Your Neighbors

If you live in an apartment, you spend a lot of time trying to solve the mystery of what's going on in your neighbor's apartment. Every day, you get a new clue. On Monday, you can hear an argument, but you can't quite make out what anyone is saying. You think, "Did he say 'this company is losing money,' or 'Three's Company is really funny?' Did she say 'do you understand this alibi is awful' or 'it's your two hands that are all in my popcorn. The words 'awful' and 'popcorn' sound the same when you're listening through a wall." Another day, you see the husband walking into his apartment, and he's holding a giant tub that's labelled 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.' A week later, there are some scratching noises coming from their apartment, and you can also hear a chicken clucking. Then the next day, there's a package at their door, and the return address is from Des Moines. And that's when you come up with a unified theory. "OK. So, the margarine is what they put on the popcorn which is manufactured by their money-losing snack food company in Iowa. As for the chicken, it lays golden eggs any time it watches a funny episode of Three's Company.  Like the one where Mr. Furley throws a pie at Mr. Angelino." But then the next day, your theory is disproven when you can see inside your neighbor's apartment, and the chicken is standing there eating the margarine while watching Gilligan's Island.

Sports Trivia Grandmaster

I have a friend who's one of those sports trivia grandmasters. You watch a game with him, and he starts giving you the players' biographies. The TV announcer says, "And Roethlisberger takes off, and he picks up the first down." And then my friend adds, "This is the first time in Roethlisberger's career that he's rushed for over 100 yards in one game. He usually has a 'pass first, run second' mentality--which makes sense, considering how he weighs 247 pounds and 14 ounces." What impressed me most about that statement was not my friend's thorough knowledge of Ben Roethlisberger's rushing stats. It was the fact that he knew Ben Roethlisberger's weight in pounds and ounces. I mean, when you know how many ounces someone weighs, it's usually because you gave birth to him yesterday. "OK, Mr. Henderson. Breathe in, breathe out, and give me one more push. OK. He's out. It's a quarterback. Good job. Give me a second to cut the cord. And now let me weigh him. OK. He's a little bit heavy. 247 pounds and 14 ounces." "Should I put him on diet?" "No. Just make sure he has a 'pass first, run second' mentality."

Supermarkets

Supermarkets are confusing. How come every time you walk into one, they have lots of alfalfa in stock? Who exactly is that alfalfa for? Over the course of my life, I've seen people eating Cheetos 15,000 times. And I've seen people eating alfalfa once. I was driving through Albuquerque, and there was a shirtless man in a purple cowboy hat standing at a bus stop and eating alfalfa. He's the only person in America who buys alfalfa. But for some reason, every supermarket manager in the country keeps on telling his employees, "Put in another order for alfalfa. We gotta replace the old alfalfa with some new alfalfa."

How come the shoppers in a supermarket are so protective of their shopping carts? They're always standing near them, and guarding them like maniacs. They act like everyone else is thinking, "As soon as he reaches over to grab a box of Fruit Loops, I'm gonna take his cart and head straight for the Mexican border. After all, Safeway has no jurisdiction in Tijuana."

Sometimes I shop for groceries at a small ethnic grocery store one block from my home. It's a great place--except there are a few products with misspelled words on the label. You see that a lot at those kinds of grocery stores. One time I came across a container of cinnamon--only the label spelled it "cinemon." I would love to hear the story behind that one. I guess the owner of that company was working on the label, and he thought, "Um. I'm not sure how to spell this word. Should I look it up in a dictionary? No. That's not my style. I'll just put down C-I-N-E-M-O-N. That's probably over 50% right. That's all people demand out of the food they buy. Semi-correct spelling. As evidenced by the success of products like 'Korne Flaiksss' and 'Lo Faat Millck.'"

YouTube Comments

Isn't it weird how any time a conversation takes place in the comments section of a YouTube video, the conversation eventually mentions a bunch of topics that have no relevance to the video? It's amazing. You're watching a video about a guy in Arizona who makes cactus juice for a living. There's a comment that says, "Cactus juice tastes really good." Then someone else replies, "You probably also think Obama's elbow tastes good." Then the first guy says, "That comment was homophobic and racist, and also, you sound completely brainwashed by the 14 Jews who control the media." And you read all that and think, "What the hideehoheck does all of this have to do with cactus juice?"

Gifts

Sometimes people give you gifts that have absolutely no connection to who you are and what you like. Just out of nowhere, some guy hands you a loofah. "Merry Christmas." And you're thinking, "What the fuck does he want me to do with this?" It's like he's trying to change you into the type of person who loofahs his calves, takes bubble baths, and listens to Yanni's greatest hits. When someone gives you a gift like that, it's like he's saying, "I don't like who you are. I like people who listen to Yanni. This loofah is part of my plan to change you into the world's number one Yanni fan."

The Government

Here's the main thing you need to know about the government. 

Let's say you eat Chalupas all day, you call the President a butthead, and you put out a YouTube video that's titled "F the Government, F the President, I Like Taco Bell." What'll the government do? Nothing. They won't tell you to take your video down, and they won't tell you to eat less Taco Bell and more servings of fruits and vegetables. The government won't do anything at all. 

Now let's say you don't do the stuff I just mentioned. Let's say instead of all of that, you eat a dozen carrots a day, you save the President's life, and you owe fifteen cents in unpaid taxes. What'll the government do? Well. At 3:00, the President will thank you for saving his life. And at 3:15, Uncle Sam will choke you with an American flag, until five nickels pop right out of your rectum.

What's my point? The love of money is the root of all government. The official policy of the government is "give me my money and get back to work, bitch." Are you sure Uncle Same is your Uncle? He sounds more like your pimp. At the IRS, they secretly refer to all taxpayers as ho's. They tell each other things like, "There's some ho in New York who be hiding lots of cash from us. Let's notify our Department of Open a Ho's Purse and Take That Ho's Money."

We pay taxes, and the government spends money. They don't spend it very efficiently. Or, to put it more specifically, the government wastes more money than than the Kardashian family. And they put out an annual report that says, "We spent $5 trillion on the military, Social Security, welfare, health care, a lot of cheap corn, an occasional rocket to the moon, and PBS specials about llamas and Lorenzo de Medici's favorite pasta dishes." How does all of that add up to $5 trillion? I think we need to hogtie Uncle Sam, and drop him off at Walmart. Do you know how much you can get at Walmart for $5 trillion? You can run 10 Americas with that money, and have enough left over to buy 315 million bald eagle sleeveless t-shirts.

Last year, instead of sending the IRS a $10,000 check, I sent them a $10,000 Walmart gift certificate. That's the correct way to make the government spend money the right way. My Uncle Sam is Sam Walton, and not the guy who hangs out at the IRS and calls everyone a ho.

Oreos

Let's talk about Oreos. I have a long, storied history with them.

When I was a kid. I didn't eat Oreos. Because I'm Jewish. And in the 80s, Oreos were blatantly anti-Semitic. In other words, they contained lard. As in, pork fat.

There was, however, an alternative to Oreos. It was stocked in every supermarket. It was something that resembled an Oreo. Only it went by a much different name. It didn't have a three vowel one consonant scheme, the way an Oreo does. No. This cookie has two vowels and four consonants. And not just glamorous consonants, either. Oreo just uses a fancy, sophisticated consonant known as an R, and then calls it a day. But the Oreo alternative I'm talking about--it has an X! An X! In a snack food name! What kind of a sick individual names a snack food, and includes an X in the name? I'll tell you who? The individual who created a cookie known as Hydrox. 

Hydrox! I kid you not. That's the name of the cookie. How is that a name for a cookie? It sounds more like the name of a musician who's not sure if he does heavy metal or polka. "Are you going to the Hydrox concert?" "Certainly not! I don't do drugs. And even if I do, I don't do the specific combination of drugs that makes me want to pay $50 to hear Hydrox live."