The Worst Things For Sale

What better way to say “I have to buy you something, but I am unwilling to talk to you enough to find out what you like” than an Amazon Gift Card? Available in increments as low as fifteen cents.

One of the current gift cards is Cinco De Mayo. Who gives presents for Cinco De Mayo? It commemorates an important military victory for Mexico, sure, but that would be like a British guy getting gift cards on October 14 for the Battle of Hastings.

Yeah, go on and touch ‘er! That’s real cardboard, son. She’s a beauty. My pappy shot ‘er a few years back. Used a crossbow made out of a bic pen, a rubber band, and a paper clip.

You open the front door and begin to run outside. “Nooooooo!” you scream. But as the last “o” leaves your mouth, the Fedex man throws your $25,170 crystal chandelier over the privacy fence, and it lands with a sickening crunch.

“Free shipping, motherfucker!” he screams, and throws the Fedex gang sign up above the wooden slats.

Making fun of self-published books is like finding lonely people at an Internet forum meetup. It’s not hard, and you can end up being mean to someone who just needs a hug.

The reason I wanted to highlight the book “Caffeine Killed My Family: Best Free Cure since Jesus Christ Himself” is for the author biography. Feel free to click on the title to read the author’s explanation of how caffeine detectors can save the human race, but this is the important part:

The author [ … ] would have gotten into medical school with 4.0 average. She is an athlete. She is good at eleven sports. She can also sing.

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.