard. Sorry, I digress. Having such a slow oven frequently sucks, especially if you want to eat your food in a reasonable time. So imagine my surprise and consternation when I realize that I had cracked one of my “oven safe” plates in said slow oven. It wasn’t even that hot? What is this? Doesn’t oven safe mean you can put it into the oven? This event prompted a great many “they don’t make them like they used to’s” and even a “kids these days”. I am not sure where the second one came from , but there it was. What’s next? I suppose that my neighbors canoe isn’t really “waterproof” and that pen of mine is only “permanent” in the eyes of a landfill. A glue stick that says “Glides smoother”. What is this? Do I care how “smooth” it feels to the paper?
Then I’ve got mushrooms that say “not to be taken internally” and shampoo that says “already cooked”. Wait, I’ve got those backwards. However, this doesn’t vindicate the whole name of the product. Its even got “sham” in the name. What if we want the real stuff? Will we someday be able to buy food that says “Already eaten” ? My olive oil says “extra virgin”. How does that work? I don’t’ even want to get into the fine print on my toaster (it is considerable). Some boxes say confusing things like “fragile”. Isn’t it the contents that could be fragile? What if I filled a “fragile” box with cotton balls? Would they all be broken and mangled if I dropped it all down the stairs? What if my box of expensive crystal doesn’t say “fragile” on it?
I’ve got this ointment that is supposed to make cuts heal faster and it also says “not to be taken internally”. How internal is “internally? If I get it too far into my cut will it do harm? Will it go into my bloodstream and form a clot in my brain – blocking the parts of it that do important things like allow me to scratch an itch or to enjoy the loyalty of a good dog? My unopened box of salt has a tag over the spout that says “safety seal”. Is this their mascot? There isn’t a picture of a seal on it anywhere! Did I get one without a seal on it? Does this mean that my salt is unsafe because there isn’t a seal on it? Would the seal be keeping me from hurting the salt or the salt from hurting me? Then it goes and says something confusing like “enriched with Potassium? Don’t seals get enough of this in their diet? It also calls itself “table salt”. Why? Why? Why? There was a sign on a restaurant that I was in the other day that said: “No shirt, no shoes, no service”. Then they objected to the fact that I wasn’t wearing pants. Is this really my fault? Why couldn’t they be more specific? Lets not even get started on how comfortable the “may explode and leak” message on my batteries makes me feel.
I have all kinds of questions like these. What is the square root of an orange? Why is blue such a depressing color? Why doesnt static cling bother me? Why dont kitchen sinks have overflow holes like bathroom ones and bathtubs too? Why haven’t Canadians reformed their senate? Its July, why does the weather suck? But lets not get silly now….