Things that baffle me

I’m just going to go ahead and say it. What’s the deal with individually wrapped coffee stirrers? This weird wave of stirrer prophylactics has taken hold at stores and coffee shops everywhere. I mean, I understand the concept of safe-stirring and all, but in the history of coffee, has anyone ever died because he whisked in his cream and sugar with a piece of tainted wood or plastic? The trouble is that with everything wrapped in paper, it’s hard to know what’s what. Is that a stirrer? A straw? Some type of weapon? I don’t know! Because it’s wrapped!

But that doesn’t compare

To those stupid automatic sweetener dispensers. I mean, come on. Little packets of sugar and artificial sweetener have been serving man faithfully for decades. You pick one up, give it a little shake and tear it open, dumping in exactly the amount you want in your coffee, tea or that soy-flavored abomination that you like so much. What problem is solved by switching to fancy machines that decide for you how much sweetener you should add to your beverage. Seriously, stores and coffee shops. Who are you showing off for?

McWhatsis?

I stumbled across an app the other day whose sole function was to locate nearby McDonald’s restaurants that are presently selling the McRib. The McRib, apparently, is a huge matter for some hungry folks. Frankly, I think if you put that patented “Mc” before anything these days, people are going to want to eat it. Stand by for the McTongue, the McFoot and the doubly zesty McGerbil.

I hate you all

It’s not enough that area politicians knock on your door, call you on the phone and place their gaudy signs every three feet. Now I’m getting emails from panting, excited candidates who cleverly disguise their messages as personal notes. “It’s been a while,” stated the subject line of one. “Remember me?” prompted another. I keep opening these things in hopes of reconnecting with a long lost (and super wealthy) cousin or something, only to find just another politico promising to lower taxes, take on crime and continue efforts to force coffee stirrers to wear condoms.

Mega billions

It’s funny that with lotteries now up into the billions, people are still sticking to the script when asked what they would do with such big money. “I’d continue to work,” they declare. “I’d give most of it to charity, help out my friends and neighbors and maybe buy myself a decent pre-owned Saturn.” It’s almost like people are bargaining with the universe, promising to do good works if only they might be blessed just this once with a winning combination of numbers. Nobody ever says “I’m going to buy a wheelbarrow full of cocaine, move to Las Vegas and do things that will make Charlie Sheen look like a Boy Scout. In fact, I might buy Charlie Sheen and force him to become a Boy Scout. It’s a billion dollars! I can do anything!”

Too scary

A town in Michigan this year tried to ban clowns from local Halloween celebrations. Too many people are afraid of them, the town’s trembling leaders have declared. Have we learned nothing from Hollywood? When you force clowns to hide in closets, sewers, dark cellars and the like, that’s when people start getting eaten.

You know what’s really scary?

Pictures of slushy, snow-covered roads in mid-October. They were all over the interwebs on Wednesday, coming out of towns in Oxford and Aroostook counties. I just thank God — again — that I live here in Lewiston, which is practically tropical comparatively.