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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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The Jet-Puffed Explosion!
OVER THE LAST YEAR, I’ve noticed something clogging the candy and cookie aisle at my local 99¢ Only Store, and I don’t mean fat, swarthy men in sweatpants and stained white t-shirts, loudly talking on cell phones, and stinking of cigarettes and cheap cologne. (I don’t get to the 99¢ Only Store in Glendale often enough for this to be a problem. Ha! You get it, right?)
Nuh-no, I’m talking about these things:
Marshmallows!
I don’t understand it!
What’s with all the marshmallows? What is the deal with the marshmallows? Who are these marshmallows?!
As you know, marshmallows are good for precisely two things:
1. Regular-sized marshmallow are excellent for toasting on a campfire (and/or making s’mores, a Slovak delicacy).
2. Mini-marshmallows are wonderful for making Nana Parsnips’ famous ambrosia salad with cat hair.
That’s it! Okay, and like you, about every eight years, I’ll buy some Fluff and make me a Fluffernutter sandwich, enjoy it immensely, forget about the rest of the jar, and throw it away eight months later once it’s liquefied, but that’s marshmallow in a jar, not marshmallows in a bag. And I guess mini-marshmallows are nice in hot cocoa, too. And the dried, desiccated ones are just the thing in cereal, like Lucky Charms, but they already come in Lucky Charms. And I suppose the case could be made that marshmallows are good for making yams at Thanksgiving, but as I never eat yams, I wouldn’t know – though here I’ll allow it.
Okay, so that’s it, precisely those two things.
So why is there now about eight shelval feet dedicated to them in my local 99¢ Only Store? Not only that, but they’re getting these things by the palletful, sure, and so there’s always boxes of them stacked up in the aisles too, in addition to those on the shelves.
Who in hell is eating so many of these things?
Now, you know me – I’ll eat practically anything. And yet it would never occur to me to buy marshmallows so I could just sit there on my fat ass and cram them into my mouth right out of the bag. Frankly, the thought disgusts me – almost as much as it disgusts you. (I’m in those dingy threadbare underpants of mine in the above scenario. See, I told you you’d be disgusted.) And yet, many of these packages of marshmallows are telling consumers to do just that! To just sit their on their fat asses and cram them into their mouths right out of the bag – as a snack! …Yes, yes, in their underpants!
And the 99¢ Only store isn’t just selling your standard regular size and mini-marshmallows, oh no! They come in different flavors now!
Those “Jet-Puffed Strawberry Mallows”…? Great for snacking, apparently, and brother, they’re just the tip of the marshburg:
There’s chocolate & vanilla-flavored marshmallows!
Caramel & vanilla-flavored marshmallows!
Gingerbread-flavored marshmallows!
Toasted coconut-flavored marshmallows! [Please note: These are great for munchin’ as opposed to snacking.]
Piña Colada-flavored marshmallows!
German chocolate cake-flavored marshmallows!
Carbon monoxide-flavored marsh– You know, my attorney has advised me to correct that before I even finish typing it and instead note that these are vanilla-flavored, car-shaped, Daytona 500-themed marshmallows! And they’re probably quite delicious!
And it’s not just Kraft, it’s also these…
Plain ol’ generic-flavored marshmallows!
Mexican marshmallows!
Mini-Mexican Marshmallows!
More mini-Mexican marshmallows!
So many Mexican marshmallows I’ve run out of m-words!
And these things! Not in standard marshmallow form, but sold blatantly as a candy. [Note the execrable 1994 Flintstones movie typeface used for the name.]
More Mexican Marshmallows, Part Dos!
Marshmallow skewers?! Whaaaaaah…? And no, these aren’t leftovers from Easter, believe it or not. They’re available alla time! Alla time, I tells ya!
And now Mallow Bits! Those in the cereal blog game technically refer to these as “marbits.” My question: These things are “Jet Puffed” like all the other marshmallows from Kraft…
…so how come they’re crunchy and not soft? Or can things be jet-puffed yet not be soft? I mean, I don’t know. I’m confused by this whole marshmallow thing. I’m looking for answers here.
So while you ponder that, please also be aware that they come in peppermint flavor, too.
Anyway, any ideas, gang? Why the influx of marshmallows to our precious 99¢ Only stores? I’d have thought it was maybe a summer thing, but this started last year, it hasn’t let up, and it keeps getting bigger.
Perhaps it’s just one of the growing number of products that manufacturers can produce cheaply and unload at the dollar stores to make up for lost revenue in this tough economy since it’s not just dirty poor people but good people, people like you and me, who are shopping there now too. See, your standard bag of marshmallows, regular or mini-sized, unflavored, cost about twice this at a regular supermarket.
Or is it that poor people just eat a lot of marshmallows? It’s okay if they do; it’s not like I’m judging them.
Perhaps the answer lies down the street, at another of my favorite discount retailers…
…and I use the term “discount” here very loosely.
…Because can you see the price on the upper right corner of the package? Thirteen bucks! And it doesn’t even come with any marshmallow ammo! You have to go back to the dollar store to buy that! So my guess is the Big Lots people have an arrangement with the 99¢ Only store folks who hammered out a deal with Big Marshmallow. Everyone wins – including you, if you like getting popped in the eye with a miniature German Chocolate Cake and then going to the emergency room to have an overtired intern poke around your cornea in attempt to remove toasted coconut.
Coincidentally, this toy brings back a lot of memories. No, I never owned such a gun, but I did appear in a few special interest films under the stage name “Marshmallow Stryker” in the mid-1990s. I quit after I had to go to the emergency room with an altogether different, though no less embarrassing, injury.
Oh, don’t you judge me like a dirty poor person! I had rent to pay and this was before I was raking in money hand over fist from this blog!
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A Present For Ruby!
EVERY time I go away on business, I like to pick up a little present for one of the kids back home. I find that if I tell them that I’m only buying a present for my favorite, then they all behave a little bit better and I save some money. I’m telling you, I really need to write that parenting book.
Anyway, Tuesday found me traveling all the way out to Reseda – I had to pick up milk – and you know me and dollar stores. Imagine my delight when I happened across this place:
Even before entering the store, I’m in love with the place already based on the sign. It starts with the bold headline “DOLLARAMA” which implies – but does not guarantee – that everything is a dollar. Then the subheading (industry term) goes on to tell us that yes, this is in fact a store where all merchandise is “$1 ONLY.” Perfect!
But hold on a moment! Just as our brains have processed this, it hits us with the rest of it, which is “PLUS DISCOUNT STORE” – and by the time we’ve unraveled that one, we’re already inside. That’s when suddenly we go, “Wait…what?!” Too late! They’ve got us!
I’d like to think, and now you would, too, that whatever think tank or public relations company or consulting firm that they hired to write the above sign was the same one behind this one (seen in a previous post):
Regardless, once inside Dollarama I went to their toy aisle and arbitrarily decided that this time, Ruby was my favorite, and so she’d be getting the present. But what to get?
She does like her unlicensed Disney knockoff stuff (we’ve carefully avoided buying any licensed Disney merchandise, as it is significantly more expensive), so I thought maybe this would be a good choice:
But when Ruby plays with her toys, she plays the hell out of ’em and for a long time, all the while having fun doing it. Could this play set take it? As it turns out, according to the package itself, it could:
…At least I think that’s what it means. So into the “maybe pile” for the Beauty Castle!
But perhaps she’d rather have this 21-block Tea Set Deluxe!
I didn’t want to get anything ugly for little Ruby. Nor something made from inferior plastics. I wanted the best welcome gift for the children – eh, child. After all, who wouldn’t?
Well, according to the package, this thing fits the bill!
Still, maybe this might be more to the Rube’s liking:
On the plus side (from the package):
• Excellent new design
• NEW pretty beauty set
• All the vogue all new edition the best gift for youand, as you can see:
• It have creativity and durable, education fun.
• Look at these attractive pretties! Your kids can choose their favorite ones and buy them home! (Somehow saving me money!)On the minus side:
The package says “Beauty Doll.” There’s clearly no doll, beauty or otherwise, in this package; and Ruby, while adorable, is not the sharpest tack on Miss Coulter’s p.m. session kindergarten burlap-covered corkboard. She’ll spend five frustrating hours going through the box looking for a non-existent doll. “Fashion Princess Beauty Doll” was out.
I came across another tea set, too. While I didn’t take a picture of the whole thing, I did snap a picture of part of it as a reminder to myself:
This is good to know for the future. Instead of paying $1 only plus at Dollarama, I can probably get this crap wholesale if I go to their showroom.
So far this has all been princess-themed toys. Fairytale princesses and all that are fine, but some say playtime should be a time of unbridled fantasy, no matter how fanciful and unrealistic. With that in mind, this selection became the front runner:
It was important, too, that this was something that hideous little rat-child next door, Jessie, didn’t already have (She’s actually a nice kid – cute, really – but I’m having a fight with her father.) This put my mind at ease:
Clearly little Jessie (with her enormous fivehead) doesn’t have it yet!
It was at this point when I realized that the money on my meter was about to expire and, hell, I love my kids, but there’s loving your kids and then there’s avoiding an unnecessary parking ticket, right?
So I just grabbed the next thing I saw:
Hey, great! I’m thinking, “Maybe if Ruby starts playing with it, Mommy will mimic her and then once in a while they’ll be some goddamn Hamburger Helper on the table when I get home!” (I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Like you, we’re more of a microwavable Banquet pot pie family.)
So I get home, and everyone gathers ’round the car – and I announce Ruby as my favorite child. Sure, there’s the usual swearing and keying of the driver’s side, but at least one of them is still on my side. That is, until Ruby saw what I got her.
Then she runs away crying, which was more annoying that hurtful. But when she told me that she wanted to go live with Jessie’s family, that was like a knife to the heart.
So I asked Tracy what’s the problem.
“Ted, you jackass! She already has a Kirchen, the Thing of the Kitchen! Don’t you remember? That’s what bit off her pinky last month when she reached way into the back of the fridge for a juice box!”
Well, how’s that for a coincidence? In my defense, I thought we decided to name it “Kerwin.”
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It’s August 17th Already!
LOOK, we all know where this is going, and frankly, I’m tired of it, you’re tired of it, we’re all tired of it.
So let’s just get it over with, hmm?
It’s August 17th already!
And thanks to a visit to my local Dollar Tree today (though, interestingly, not the same Dollar Tree of “It’s August 15th Already!” fame), I can see that it’s high time, blah blah blah, start getting ready, yadda yadda yadda, magical season of giving, et cetera, et cetera, Christmas! And then some comical reference to family summer plans that I’ve abruptly canceled so we can instead focus on this holiday.
Thanks a lot, Dollar Tree, you’ve got me deconstructing my own comedy now. Pretty soon I’ll be reduced to laughing at my own jokes. No, wait, I already do that. Heh heh heh “already do that.”
But seriously, as I write this, there are one hundred thirty days until Christmas! That’s more than one third of the year!
And here I thought the worst “Christmas Creep” was that skeevy department store Santa at Korvette’s in Port Chester on whose lap I was forced to sit to have my picture taken back in 1976 and —
No. No, I won’t go there just for the sake of a cheap, inappropriate joke.
Not during this joyous time of year.
Heh heh “Christmas Creep” joke.
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It’s August 15th Already!
YES, August 15th! I know…! The year is practically over! But I wouldn’t have realized that if I hadn’t stopped in to visit my local Dollar Tree today!
Where does the time go?
Out with the old, in with the new, right? I tell you, 2012 has been a whirlwind! I mean, Halloween, the election (I’m still in shock), Thanksgiving, and hell, I have to tell you – I guess I’ve been so busy that I don’t even remember Christmas!
Well, I better start getting my tax stuff together and make an appointment with my accountant – instead of waiting until the last minute like I always do.
Anyway, thanks for spending this past year with me, folks. Here’s hoping 2013 will be even better!
Should auld acquaintance be forgot…
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It’s August 1st Already!
THANK GOODNESS that I visited Big Lots the other day – otherwise I wouldn’t have realized it’s high time we start getting ready for Thanksgiving!
Aww, won’t Allison be disappointed! She was going to have all her little friends over on Saturday for a pool party. It’s going to break her heart when she comes home from day camp this afternoon to find I’ve put the cover on the pool and closed it up for the season. Ooh, that reminds me, I’ll have to move the gas grill back into the shed, too. Seems I hardly got to use it this past summer. I guess we none of us realized how far along we are in the year!
Anyway, maybe I’ll head over to Dollar Tree and check out their Thanksgiving section…
…and perhaps pick up some holiday-themed craft items for the girls to work with. Inside, where it’s warm. Since they obviously won’t be able to go swimming! Not with Thanksgiving just around the corner!
There. Boom. Done. Little girls love stickers.
Don’t you hate how all this holiday stuff just creeps up on you every year?! Thank Christ for places like Dollar Tree and Big Lots – otherwise we’d have forgotten all about Thanksgiving until it was too late!
I’ll have to remind Jean to get a turkey at the supermarket – I just hope there’s time to defrost it before the big day. Oh, and the in-laws had better be going to her goddamn brother’s place this year. Three years in a row at our house is enough!
And what else…? Ah, the DVR! I need to set it to record the parade! Like you, I sure hope they bring back the Bullwinkle balloon this year!
The good one, in the old-fashioned bathing suit!
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Delightfully Anachronistic Package Design: Summer 2012 Edition!
IF THERE’S SOMETHING that we all can agree on in these troubled economic times, it’s that everyone enjoys delightfully anachronistic package design – and rightfully so.
And by “delightfully anachronistic package design,” I mean packages – usually of food, and often bought at a local dollar store – that have the look of something that was designed decades ago and never updated. I find this phenomenon absolutely delightful and now…? Now, friend, so do you. Like watermelon-flavored Visine, it’s a treat for the eyes. Oh ho ho, watermelon-flavored Visine! Where do I come up with this stuff?
So, uh, here’s a bunch of things I found that look old.
3-C Jellied Cranberry Sauce That Looks Like It’s From, Oh, Let’s Say the Mid-1960s
I found these in a wonderfully ratty dollar store in Carson, California months ago. But I’ve been saving the photo for a special occasion. Tonight’s the night, baby! Tonight’s the night!I didn’t buy them, I just took a picture (because it’ll last longer). What does the name “3-C” signify? Look, I just told you I didn’t buy it, so I have no goddamn idea! Let’s say it stands for priCe, Cwality, and, eh, Cranberries. I’m sure it’s a fine product.
Jiffy White Cake Mix Looks Like It’s From the 1930s
Yes, I’ve covered Jiffy mixes in depth previously. All of their packages have a distinct anachronistic look to them. But this is the first time I saw the white cake mix before. White cake mix? That’s racist! And delicious!
Libby’s Chunk and Sliced Pineapple Looks Like They’re From the Mid 1960s
Now here’s a tough one. I found these at my local Dollar Tree and the package design is very new – I forget what Libby’s canned fruits used to look like, but one thing’s for sure, brother, they didn’t look like this! These have a very 60s kind of style to them, but by Godfrey, if I find out this is an intentional attempt at a “retro” look, then they’ll be immediately disqualified and not allowed to compete. I’d like to think, and now you do, that this is just a label redesign that somehow looks old to me (and now you). Dare I include it here? As it turns out, I already have.
Lady Linda Pound Cake Looks Like It’s From the 1970s
Ha! A so-called pound cake – that weighs ten ounces! (Settle down, settle down – I’ve already got my attorney on top of this.) Anyway, the lovely Lady Linda logo looks like something from about forty years ago, doesn’t it? …Kind of? Look, they can’t all have the striking visual anachronicity (a word I’ve apparently just coined and will soon trademark) of Jiffy cake mixes.
Lava Heavy-Duty Hand Cleaner Looks Like It’s From the Late 1960s
Aside from the addition of the WD-40 logo to the bottom and a few minor changes to the text (the omission of the exclamation point after “PUMICE-POWERED,” changing “THE HAND SOAP” to the current “HEAVY-DUTY HAND CLEANER with moisturizers,” among them) Lava’s wrapper is practically unchanged since 1960s, which is particularly amazing and wonderful. It’s such a great design it’d be a shame to change it. Lava soap has always been a small, specialty brand, and I bet if it had been owned by some huge Big Soap corporation, we’d be looking at swirly design things all over the package. Either that or photo-realistic globs of glowing, shimmering lava with highlights galore.Say, look – it still pretty much matches its corresponding 70s Wacky Package:
By the way, like you, I love Wacky Packages, used to collect Wacky Packages, and permanently stuck Wacky Packages to the closet door in my bedroom. And I still say, this is the worst parody name in the entire Wacky Packiverse. “Lova”…? What the hell…?! Clearly Art Spiegelmaus and Bob Shtewart just wanted to knock off early the day they came up with this one. “Lava Soap…Hmm…Tough one…Bava, Cava, Dava, Fava, Gava…” “Lova Soap! These are eight year olds we’re writing for. Good enough! Now let’s hit Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch!”
Showboat Pork & Beans in Tomato Sauce Looks Like It’s From 1923
Here’s a secret the Bush’s Beans people – even the talking dog – don’t want you to know: They’re the company behind these value-priced Showboat Pork & Beans. Okay, maybe they don’t care if you know, since their name and website are listed on the back of the label. You’re probably asking aloud “Why does this jackass Ted think the can looks like it’s from 1923?” I’ll tell you why if you just shut up a minute: the typeface used for the words “Pork & Beans” is in fact the same used throughout a 1923 Sear & Roebuck catalog I found in Nana Parsnips catalog heap (in what used to be the shower). Add to that the “Showboat” name and logo, and, well sir, you’ve got a canna beans that looks like it’s 89 years old!
Breakstone’s TempTee Whipped Cream Cheese Looks Like It’s From 1982
We don’t normally have Breakstone products out here in the filthy toilet that is Los Angeles, but oddly, they do turn up occasionally in – where else? – the 99¢ Only Store. And when they have TempTee whipped cream cheese, brother, I snatch it up by the palletful! So you can consider this entry a mini-What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store post too – this stuff is just that good. Anyway, the pseudo-handwritten product name, the bright pink color and the little yellow stripes all scream the early 1980s. But be warned – the name and color seem to imply that this is some sort of light version of cream cheese – this, my calorie-counting pal, is not the case. It’s just whipped, but has the same amount of fat as regular cream cheese. This is why I limit myself to just one tub for dessert, during “Wheel.”
Noh of Hawaii Vinha Dalhos Portuguese Fish Mix Looks Like It’s From the Late 1950s
Just as you would, when I saw this at Big Lots for just 80¢, I had to try it. And not because I was at all curious about the taste, either – it’s that amazing three-color design that we found so nifty – to use the very vernacular of the era that I think it kind of looks like it’s from. Anyway, I had Ildefonsa fry me up some fish with it and it came out, well, okay.The thing is, your best, tastiest fish today are your overfished fish – your European seabass, your snapper, and my favorite, your orange roughy. A good rule of thumb is the more endangered the species and the higher the price, the tastier the fish. So I got Ilde up at five one morning last week, gave her twenty bucks to pick me up a couple of good, thick, New York-cut orange roughy filets from the Santa Monica Fish Market and even gave her an extra buck to help with fares on the six buses she’d need to take to get there.
Maybe it was the deliciously overpowering taste of the fish sauce and the fact that Ildefonsa oddly decided to cut them into eight uniformly rectangular slices before serving them to me, but they just didn’t taste like orange roughy. But she insisted, in her angry broken Germ-glish, that it was orange roughy. As much as I personally dislike the woman and constantly threaten her with deportation (more to scare little Kayla when she doesn’t behave), “Fat Frau Blucher” as I call her (she doesn’t get it!) has a good heart. She tells me it was Mr. Whisker’s birthday and that was why I found this box in the garbage…
…along with all the breading she patiently scraped off. (Damn cat’s apparently allergic to gluten now.)
Well, we all had some fun, but the booze is wearing off so I think we’re done here for now. Also, it’s just now occurred to me that we usually celebrates the pets’ birthdays along with the kids’, all on one day, December 25, every other year. Huh.
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One Fine Day In the Meeting Room of the Discount Breakfast Cereal Company!
“Awright you two, the boys in Research & Development have given us a great new sweetened multi-grained cereal – now it’s up to us to design the packaging!”
“Okay, boss – what’s the flavor?”
“Good question, Jones – it’s ‘honey oat.'”
“Well, I think we should really focus on the flavor and—-”
“—-Flavor, schmavor! Jones, you and your half-baked ideas of package design! What I want to know, boss, is what’s the cereal shaped like?”
“Let’s see, Wilson – they’re, eh, little rings.”
“That’s it! Perfunctory nod to the flavor (keep Jones happy) – but clearly we need to highlight the shape.”
“Sounds good to me! We’re done here! Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, everyone?”
See, the word for the shape is bigger than the words describing the flavor, which is what most people would be concerned with.
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“For God So Loved The World…
…that He gave His only begotten son.”
He gave his only begotten son eight fingers is what he gave him!
Oh, sure, impose on Him to change water into wine for your party, no problem; see if He wouldn’t mind raising the dead for you, it’s done. But ask Him what size Isotoners he wears so you can get him a little something for Christmas, and suddenly things get awkward.
Look, I know it’s not unusual for cartoon characters to have only four fingers per hand, but when that cartoon character is based on a real-life celebrity, in this case the Christ, shouldn’t you go the extra mile and draw that fifth digit?
While I’m at it – since I’m going to hell anyway for mocking not only the Lord himself as well as the perfectly reasonable artwork by some anonymous artist out there who can draw better than me – while I’m at it, what’s up with this?
The open-palm bent-pinky gesture, that is! Why do so many cartoonists do this? Is it just a little artisterly pretension? A cartoonisterly affectation? Jesus’s other hand doesn’t look that way. Or is that the point – to mix things up a bit, you know – break the fingeral monotony so the two hands don’t look identical?
Or does Jesus suffer from early onset rheumatoid arthritis and it’s painful to unbend that pinky?
Now I’ll be the first to admit that I used to draw the open-palm bent-pinky gesture, or OPBPG, myself, but in my defense, I learned it by watching you!
And by “you,” I don’t mean you, but rather the output of pretty much everyone at Archie Comics, from Bob Goldschwartz to Stann Montecarlo as well as the entire stable of Harvey Comics artists, none of whom I know by name. (Don’t worry; neither do you.)
Look! Look!
They all used it! They all used the OPBPG! Why? Why?!
Who holds their hand this way?! It’s not easy! Try it! No, go ahead – try it!
If you’re like me you’re just going to end up with finger cramps and stigmata.
Ted Parsnips
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