If you’ve grown up in a city, eating food from groceries and restaurants, the idea of raising your own chickens might seem mystical and romantic. “Ooohhh, think of all the FRESH EGGS we’ll have! And the CHICKEN MEAT!” You’ll hug your roommate, or your boyfriend, and your glasses will touch, and you’ll tumblr about all the chickens you’re going to make.

Then you get the cute little chicken coop, and the chickens, and you find out they’re loud, and shit constantly and everywhere. It’s not “Oops, Mr. Bock-bock made a widdle doodie!” Chicken shit looks like dogshit, but it’s coated in white urea, so it looks moldy, and it’s mixed and matted down with feathers. The birds stir the food and the shit up because they’re stupid fucking birds. And then they get bored.

The fact that chickens get bored of scratching around and laying eggs and being meat is another revelation you’ll have with your romantic backyard chicken farm. The chickens get bored, somehow, and they fight, and injure each other. You have to buy TOYS for the CHICKENS so they can PLAY WITH TOYS and not hurt each other.

Oh, and they don’t cockadoodledoo either. They scream constantly, from four or five in the morning, throughout the day, and sometimes night.

Chicken meat is a few bucks a pound and eggs are even cheaper. Don’t turn your life into a hell zoo.

In the 15+ years since I owned a TI-83 graphing calculator, wifi has become ubiquitous, we’ve had four or seven foreign wars (who’s counting?) and telephones have gone from football-sized chunks of plastic with twelve pushbuttons to pocket computers with magical touchscreens.

The TI-83 has remained the same, including the price. It wasn’t so outrageous back in the day, but considering you can get a real laptop for a hundred bucks, $80 is a bit much for this piece of shit calculator that barely plays Space Invaders.

“Breakfast for two”? Sorry to burst your bubble, combination egg-fryer-toaster, but this is MAYBE breakfast for one. That’s like when you order Chinese food and they drop six sets of chopsticks and six fortune cookies in the bag like you’re not going to eat it all yourself.

The Japanese have been studying the science of cute for decades. We are helpless against their advanced technology. To prove that they control the cute receptors in your hypothalamus, they made “Mameshiba”, which is a brand of beanbags with faces. There is nothing else to it. Sure, there are some inscrutable commercials on YouTube, and a couple books that list bizarre “facts” about the Mameshiba, but there is no story here, no explanation beyond mind control.

You’re looking at this right now saying “How is this one of the worst things for sale? It’s CUTE! I might get one.” They got you too. It’s too late. Just try not to go into debt.