Italian Ice

 

Italian Ice

While it is still warm, every night Mrs. C and I share a cup of Italian Ice,  “Marino’s” Italian Ice.  They come at the store in three flavors, strawberry, lemon, and cherry.  All good, but cherry is my favorite.

We share the cup spoonful by spoonful.  I feed Mrs. C alternating spoonful’s which she opens wide for like a hungry baby bird.  If I sneak a spoonful of shavings out of turn, she spots it right away.

About two thirds of the way through the cup, Mrs. C declares she has had enough.  This is much to my great relief.  If you are a connoisseur of Italian Ice then you know the bottom third is always the best. 

I don’t know how they make the stuff, or what the science is, but the flavor syrup of the ice tends to seep to the bottom third.  The top two thirds have plenty of flavor, but the bottom is always the best.

I may be a bit selfish, so I hold my breath as the ice works its way down to the extra good, extra gooey, syrup.  Mrs. C always calls it quits before we reach the good part.

The other night I was feeling a bit guilty and as we reached the bottom third of the cup I said,

“You do know the best part of the Italian Ice is the bottom third of the cup, right?”

“Yuuck!  The bottom third is always ruined by the gooey syrup that seeps through.”

My wife has some unusual tastes, and unusual ways of doing things.  For instance, she does not eat tomatoes or garlic, and she is Italian! Even stranger, she dips her pudding and does not scoop.

I have been known to make fun of her weird food habits.  I think I will just let this strange aversion to the best part of an Italian Ice work in my favor.

FLINTSTONE FLAW

 

FLINTSTONE FLAW

Mrs. C is a very intelligent woman…no really, don’t judge by who she married, she apparently has a thing for old jerks.  Really, she is very intelligent.  She often shocks me with her knowledge of obscure “Jeopardy” questions, and yet, sometimes I wonder…

The other day I caught her watching that old cartoon show “The Flintstones.”

“Why are you watching that crap?”

“I don’t know, I used to have a “Dino” doll from the show when I was a little girl, I guess I just retained some affection for the show.”

“It was a horrible show.  After about 15 minutes the humor of everything being related to a rock was a bit stale.  Mr. Slate, Pebbles, Barney Rubble, the town of Bedrock, he worked at a quarry, etc. etc.  All those modern conveniences that were performed by different animals…very funny, for about two minutes!”

“Well I liked it, except, do you know there was a flaw in the show.”

This an example of where I question Mrs. C’s intelligence.

“A flaw in the Flintstone show?  A flaw, as in “A” single, just one flaw in a show where his pet was a sabretooth tiger, where they drove pedal cars, where a bird acted as the needle on a phonograph, where CAVE MEN SOMEHOW LIVED A LIFE WITH MODERN CONVENIENCES YET THERE WAS NO ELECTRICITY AND NO GASOLINE ENGINES, a flaw in that show?”

“Yes, there was one thing that always bothered me.”

“One thing?”

“Yes, you know what it was?”

“What IT was?  There were at least seven thousand flaws in the show!”

“One really big one.”

“Please tell me, what was THE flaw in the Flintstone Show that has troubled you for these many years?”

“You know that car he drove?”

“Yeah”

“Well the fork on the axles faced both forward and backward.  When the car moved, no matter forward or backward, one set of wheels would have to simply fall off those forks.”

“And that is what you find unrealistic in the cartoon.”

“Yup, otherwise I always like that show.”

Sometimes in a relationship you have to overlook some things, this is one of those things.

On the other hand, it was a rather poor design, how do those wheels not just slide off the forks?

While were at it,  how did that thing turn?

Crap, now she has me doing it.

 

 

Package Rage

 

Package Rage

 Did they ever catch the son of a bitch that poisoned Tylenol bottles a zillion years ago?  That prick belongs just below Hitler, Pol Pot, Jack the Ripper, and Barney the annoying Sesame Street Dinosaur in the list of world villains!

Maybe he didn’t murder millions of people, he did not force a neighborhood to live in fear, and he did not make billions of parents want to blow their “I love You” brains out, but he did create “Package Rage.”

Before this asshat made us distrust the safety of all packages, the only problem the world had with packages was removing the cotton from an aspirin bottle.  After this despicable turd tried to kill people so he could sue J and J or whatever his reason was, nothing package opening related is safe.

The other day I needed something for a headache.  I had a choice of Aspirin or Tylenol.  I chose aspirin, I still don’t trust Tylenol.

All pill bottles are now covered with a plastic that can only be removed with the business end of a steak knife.  Fingernails will not work, they break before the plastic.  A fork will not do, it does not get under the plastic at the correct angle.  Teeth?  Forget about it, rock break scissors, plastic pill bottle protectors crack teeth.

Once getting by the plastic barrier, one has to figure out the child protector code.  Oh sure, it is written on the bottle.  It is written in print that only a child can see.  Most of the child proof bottles require manual dexterity and un-arthritic fingers to follow the unreadable directions.  In short, only a child can figure out how to open a childproof bottle.

Once I get my neighborhood six year old to open the bottle for me, I now have to tackle that friggin cotton ball blocking the pills I need.  

“Kare!  Do we have a tweezer so I can get this damn cotton out of the bottle?”

“Just bought a new one, it is in the medicine drawer.”

Great, the tweezers are wrapped in that damn plastic even thicker than the bottle plastic.  Of course I cut myself with the steak knife trying to open the tweezer protecting plastic. 

I need a Band-Aid. 

Ever try and open a Band-Aid box with a bleeding thumb? 

Then the Band-Aids themselves are covered in a wax paper that requires teeth, I’m not trusting the steak knife again.

Finally, with a bandaged bleeding thumb and a chipped tooth I am able to get at the aspirin I wanted for my headache. 

Wait!  Aspirin is not good if you are bleeding, maybe I should use Tylenol instead.

Screw it, I still don’t trust that stuff, I’ll just suffer the headache.

If they caught that Tylenol bastard, I hope they locked him up and threw away the key…Or even better, gave him the key wrapped tight in sealed plastic!