Fetching the Wrong Paper

What do dogs do during the day in our homes when we’re not around? When my wife and I were first married, our dog used to go into our bathroom, spin the toilet paper roll, grab the end of the roll and see how far she could run through the house without breaking the piece off the roll. So she would leave these long runners up and down the hall.  We think she then played “wedding” and walked slowly up the hall on the white runners. We don’t know why she did it but we were OK with it as long as she was happy. To her credit she never went to the bathroom on the paper…

Toilet paper was plentiful then. Everybody had it...

Toilet Paper Crisis

Have you tried to buy toilet paper this week? The guy behind me at the Kroger checkout today had some in his cart. I told him I was jealous and he offered it to me. I declined his offer but was moved nonetheless.

  

Let’s look at what have we learned through this crisis:

•  I’ve become more comfortable talking about toilet paper. It’s always been an awkward topic for me but I’m getting better at talking about it and asking for it at Kroger
• When we do find TP, of course it’s not our brand. The crisis has exposed us to trying new brands, new styles. New colors.
• We’ve met new people in our neighborhood, particularly the parents of teenagers.  Helping them take the toilet paper out of their trees after they’ve been “TP’d” is a great way to meet people and maybe pick up half a roll or so of toilet paper.

How’s that for a positive “spin”?

Raisin Awareness

Everybody prefers frosted pop tarts over the non-frosted variety, right? Especially the brown sugar cinnamon kind, right?  That frosting is pretty good, right? Well, I realized a couple days ago that I never fully appreciated that frosting. ‘Cause I love the frosting on raisin bread as well. And I love to toast raisin bread. But that frosting melts and eventually clogs up your toaster. You press the toast down and it never comes up and your kitchen fills up with billowing smoke and the alarm goes off and your wife wakes up and when you look for your toast you just find this heap of ash in the bottom of your toaster. So, c’mon you bakers! Can we please use the pop tart frosting on raisin bread? You’ve had like 50 years to figure this out.

On a side note, isn’t all bread, other than unleavened, “Raisin’”?

Cookie Duh

What’s with the flavor “Cookie Dough”? Don’t the ice cream people know that there are many kinds of cookies? It could be oat meal, chocolate chip, thin mint, fig, snicker doodle, etc… Can we see some of these flavors developed already? And why do we not see molasses ice cream? Using the broad term “Cookie Dough” would be like using other general non-descriptive names for ice cream such as “Nut” ice cream, or “Fruit” ice cream. Yeah, “Cookie Dough” is WAY too general.  

“Cookie Dough’s” cereal equivalent would be “Grain Flakes”, or “Grain Crispies”. Or “Grain Chex”, “Grain Chex” and “Grain Chex”. Or, on the hot cereal side, we’d have “Grain Meal”, or “Cream of Grain”. Think of how boring the commercials might be…

The Five Stages of Shopping

How do you know when you’re spending too much time in the grocery store? When you’re in there too much, you’re in danger of reaching the following stages:

• Stage I: When you know the cashiers by name
• Stage II: When you get the store card. For instance, as some of you might know, I’m a member of Costco.
• Stage III: When you know where everything is
• Stage IV: When shoppers ask you where to find stuff
• Stage V: When employees ask you where to find stuff

 I’m in Stage IV. But I’m close. Really close.

Nasal Passages

I’ve had a cold this week. Today I had to go out and buy some Afrin nose spray. Here are some select thoughts when it comes to nasal sprays:

•          Don’t lend yours out. True story: I had a guy at work ask to borrow mine once. Huh-uh. Don’t do this.

• Preserve the firewall between the nostrils.  Get a spray for each nostril. We don’t want to spread germs from one nostril to the other.

• We should all encourage Afrin to develop scents or flavors for their nasal sprays. Sales would skyrocket. Imagine scents like Sport, Fresh, Spearmint, Maple. Since Afrin restores our ability to smell, it only makes sense that Afrin would want us to smell something nice when we can smell again. I don't think that's asking too much...