Why I hate Heloise

The Florida Times-Union, Thursday, September 7, 2006: (I apologize in advance for the salty language. Reading Heloise sends me into a rage that cannot be described. I really may need medication for it someday.)

Dear Heloise: So often when we go to eat Mexican food, we do not eat all the chips they bring with the salsa. I always take them home, crush them and freeze them. They make an excellent topping for casseroles, squash, taco bake, hash browns or any of your favorites.
R. Neuse, Seguin, Texas

Well, Mr. or Mrs. Neuse, my first piece of advice is to stop throwing around phrases like "taco bake" like people will even know what the hell you are talking about. I imagine it could have easily been grouped under the all-encompassing "casseroles". Oh, and by the way, I weep for your dinner guests who are being served casseroles topped with old thawed corn chips that probably were stale before you even crushed them up and snuck them out of the restaurant in your pocketbook.

My other source of concern is, who the fuck doesn't eat all the chips they bring with the salsa at a Mexican restaurant?!? I can't get enough chips at a Mexican restaurant, they have to bring me three or four baskets before the meal is served, and at least two after.

And just when I thought I would never see anything as stupid as a reader writing to Heloise to suggest doing crossword puzzles in pencil, rather than pen....

Dear Heloise: I always have a pitcher of iced tea in my fridge. When I feel like having a cup of hot tea, I just pour a cup of iced tea in a cup and put it in the microwave.
Margaret Caswell, Waterloo, N.Y.

A quick Google search shows that a Margaret Caswell was a teacher at DeWitt High School between 1955-1962. If it is indeed the same Margaret Caswell, I think she may have since turned retarded. I mean, what happens if she uses up all of her iced tea making hot tea, and then wants iced tea all of a sudden? Besides, retarded people shouldn't be playing with microwaves OR hot liquids.

After the rains....

...the whole neighborhood smells like licorice. Very STRONGLY of licorice. I really have no explanation for it, unless the Maxwell House plant is adding anise to its coffee, or perhaps there's been an uprising in the harbour and angry natives have dumped a shipload of ouzo overboard.

Crikey.

All the menacing creatures he's wrestled to the ground without a scratch, and he gets killed by a stingray?

That's wrong, man.

Why couldn't something sting Paris Hilton, or Jessica Simpson, or someone equally as useless?

Is God Angry, part 2; or, A Question of Karma

In the past four days, I have been unexpectedly granted three different gift cards. The first was from the check out lady at Target, who, after ringing up Arrested Development Season 3 (which rocks, by the way) gave me a free five-dollar gift card, with which I bought Mars Attacks.

Later that day, while escorting Mother Rubble to the Gospel World store to look for stick on geegaws for her Worship and Music poster for the Church Talent Fair, I found a Barnes and Noble gift card with a remaining value of eleven dollars and forty cents on the ground, with which I bought Wicked, the book, which I read a number of years ago in the midst of a string of panic attacks, so I don't really remember what happened in it, not that my reading comprehension and retention is that great even in the best of times.

Today, after returning from my first day of teaching at my alma mater, I found a Best Buy gift card lying on the curb in front of my house. Remaining value, forty dollars even. Which means it's probably never even been used.

Is this bounty a gift from the heavens, a reward for being kind and good in the face of grief and despair? Or is it a cruel test, and am I stcking up more bad karma for myself by taking these cards as my own and wantonly using them for my own selfish ends?

I am hoping the former, as Jet and I will be going to Best Buy tomorrow just as soon as the termite men have come to do their inspection.

Could even a trickster god be cruel enough to plant a Best Buy gift card with forty dollars left on it in front of my house?