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¿What’s Bueno? Pitfall T-Shirt!
AS longtime readers of this blog know, some of the best years of my life were spent as first warbler in a Roger Whittaker tribute band.
Well, gang – I can finally officially announce it: Jimmy, Dane, Joe-Joe, Evelyn R., Big Curtis, Flaubert, Marc, Evelyn C., Antonio, Chester, Pam, Brucie, Christian, Russ, Alan and I have been rehearsing over the last few weeks and – yes! – Whitaker Experience is back together again! (We used the be “The Roger Whittaker Experience” but then we got that letter from BMG and had to drop the first name and one of the T’s. And stop performing any of his songs.)
My point is I’m gone – I’m out of here for a while – while we’re on tour! (I know!) Come see us at the Eastern Idaho State Fair on the Bear Lake Credit Union free stage tonight after the arm wrestling tournament! (Sometime after 9:30, depending on how many contestants there are.)
Despite all the time and hard work spent tuning up my “whistler” (mouth), I managed to line up a bunch of these inane What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store blog posts in advance! And here’s one now!
Activision Pitfall T-Shirt
Ninety-nine cents only for this t-shirt featuring the original box art from the 1982 Activision video game! It’s brand new! It turns out the original price – on the original price tag – is a whopping $9.99! That’s like eight times as much as 99¢ only, I think! And the funny thing is that if I saw this in Target with their annoyingly enormous selection of retro 80s t-shirts, why, I’d turn my nose up at it no matter what the price!
Yet here at the 99¢ Only Store, I was for some reason compelled to purchase it! This despite the fact that it’s a medium and these days, hoo boy, I wear a large!
Well, I’ll just give it to someone for Christmas, sure. And if it’s you, forget you read this! I paid full price at Target.
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¿What’s Bueno? Toblerone!
Turns out I’m having another one of my “episodes” where I suddenly seem to disappear off the face of the earth and friends, relatives and local law enforcement all turn out to take part in a massive search for me and then I wake up four states away in a cheap motel wearing German Mennonite women’s clothing, with no idea how I got there.
Thankfully I somehow had the foresight to schedule, in advance, a bunch of these What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store posts to keep interest in my blog at an all-time low while I’m gone!
Toblerone Chocolate Bar
Toblerone?! At the 99¢ Only Store!? No way!
When I was a kid, Toblerone bars were among the imported stuff that all the rich kids I went to school with got for Christmas. Toblerones, Paddington Bears, “Ant and Bee” books and those little blue cylinders of Pustefix bubbles. Oh how the mighty have fallen! Not the rich kids I went to school with; I’m sure they’re all just richer. Bastards. No, I’m talking about Toblerone! They’re selling them at the 99¢ Only store now! Finally, they’re within the reach of good, plain people like you and me.
Those wealthy a-holes I went to school with can piss their money away paying twice as much for these at their precious Trader Joe’s! No, I’m serious – they can and they will.
Look! Look!
But this year I can at long last have the Christmas that Mother and Dad were tragically unable to provide for me as a child, despite how I longed for and deserved it. That is, so long as Ant & Bee, Paddington, and Pustefix all start showing up at the 99¢ Only Store, too. But if not, I can deal with it. After all, what kind of spoiled brat man-child really needs fancy bubble solution imported from Europe? Doesn’t regular dish soap work just as well?
Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from the austere simplicity of my plain white prayer bonnet.
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¿What’s Bueno? Stackable Israeli Planters!
HEY! I’m in jail for a few days taking care of that public indecency thing from July 4th (A plea of “no contest” is not an admission of guilt!) But no worries! Before I surrendered myself, I set up a bunch of these What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store things that no one cares about to run in my absence!
Onward!
Item No. 5071/607831 Made In Israel Planter
Yes, according to the sticker on them, that’s what these things are called – Item No. 5071/607831 Made In Israel Planter!
And they’re ingenious! Apparently when they’re not defending their sovereignty against whoever they’re always fighting with, New Zealand, I think, when they’re not training their youth for the army, Israel is manufacturing these amazing planters! Now, above there, what you’re seeing is a big stack of them. Each one is 99¢ only and what you do, see, is you buy multiple planters and you stack them like this:
Stack them like that, and you can go as high as you want. But you put your dirt and plants in them first. Here’s what mine looks like, all filled with baby’s breath or some crap and also petunias. (Yes, petunias! They’re very pretty!)
Okay, okay, they don’t look as good as I hoped. Sadly, that photo was taken well over a month ago, and they look even worse now! I don’t have a green thumb, brother – I have a brown thumb! It’s covered with Kraft Philadephia Cream Cheese Indulgence Dark Chocolate Spread. That, friends, is what is known in the comedy world as a “call back.”
And that call back would make more sense if I hadn’t butchered an originally much longer post into half a dozen smaller ones! Speaking of butchering, and knife-like weapons, it’s time to “fall out” for the showers! Wish me luck!
Wait, I’m supposedly blogging from jail now…?
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¿What’s Bueno? Indulgence Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese!
GUESS what! You’re in for a treat! Because I’ve been called out of town suddenly, to take care of my sick aunt, eh, Aunt Martha, sure, even though I’ve never mentioned her before and the tabloids are saying that I’m actually on strike and am trying to get them, whoever they are, to renegotiate my contract. Anyway, what was going to be one of those interminably long posts where I list a whole bunch of things that are bueno at the 99¢ Only Store has now become a week’s worth of short posts with one or two items per entry!
As my blogging mentor, or blogntor, Sylvia Haynes-Darden often says in her continuing education classes How To Not Lose Your Shirt Blogging and Lost Your Shirt? Unclutter Your Closet NOW, “If you have a bunch of stuff, spread it out over as many separate posts as possible, and if you haven’t worn it in a year, throw it out!”
(They had a two-for-one deal at the Learning Barn, and I have two hours to kill on Tuesday nights when Kim is in that Tantric Massage class that she and her Zumba instructor, Mauricio, signed up for together.)
Anyway, let’s get this thing started.
Indulgence Dark Chocolate Chocolate Cream Cheese Spread by Kraft
What is it with Kraft lately and their attempts to cram cream cheese down our throats – a cheese we already accept so willingly? Previously they tried to get us to accept their laughable “cooking creme”…
…which, by the way, is also available in large quantities at the 99¢ Only Store. Aren’t we as a nation fat enough as it is without having to eat all these cream cheese by-products? Answer: No, so they introduced this “Indulgence” nonsense which is now taking up valuable real estate in the refrigerated cases of the 99¢ Only Store. I did my part to unclog the case and clog up my arteries by buying a bucket of the stuff.
I opted for the dark chocolate variety, but you might like the milk chocolate variety. Anyway, here’s what happens: It’s like a sort of cross between Nutella and chocolate frosting and pudding. You can spread it on a toasted sandwich “flat” (also sold at the 99¢ Only Store) and it looks like this:
Eh, it’s pretty good. It’s not overwhelmingly bueno. Just sort of mediocrely bueno.
It doesn’t taste anything like cream cheese, so I’m not sure what the damn point is. Since I only have two more of those stupid “sandwich rounds” left but nearly a full container of this Indulgence stuff, I have a feeling I’m going to end up laying on the couch in the living room eating this with a spoon while I watch a week’s worth of “The Price Is Right” saved on the DVR this Saturday night. Alone.
(This weekend poor Kim agreed to help that hapless Mauricio rearrange his bedroom to optimize the positive energy – she took a Feng Shui class this past spring. Oh, I warned her. “Learn Feng Shui,” I quipped, “and you’ll end up moving more furniture than if you’re the only one of your friends with a pickup truck.” Heh – I need to send that one in to Bennett Cerf.)
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First Day of School!
IS there anything worse than vomiting in school?
Yes! Vomiting on the first day of school, just two short minutes before the end of the day – after you almost made it without vomiting!
It happened to yours truly, waaay back in fourth grade, and now you are there!
Like you, I’ve never done well in extreme heat. Add intense humidity to the mix and it’s only a matter of time before that telltale headache starts developing, I turn white and clammy, and I start looking for a toilet, wastepaper basket, or girl with long, elaborately-braided hair.
Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday: The entire class was sitting with our new teacher Mrs. Anderson on the carpeted floor of her classroom. In the waning minutes of the school day she was reviewing with us, her new charges, what we’d be covering that year.
I’d been feeling increasingly ill since about one p.m. But you know me – I’m not exactly the sort to raise my hand and speak in class if I don’t have to. I was going to run out the clock. I could do this! Steady, stomach – just a few moments left!
Two minutes to three p.m. and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. With a sudden and mighty blurrrrp the contents of my stomach gushed forth from my mouth, onto my lap and the carpet. I still remember what they served in the cafeteria for lunch that day – hot dogs, pineapple chunks and chocolate milk.
I remember because they made a striking visual contrast, half-digested as they were, on the deep orange carpet and my light blue corduroys.
The tight little knot of students exploded back. You remember the old kindergarten science experiment where you sprinkle black pepper on a bowl of water and then add a drop of dishwashing soap and the pepper immediate pushes back to the farthest reaches of the bowl?
Well, think of my classmates as the pepper and me and my vomit as the soap, Tropical Chocolate Frankfurter Gastric Juice scented.
Since I’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor, when I stood up, my legs were striped: Puke, corduroy, puke, corduroy.
As Mrs. Anderson walked me down the hall towards the nurse’s office she asked me with equal amounts of compassion and frustration, “Why didn’t you say something?!”
“I thought I could make it!” I whined.
The custodians did a good job of cleaning up the mess. There wasn’t a trace on the carpet the next morning. That didn’t stop all my fellow students from walking over there and inspecting it, though – whispering as they looked at me. Sure, there were a few half-hearted offerings of “glad you feel better” but I was largely a pariah for the next few days.
Of course this incident followed me throughout the rest of that school year, to the end of elementary school, through junior high, and onto high school. “I remember you!” I’d hear at least once a year from someone who’d been in my class that fateful year but I hadn’t seen in some time. “You threw up on the first day of school!” After I graduated I thought – I hoped – that would be the end of it.
But it’s my own fault: I made the mistake of telling Devon, hopefully imparting the lesson I’d missed – to never be afraid to speak up. And of course, little Devon missed the point completely, loved the story and thinks it’s the funniest thing ever – especially the part about the striped puke-y corduroy legs.
Today he starts fourth grade, he does. Little sickly Devon with his many allergies and his sensitive, sensitive stomach.
Fourth grade already! They grow up so fast, don’t they?
…Anyway, look what I’ve secretly replaced the Fruit Roll-Up in his lunch with.
Yeah, we’ll see who’s laughing this afternoon, little smart-mouthed so-and-so.
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Important Pizzal Update!
PIZZAL? Pizzial…? Whatever, you know what I mean. Of, or relating to, pizza of course!
Anyway, remember, when I first got my blogging license – oh, gosh, what was it, like twelve years ago…?
…I wrote about this place…?
Well, look! They’re back in the news! And by “the news,” I mean on my door knob!
Boy, she’s still enjoying that pizza, huh?
Since I first blogged about Pizza Ptus, that “little girl” has grown up, gone to college, gotten married, gone back to college, earned her degree in Outer Space Sciences and is now the first lady astronaut living on Mars! To paraphrase Sir Paul McCartney, what an amazing world in which we live in, right?
There’s other changes, too. They added the clever tagline (industry term) “slice of heaven.” I like it!
Wait, can door hangers (industry term, different industry) have taglines? Hey, I’m going to say they can! Why the hell not, right? After all, we are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams.
Also of note:
• They’ve switched from a horseshoe-shaped cut to allow for the ingress of a doorknob to a asteriskal aperture-type multi-cut. Very progressive. Bold move. Bold move!
• While they no longer offer a cary out special, they’re now featuring something called a “carry out special.” Whatever that is!
• They’ve adjusted the color! The photo of the calzone no longer looks like a cigarette butt someone ground out under their shoe on the sidewalk!
• Goofs – Continuity: The little girl is seen gnawing on a slice of pepperoni pizza, but the pizza in the foreground obviously has at least three additional different toppings on it.
• I didn’t notice this last time but behind the bottle of Coke…? Yes – swirly design things!
• Oh and most of the prices have gone up since last time.Anyway, the thing to take away from this is – aside from the fact, as my attorney helpfully points out, that this place still has delicious food – is that without obvious last minute, throw-anything-the-hell-up-on-the-blog posts like this, you really wouldn’t appreciate the good posts, like, oh, I don’t know – what was a good one? – the one about the, oh let’s say the one about the animal crackers. Sure, why not?
Ted Parsnips
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