Questions for the day

Questions for the Day

http://www.cynicalbuzz.com

As I sit down on my return flight from Miami. I ask myself (actually others) some very important questions:

Why am I the only one who remembered to bring their LITTLE official zip lock bag for toiletries and not the Janitor in a Drum size bag which can hold a small pond? “Honestly, if you have to bring THAT size jar of Vaseline, you need more than one security line to be concerned with.”

Why am I the only one who remembers to have carry-on luggage which officially FITS in the carry-on storage area and NOT a duffel bag that could transport two bodies and a dog? “No, NO..it will not fit under the seat in front of you or MINE combined. Check it or forget it!”

Why am I the only one who remembers to remove my shoes/belt or heavy metallic items in security line BEFORE someone tells (YELLS) me TO. “Yes, yes, Mr Leisure suit Larry, cell phones will always set off flags and alarms in this security minded era..even your cheap one.”

Why am I the only one who can find their SEAT NUMBER (it is numbers and letters, not hieroglyphics people) and do you truly forget which symbol is identified for aisles versus windows (hint, the window shape has not changed in 85 years and the aisle is the OTHER ONE)

Why am I the only one who remembers to bring something to read or listen to so you Do NOT have to talk to ME for 8 hours? I never thought I would know so much about someone’s husband’s cousin’s neighbor’s dog. And SHOOT me if I ask you to repeat the story.

Why am I the only one who remembers to NOT eat airline hamburgers? Do you truly think it is going to remotely taste like something you have had before? Pre-packaged nuts are the only true edible item on the flight, unless you count what you bought at Duty-Free.

And why O why.. am I the only one who remembers it could be worse, I could have to LIVE with these people.

Massaging the Masses

Massaging the Masses

http://www.cynicalbuzz.com

As I walk through the shopping mall, I am stopped in my tracks while viewing the retail circle of public massage tables and their no-shame patrons who have less pride than a stupid human tricks participant on David Letterman.

Yes, I see you and I realized there is no way you can have the same stress as me. It is impossible you are going through the same life I am, if you can lay your body in a contortionist chair in the open while a small family of masseuses place their hands on their victims.

By the looks of it, you were given the ‘special uncle’ masseuse, who after he reached 18 received a restraining order from every elementary school in the free world.

How DO you press your face in an upside down catcher’s mask and not care your community’s neighbors, cellmates and cynical voyeurs like me are repulsed with the fact you are sharing your exposed, posture, sounds and exhales of a $25 rubdown in between a matinee and Panda King lunch?

In my humble opinion, it is impossible to tune out the world placed in a crouching lazy dog position as an elbow is being buried in your shoulder blade while the rest of the shoppers eat pretzels, Thai food samples and peruse the Apple Store just feet from YOUR feet.

I’m in full view of you as I am surrounded by the iPad, iTouch or an iPhone but all I hear is you iGrunt, iMoan or iSigh. At one point, after hearing you, I swore some smart ass opened up all adult entertainment sites on the new iMAC next to me.

But no, it is just you completely tuning out the fact that you are in a retail outlet known more for its One Day Sales, not its One Hour Happy Endings.

I can’t even laugh at you anymore. I can’t even begin to shake my head in embarrassment for you. I just walk out of the store, past your 21^st century rendition of a roman torture chamber and head up an escalator giving your own personal gladiator masseuse with cheap lotion a thumbs down to end your, and more importantly, MY misery.

I pity you as I get to the next floor, because you don’t realize like I do, you COULD go sit in a FREE massage chair upstairs at Brookstone. At least there I KNOW I can recline on my BACK while the rest of the shopping world laughs at me.

FULL SERVICE STATIC AT THE SELF SERVICE LINE

FULL SERVICE STATIC AT THE SELF SERVICE LINE

http://www.cynicalbuzz.com

Sounds like the best idea yet. Eliminate the cashier and let me scan and pay for my "STUFF" with a swipe of a card. Ahh, the EZ PASS for the pedestrian of the shopping lanes. What a concept...right?

NO! The biggest issue isn't that innovative idea, but the fact, the self checkout line at a Home Depot or a Walmart is ONLY AS FAST as the neophytes shopping before you .

OMG, LADY!!! the machine has it spelled out for you in not only BLACK AND WHITE, but in BRAILLE, it TALKS to you, it has a HELP button and it even has the bags OPEN there for you to put your 50 pack of batteries in.

PULEASE Mister, It's a scanner, not a MRI machine, swipe the freaking bar code, but don't hold it there until the new year.

YEAH YEAH. The Bar code...that thing that has attached itself to every item since 1972. OK, now repeat after me, each time it "BEEPS" you get charged. So right now you owe $450.00 for that pack of gum you keep swiping as your OCD kicks in at just the wrong time of the checkout process and MY life. It is paid for. I promise you and if not, I'll buy you a pack of gum for MOVING YOUR HUSH PUPPY shoes a little further down the line and leaving the premises without hitting that "help" button again.

Barcode you ask again? "Yeah yeah, the Morse code THINGY that is on the side of your paint can. YO, Norman, do you really need to use that much EGGSHELL paint at your age anyway? TRY white, your eyes can't be that sharp, you just hit the ASSISTANCE button five times to ask if your credit card will work in this type of machine. No, of course YOURS won't work. You have the only credit card out of the 400 million Americans who has a Visa that won't swipe in a VISA branded slot.

Seriously, if you don't move your corduroy brushing self out of the way, I am going to break down and yell "THIEF" because you forget to scan the two bags of SALT in your cart because its bigger than the glass you would have to lay it on."

Three steps is all it takes My Dear Hindrance of the Shopping Highway.

1) scan the item

2) place in bag

3) swipe your card and approve.

Any more steps than that and you can join those drivers in the EZ PASS lane that didn't read those two miles of signs ahead of time in NEON LIGHTS that said, "EZ PASS HOLDER ONLY" lanes to the left.

There is truly another world for you to shop in and it doesn't include me. I would tell you to stay home and shop online, but you would be waiting impatiently for the purchased items to be expulsed out of your printer paper slot.

Next time a store wants to make my life easier, don't try to AUTOMATE, TRY ELIMINATE......By IQ.

Anyone who can't figure out how to check out should be required to pay a premium for a personal shopper and stay to the rear of the store until the rest of us leave.

Now that I'm finally ready to check out........um...does anyone know what "ITEM NOT RECOGNIZED MEAN?" As there is no way I'm hitting that 'assistance needed' button after that long rant. ;)

Averting Disaster

The merging lane was a disaster ready to implode. The intersection itself was already packed while the space was narrow and obstructed. I just avoided a rear end collision a few moments before as I diverted my eyes to see what was passing me on the side that smelled familiar. I returned my focus to the impossible task at hand and decided I had to either stop completely to avoid adding to the trouble ahead or shoot the gap.

I didn’t hesitate. I accelerated to bypass the slower drivers and the undeciders. I shot through the lane and looked back to see two old ladies, a man with a Bluetooth headset and a family with twins scarcely miss the crash of a lifetime.

But as I moved down to the cereal aisle, I noticed my challenges had just begun and I knew right then, I was going to have to take a quick detour to grab a cold chocolate milk and just endure what was going to be another Sunday crowd at the food store. I relent that some pain is unavoidable as I hear echoing over the lanes, “NUMBER 24, your Deli order is now ready”. --- I need more than chocolate. I’m Number 275.

Sounding Off on Taking Off

The white noise of the engine, air and oxygen floating freely through the cabin. Nothing more relaxing on a small propeller plane headed back from the islands until one of your newly seated neighbors acts like he is in his family room with NO family around within 1000 miles.

What is he thinking? I'll tell you exactly what is going through his head. "Ahh, hours of nobody around who loves me or cares what I touch while I sit here and act like my name is Donald Rump. Yes, after I remove my workboots, my dark socks that are older than the pilot and undo my belt one notch in case I have two of those yummy steamed burgers they serve, I'll be able to recline back faster than a flight attendant can say Buh-Bye".

Any male over the age of 3, shouldn't be allowed to remove any stitch of clothing or shoe in public unless he is on his way to a quadruple bypass and has to be carted into O.R. on his back.
There is a reason sardines STINK, They are stuck in a miniature plane without wings with strangers who are all just going to the same destination.

We truly don't want to know you are on the same flight as us. This is why we all pretend to look out the window while we listened to you on the runway scream into your 1st generation cell phone telling your wife and/or girlfriend to kiss your ASPirations if they don't like how you fixed the back window with duct tape.

Please don't think you fooled us by bringing BOTH a duffle bag with STYX concert labels and a backpack of dirty laundry that you think counts as ONE Carry-On. We truly mind that you took up four of the above bins with your red leather jacket, giftshop bag with cheap airport chocolate and a mailing tube with a map of the Biggest Ball of Yarn museum.

I have a ticket for your next trip. Its called a laundry ticket, use it to get some new shirts as your current one is melting into the tweed finish of this prop plane to the septic pool of destinations

My food...My choice

Don't ask me why I read labels on my food and drinks. I haven't a clue. Maybe I think I'll find something good in the bad or discover that one special ingredient I'm missing from my USDA vitamin list.

Total Cereal has a great label. They are telling you that you have no reason to read their label. In huge letters, it says, 100% of what you need today. Quick, easy and allows me to finish my comics instead of looking up what the heck Niacin is.

I'm wincing at the makers of anything "fruity" in their drinks. I keep seeing,"This contains 2% REAL fruit juice. TWO percent? I get more juice chewing on my watermelon flavored Hubba Bubba gum than when I drink 8 ounces of their liquid. (Hubba Bubba..ANYONE?...ANYONE?)

Enough of this labeling. Let's just call it what it is. If you order a Double Whopper with cheese, don't expect anything but a big label in block letters stating,

"Eat more than 10 of these in a month will lower your life expectancy by five years less than if you ordered the single Whopper. Order the large fries along with it and you will live one day less than if you went to Wendy's and ordered a Double Baconator."

It is that simple.

Forget marketing the healthy and non-healthy labels to us. We are smarter than that I hope. Just tell us our life expectancy on each thing we eat and let us choose our own path. If I want to know the carbs/protein ratio of a energy bar, then so be it. What I truly want to know is this peanut butter and chocolate equivalent of a Milky Way will give me enough energy until I can have another salty nut energy bar with chocolate and peanut butter. I'm kinda easy like that.

At Denny's: The equivalent of a Grand Slam Breakfast or a Fruit bowl with yogurt. Hmmmm, I don't even care of the price, (they are both $3.99) I just want to know does one allow me to live to see my grandkids graduate high school or long enough to see another election year.

My decision: So leave me be with the nutritional labels.

This is not about eating right. This is about wanting to know what choices I am making before I make them. The irony is that WE ALL know what is good and bad before we choose. We always have.

We just use their labels to help US help ourselves. Low fat doesn't mean it isn't inundated with sugar. Cholesterol free doesn't mean it doesn't have fat. High in Protein doesn't mean its not high in sodium. There is a reason there are millions of blogs, books and articles about eating right...NO one can tell you what you already know.

We choose the Whopper cause it tastes good. We choose the salad because we had the whopper yesterday. We choose the "NUTRITION" bar cause it looks like a Snickers Bar. We choose the Vitamin Water cause it says, VITAMINS, not cane sugar, crystalline fructose, citric acid, caffeine and ester gum extract as its label.

....and I? I choose to write early in the morning because Wendy's isn't open until 11am.

Can you STOP hearing me now?

Enough. Turn it off. Right now young lady. Yes you who has pimped out her black phone with a pink case and sparkles...Yes you too, dude with the 'tude. You are all sitting together quietly, socializing and I'm assuming that means you know each other.

So turn off the cell and the text messaging at least for the small moments you are here and pretend your mouths actually work without a silicone and aluminum candy bar up against your cheek.

One hour. Try it...Last one who gives in and touches their phone, I'll give an iTunes gift card with Leona Lewis loaded on it while she sings up to 3 octaves of no words just for the sake of noise.

Two seconds later.

BZZZZ.. wow, that wasn't even close. You all lost and it wasn't even a text message or ring tone that wore you down. It was the oven's buzzer telling you that your ThreeForALL appetizers are ready.

Excuse me? Did you really just tell me to TEXT OFF?

Now that is a fine way to speak to your elders who actually appreciate that texting is valuable when you CAN'T speak directly to someone or when you know they will get the message later-Not when they are sitting inches across from you toasting the new episode of Gossip Girl.

Dr. Martin Cooper, inventor of the cellphone, wasn't dreaming he would create such a social abyss back in 1973. He just thought it was cool to order pizza from the road before he got home from work.

The first text message ever sent was "Merry Christmas" back in 1985...but of course J. Audestad who sent it used "xmas" to shorten his effort before his manager came in to catch him texting on the job.

I may not understand the value of texting to someone sitting right across from me. But understand this, I can blog, tweet, post, txt, play music, video, send & read emails like the Tasmanian Devil on Red Bull, but I also don't use it to overcompensate the fact I still like people. Maybe not YOU five kids sitting there dissing your parents. But to the most part, I still want to have a conversation with humans that doesn't include:

"wot up?" Translation: "Good evening, how was your day? Anything interesting you wish to share?"

"nada WRUUT" Translation: "thank you for asking. My day was absent of any particular details worth sharing but what are you considering for an evening of activities tonight?"

I lv txtng, but i so mis wrds n thghts with eyes and voices tht flow wit it. GTG.. My apitzr z getn cld

Open Sesame

I'm not a child (physically anyway). I just want to open a simple package. A package that has been around since before zip lock bags zipped, before tie wraps had ties and before Tupperware was ..well...tupper?

I need help. I need to call my grandma or someone who grew up with these simple treats of pleasure before electricity and ask them, "HOW DO YOU OPEN a graham cracker package without crushing the cracker?"

What happened in this century that banned the resealable or reusable packaging on this Graham Cracker product? Even today's cereal boxes have slowly, but methodically changed their RIP TIL IT BUSTS bags to more consumer friendly, peel, and fold back for freshness techniques.

I was desperate. I called CRIS ANGEL, the illusionist of the month from Mind Freak and he told me that he had a better chance to be invited to Houdini's return to earth than to open the cellophane packaging on this Nabisco staple without incident.

But I'm persistent and relentless. I can't sleep now until I solve this quandary so I wrote to NASA and requested two rocket scientists to prove that this separation of package to product could be accomplished without creating crumb cake crust.

Their response was disappointing. Other than asking me to NEVER contact them again or be prosecuted in federal court, they told me that if it WAS possible, they would have a budget from congress to work on this enigma of the food world.

So, I'm at a loss. I'm craving. I'm hungry and I don't want to brush the crumbs off my shirt ONE MORE SECOND. I just want to peel away the inner folds of Honey Graham harmony and snap a square to dip in my milk..

....and then.....surprisingly, I discovered a trick. It might not work for all of you....but my friends, it filled the void.


I reached down deep into my solution filled mind and decided to have an OREO.