Neusdruppels

I haven't posted anything in a while. There are two reasons: 1: I forgot, and b: I was in Amsterdam for two weeks. Amsterdam - a city where you can go to a Smartshop to buy hallucinogenic mushrooms, then go to a coffeeshop to buy hashish and marijuana, then go peruse the many prostitutes in the windows. Despite all this easy accessibility to things that are off-limits in the US, there is a problem if you catch a cold. What about cold medicine? I caught a cold while there. I thought that Amsterdam, being the world's foremost champion of tolerance, should provide ample opportunity for me to purchase cold medicine. Nope. In the antihistamine realm, all they have is Claritin. That's great if Claritin works for you (it doesn't work for me). In the decongestant realm, can you buy Sudafed? Hell no. All they've got for decongestant is Xylometazoline nose drops (neusdruppels in Dutch). Now I understand why my 9-month-old son hates nose drops. Interestingly enough, side effects include: risk of permanent irreversible lifelong congestion (if you use them for longer than 5 days), headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and oh yeah... coma! So in order to breathe, you walk the tightrope between coma and a lifetime of congestion. I'm guessing that's why they allow all the other stuff. They try to take your mind off of things like inability to breathe. That's why the US is still the best country on Earth. Cold medicine.

Rice pancakes

I remember as a child thinking that Uncle Ben must be married to Aunt Jemima. Meals in their household largely consisted of rice and pancakes, I imagined. I never did figure out their last name, but I would guess it may have been Kellogg or Post.

I also figured that this happily married couple was friends with Mrs. Butterworth. In fact, she and Aunt Jemima got along like pancakes and syrup. You know who they didn't get along with? Yup. The Quaker oats guy. He would always complain that they were playing their music too loud.

Loud music wasn't the only thing that bothered old man Quaker. He also had to put up with the loud-mouthed neighborhood toucan, Dig'em. Constantly running around yelling stuff like "I'm coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs!" and "They're greeeeeeat!", Dig'em caused Mr. Quaker to go insane. He would wander the streets of General Mills mumbling disjointed statements about the impossibility of extracting cream from wheat and rummaging through garbage cans looking for food and box tops. Sometimes Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima would see him when they went downtown, and he would beg for money. They just gave him Betty Crocker points instead. "How the hell can I get a drink with Betty Fuckin' Crocker points?!" he would scream, but they just kept on moving.

This is why I don't eat breakfast. It would bring back all these painful memories.

Pet peeve specificity

I have a pet peeve now. At least, I think I do. One thing I've never understood is the degree of specificity a pet peeve must have. Can a pet peeve be as general as "blue things" or can it be really specific, like what my new pet peeve is? What is my new pet peeve? It is this:

"Groups of slow-moving wide people in front of me, in stairways, who have had their perfume applied by a crop-dusting aircraft that was driven by a kamikaze pilot. "

That's really irritating. They're wide, so I can't get around them. They're slow, so the time in which my nostrils suffer is prolonged. And the stench of their $2 per quart perfume indicates that the wearer mistakenly believed that the bottle was to be completely used in a single application.

Also, blue things kinda piss me off too.

Drive-through (a.k.a. drive-thru)

At last... a forum where I can write down the stuff that happens in my head. I think some people do this so other people can read it. I'm doing it to get this shit out of my head so it can leave me alone. Holding it in doesn't help.

So...

Ladies, what is your problem with the concept of "drive-thru"? I ask in this gender-focused way because I've never seen a man have such a problem. In the genres of fast food and banking, the clever blokes who invented the "drive-thru" window had a purpose in mind: conduct fast-food or banking related business WITHOUT OPENING YOUR DOOR. How hard can it be? You drive up, slowly and carefully, in such a manner that you can open your window and conduct your business. Yeah, imagine that. Every time I need to stop by the bank and use the drive-thru, who is in front of me? The woman who has the door open, one leg on the ground, and her body oddly arched through the open car window. This is a time-consuming process, and it's painful to watch. Here's an idea: park your car and go inside.

I realize that not all women have this problem, but much like cervical cancer, it tends to affect only women. We as a society must act. How? Mandatory driving lessons that include the drive-thru experience. We all learn about parallel parking and 3-point turns in our teenage years when we take driver's education, but very little time is spent on acquiring McLunch or making deposits into our checking accounts. Until that time, maybe people like me should just buy paintball guns. "Close the damned door!" SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! Yeah.