On a daily basis I try to come up with ideas for things to write about and most of them get left on the cutting room floor but not today! I've collected a couple weeks worth of burnt offerings and I am going to give each idea the two sentences that they deserve.
1) Having great ideas when you are about to go to sleep.
I dislike that brains work best at conjuring ideas when you have just laid down to go to sleep. I suspect the thought nerve is connected to the "I've got to pee now" nerve. There are no two things that I've had to do more before falling asleep then run to the bathroom or jot something down on paper. One time in a sleepy stupor I may have confused the two.
2) The minds ability to make anything scary in a dream
Recently I had a dream and in that dream I had run out of Raspberry Jam. For some reason it was a crisis. I didn't need the jam for any recipe. In the dream I was not starving nor was I giving the gift of Smuckers to someone as a present. Yet, I was filled with this great fear and a bottomless sense of loss for not possessing some jam.
3) Why are people terrible at interpreting and answering direct questions?
Have you ever sent an email to someone and asked three questions that you think are essential to the success of the day that you and another person are going to collaborate on?
Me: Hey, we have to make that cake together for Grandpa's 84th birthday so I need to ask you a few questions:
1) He's diabetic, so did you get the Splenda or do I have to drop by the store and get it on the way?
2) I was thinking of coming over either at 10-12 in the morning or 2-4 in the afternoon because I have an appointment from 12-2, which works best for you?
3) What did you make for the potluck dinner so that I don't bring the same dish?
Their Response: That sounds good, I'll see you then.
Wait! what the hell just happened? Did I not just ask three different questions of which the success of the day relies on you answering them? What enrages me most about this situation is that people never blow off your questions because they've got the situation "handled" What happens as a result of the person not answering the questions is this: I arrive at 10 am at their house with Splenda in one hand and Swedish Meatballs in the other. The person who I have come to collaborate with is not yet awake. By the time they get in the shower and get ready it is almost twelve o'clock. So now I either have to blow off my appointment or run all the way across town to get there and then come all the way back afterward and make a cake for the remainder of the day with this dolt. And of course they will have an abundance of Splenda and Swedish Meatballs already at their house. If I would have brought neither they would have had neither and they would have had the excuse "But you said in your email you were going by the store to pick some Splenda up."
4) Scientists that do not consider future ridicule when they name things.
Here's the deal when you are a teenager you get zits. Zits are a result of the clogging of your pores which I believe is helped in part by the production of sebum. That's right, if you've got seabum all over your face you're probably going to have acne. Is there any worse term to arm Junior Highschool kids with than sebum? If you're not following my drift, it sounds too much like semen. Why could the science crowd have not just named it zitius juicius. For the record I don't want to hear the actual explanation about how it's liquid composition is similarly based to that of semen. The point is, you do not give young kids in groups dangerous words like that unnecessarily unless you are trying to incite chaos.
5) Carrot Cake
I used to eat carrot muffins. The best part about carrot muffins or carrot cake is not the carrots. It is whatever spices and brown sugar and blah blah good ingredients that are in them. Well, recently someone made a boxed carrot cake and said "look what I made, a carrot cake!" I was delighted in fact, I think I asked to take half of the cake home with me to which they obliged. Well, just as they were cutting the cake up I noticed something, giant rounds of carrot slices inside the cake. I asked "Where did all that carrot come from?" to which they replied "I put extra carrots in the cake!" "Hmm...how nice I remarked." Let me tell you, box cakes are hard to screw up. Even if you burn it, I'll still scrape off the burnt parts and eat the rest, but let me tell you this carrot cake was awful. First off, the carrots were unwashed and so the entire cake tasted like dirt. Secondly, the cake had CARROTS CHUNKS IN IT! The carrots themselves were still crunchy, Third, the cake was dripping wet. The person who made the cake didn't even dry out the carrot slices so all of the water leaked into the cake making it taste like one big, soggy, lump of dirt. This just in, the last time I ate a mud pie was when I was three! disgusting.
Okay guys, that's it for this round, see you next garbage day.