Item: Maybe someone does, but I don’t order just eggrolls when I’m eating oriental. The eggroll is a side dish like rice and potstickers, and I certainly don’t cut open the roll to eat only the insides. But my wife saw something on her phone and wanted to try it, a dish of the eggroll ingredients, or perhaps a spring roll, I’m not sure: crumbled pork and many veggies with fifty percent cabbage (which she got from her garden, and they taste great! I love “cabbage water” ref: Willy Wonka…1971, but I like mine with slices of parsnip and garnished with the chopped greens of table onions). So she made it, and it smelled yummy, but after a few bites I told her, “You know what would go good with this?” “What?” she asked. “Roll wraps, some pepper steak, and sides of pork fried rice and steamed potstickers.” “Ha, ha,” she said. I dumped the rest back into the frying pan and finished my supper with half a tray of apple strudel.
Item: Who’s doing the gluing of paper towels and toilet paper? The glue has seeped into three or four layers, instead of simply holding the first sheet in place. Is the glue so cheap they can afford to slather it on that way? I’m tired of fighting with the rolls, trying to get to the one that isn’t stuck to the next. Who’s in charge of that machine? I want his number. And I guess places like McDonald’s and Wawa and Circle K don’t teach their employees that napkins come with a short fold and a long fold. The short fold is supposed to face out so there’s an edge you can grab. And it’s similar with boxes of tissue! It used to be that the very last one was pulled out by the one before it. The bottom fold was always tucked in the one above. But I have to reach in and claw out the next tissue at least three times a box.
Item: My wife keeps buying trail mixes that have chocolate, peanut butter, banana chips, and craisins (?—Yuck!). We don’t wander in the woods or climb mountains, so I don’t know what such mixes are meant for, but she buys them. When I want to munch in between meals I like nuts and raisins, and sometimes corn chips, of the Frito-Lay kind. My all-time favorite snack is the original granola bar of rolled oats and honey. What I consider to be a famous moment from the movie “Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend,” 1985, is when the leader of the forest-folks spits out his bite of the bar. Too sweet? I don’t know, but it’s a great scene! I also snack on wasabi peas and pork rinds.
Item: Over the last four months I’ve had to buy ink cartridges twice, color and black. That’s okay if I’m regularly printing, but I’m not. I usually print things my kids send me, and that’s seldom. What step or ingredient have the manufacturers eliminated that kept the ink viable during periods of inactivity? It used to be the ink stayed fresh in my printer for a good year, but not even removing the cartridge, putting that tape back on, and storing it in a zip-lock baggie will keep them from dehydrating. Apparently, there’s a new chemical reaction that starts drying the ink as soon as it’s exposed to air. Except for red; that keeps printing for a while.
Item: Discovered a frog in the toilet of New House the other morning. It looked just like the frog I found twice in the bathroom at Old House. I believe it’s the same frog, and you will not convince me otherwise: it followed us here. Can someone please make transparent toilet seats? I want to see what’s in there long before I get into position. (I just looked it up, and they do! Made of clear resin. I’m getting one—but without shells and starfish and seahorses embedded. I may have to special order.)
Item: I accidentally watched part of a show about extraterrestrials. I thought it was about archeology. (They try to fool us that way.) I think life is rare, but considering the vastness of the universe, there could be billions if not trillions of life-bearing planets. Rare is relative. That does not mean ETs have visited us; what we’ve accomplished, we’ve done on our own. As far as I’m convinced, we will eventually be the first aliens visiting other planets in our quadrant of the galaxy.
Item: I really wish someone would invent slow-growing grass. I want to mow the lawn once a year, and even have a big BBQ about it.
Item: To help compensate for the earth’s melting ice-caps, we should all paint our roofs white.
Item: How come turkey doesn’t taste like chicken?
