A Grumpy Curmudgeon Thanksgiving

This is one of the few holiday’s that Curmudgeons like to celebrate. It’s not everyday that you get to pig out (or should I say turkey out?) and also when it’s over have months of material to complain about. Here’s the top four reasons Curmudgeons find Thanksgiving tolerable.

1. Lot’s of food and some down right terrible from people that don’t know how to cook. This will be sure to keep you grumpy at least through the New Year if not longer.

2. Plenty of Naps because your body has to digest all that food. Also a good excuse not to socialize with anyone.

3. You get to meet those awful relatives that you only see twice a year. One down and one to go. Make sure to pay attention to what they say because you can use that material later on.

4. It’s also a day without exercise which is always good. Not that Curmudgeons exercise anyway but at least on Thanksgiving it’s not talked about.

Turkey day only comes once a year so make sure you are as grumpy as possible.

Worldwide Problems with Cranberry Sauce

Have you ever noticed how as soon as the human race figures out the best solution to something, some idiot comes along with “a better idea?” Think about Coca-Cola, a perfect soft drink. Then some idiot decided to make it better. And the company almost went broke. Now we have to put up with Coke Classic.

Same thing with cranberry sauce. For centuries, mankind has traveled to the cranberry sauce fields, dug up the cranberry sauce and shoved it into cans. Nobody knows why it comes in cans, but probably that’s how it grows. Anyway; it goes into cans. And it has to come OUT of cans, right?

Right! And every Thanksgiving, all of America gets behind the shared experience of getting the national cranberry harvest out of the cans it comes in. Like shucking oysters or corn, or getting turtles out of their shells. Or getting filbert nuts or almonds out of their shells.

The process is simple. You use a can-opener and take off one end of the can. Then you take off the other end of the can, using the same opener. Finally, you use your fingers to push the blob of cranberry sauce out of the can. Easy! Simple! What could be simpler?

Hah! Now the idiots who make cans have come up with A Better Idea! They’ve decided for who-knows-what reason, that the bottom of the cans should be rounded! There’s no lip, no seal, no nothing. And can-openers don’t work on rounded-bottom cans.

So…how are we supposed to get the cranberry sauce out of these stupid new cans? Hmm?

The Lifetime Supply Rule

When you find something you like, you’d better buy a lifetime supply because it’s sure to be discontinued! Have you noticed the increasing number of things that just…vanish? We’re very worried about speaking out loud and saying anything at all about liking something! As soon as was do, the product disappears.

Seems to me that continuity means that you find a product you like, it should continue to be there so you can buy replacements for the rest of your life. Like…for 80 years or something. It’s like seeing things on the stone walls of buildings, “In business since 1874.” Nowadays, they don’t do that since the business that builds a building likely will vanish in a year or two.

I do understand that Americans want cheap prices. We get stuff from overseas, and corporations want to keep the prices about what they’ve always been. So products get smaller, cheaper, lower quality and so forth. But wouldn’t it make sense to keep products on the shelves that people like to buy? Think about the Coca-Cola fiasco!

We don’t shop much at Wal-Mart anymore since we routinely end up with half the things on our list. The other half is out of stock, discontinued, or it’s been changed and we don’t want the “new” version. Or, the selection list has changed and our choice isn’t sold there anymore. Then too, prices are up and up and we can usually find most things cheaper at other stores.

All in all, it looks like we’re going to have to buy a 10-flat apartment building soon, just so we can store a lifetime supply of EVERYthing! What with real estate prices being what they are, we figure we’ll be able to get a nice building for about $25. Maintenance and property taxes will be the problem, so we’re working on that.

What, No More Toilet Paper At All?

Arrrrgh!! First we get shorted on the new rolls of toilet paper because it saves money. Then we can’t find what we want. Now we’re told that even IF we found what we want, we don’t have a choice anymore!

Environmentalists Seek to Wipe Out Plush Toilet Paper

It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for “soft” (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).

It’s a menace, environmental groups say — and a dark-comedy example of American excess. (Read full story…)

In the communist Soviet Union, back in the day, they didn’t even HAVE toilet paper! They used newspapers! From what I understand, they only had two, state-controlled papers and they used the larger paper because it had more pages. Instead of bailing out newspapers, one caller I heard on the radio suggested keeping the newspapers afloat by using them for American toilet paper!

But here’s a better idea. The Federal Reserve has now printed so much money (in cahoots with the US Treasury), that it isn’t worth anything at all! I was going to say it ain’t worth squat, but then realized…Hey! We COULD use it for a squat now and then! Our dollars are worth a bit less than toilet paper, so we could just do a straight conversion.

Mark Steyn provided a great visual: The Statue of Liberty holding up a roll of real, made-in-the-USA toilet paper as a symbol of our liberty, freedom of choice, and the great American spirit! I can see it now…

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

By gosh, we DO have the wretched refuse! We just need the toilet paper to wipe it up! And we DO have the homeless, everywhere, with hundreds of thousands arriving with each new cycle of foreclosures! We have the golden arches, but we could change it to “beside the half-moon door” and be all set to go. Just change a few things in the inscription.

Give us our toilet paper!

How do we clean up the environment without toilet paper? I ask you! Let’s kill a bunch of birds with one stone, and solve the global economic crisis at the same time.

War on Toilet Paper- Will make you a Curmudgeon

Just when you think it can’t get any worse the environmentalists have come up with a new plan to save the forest. They must stay up late at night thinking up ways to try to make your life miserable.

The latest news is that they are creating a war on extra-soft toilet paper. It really is enough to turn you into a grump. There are some great quotes in this article:
Fancy Toilet Paper

“Here’s an idea–environmentalists can go ahead and bypass toilet paper altogether and wipe with bark since they are so in-tune with mother earth,” suggests Meredith Jessup at Townhall.

Let the toilet paper war begin and we will wipe the slate clean:)