Get out!

So, I'm a bit of an overweight guy. I'll admit to that. Yeah, I'd like to be skinny, but I just like food too much. It's a problem. I mean, I have a sweet tooth, a weakness for Doritos, and impulse control issues. These make for a bad combination. 

I love all sorts of food. Growing up, you'd have thought I'd have starved myself out by now, as I was a super picky eater, but that's really not the case any more. I like most stuff, and I married a woman who is a fantastic cook. That really doesn't help my waistline at all, but I certainly won't complain. It really is delicious food she makes.

What bugs me though, is that some of my favorite foods leave behind an unwanted gift. I'm not talking about the bad breath from garlic bread, or the residue you feel on your teeth after you eat too many Starbursts.

I'm talking about things that get stuck in your teeth.

Apples, corn on the cob, meat, and worst of all... popcorn. 

All of these tend to get something stuck in my teeth. I love each of these foods, but there is a high liklihood that I'm walking away from them with a bit of it stuck between my chompers. Corn on the cob is pretty easy to deal with, and I'm able to get it out after a minute of picking at it with a fingernail. Yeah, I know that's gross, but it's what everyone does, right? 

Oh, right... and I'm the gross one?

Apple peels are a little worse. They tend to get lodged in my front teeth, where people can see it. That means if I don't get it out, and I'm forced to talk to someone, they are going to be staring at that bit of peel stuck between my teeth. Immediately, everything I say goes in one ear and out the other, as their whole attention is focused on that bit of red stuck in my incisors. Also, I have to actually spend time trying to work it out from where it's wedged. It doesnt come out easy. Dang

I love a good steak. I love a good pork chop. Barbecue chicken is delicious! All of these have a problem, though. They all tend to leave behind little strings that find their way into the nooks between my back teeth. I don't know what the proper term for the teeth are. They are behind the canines, but in front of the molars. You know which one's I'm talking about. Yeah, I get little bits of meat stuck in there, making me look like a caveman. The worst part is, these strings are thick. When they get stuck, they are actually pushing the teeth a way from each other. It's so uncomfortable! I've had braces before, and the guy shoving metal into my mouth had to put spacers in between a couple of my teeth in order to get some of the tooth torture equipment to fit. Having a sliver of steak sitting between my incisors is more uncomfortable than those spacers were. Terrible. Beef jerky is the worst, because it's already dried and stringy. If I don't have a toothpick or floss available, I sit there and I'll poke at it with my tongue for hours. All I can feel is this piece of food wiggling back and forth, mocking me and my efforts to remove it from it's haven. 

But the worst... The worst of all... Popcorn.

I LOVE popcorn. I love getting it at the movies, I love eating it while doing homework, or watching TV. It makes a great snack, it's WAY cheaper to buy a box of popcorn than it is to buy a bag of chips (and the box of popcorn has multiple bags, which means more snacking opportunities), and it's much healthier than the bag of Doritos I might otherwise gravitate towards. Here's the problem with popcorn: The kernal skins. Almost every peice, regardless of it being popped or not, has a piece of the kernal skin still attached. Most of the time, there is not any problem, but when I finish a bag, whether I had a single piece or the entire bag, I find I have a popcorn kernal skin stuck somewhere in my teeth. Generally, they are easily removed and it's not a big deal, but there is one thing about them that makes them so bad. They are thin and stiff, which means they dont get between your teeth, but rather under your gums. Oooh, that's the worst. Sometimes, it's not a big deal. They slide out easily and you're done with it. Other times, though they get lodged up in there, and you don't realize it until the next day. Then your mouth hurts, and you feel this little dragon scale sitting somewhere, and you realize what happened. This little sleeper cell terrorist found its way in and made you feel normal, like nothing was wrong. Then, when you weren't paying attention, it started to wreak havoc. Arg! Get it out of my mouth! Get a pair of pliers, yank the sucker out, take it outside and beat it with a hammer! 

Yeah. It's like that.

I love food, so I don't think I'll stop eating just because of this. 

Where's my popcorn...?

Where did it go?

As a consumer, I find myself usually buying the same things when I go to the store. I purchase the same fruits, the same bread, the same peanut butter, blah blah blah blah blah list of items which I buy every time blah blah blah blah blah. I then find myself saddened when the products I like are no longer on the shelves. There are so many cool novel things out there that companies come up with that, for whatever reason, are massive market failure. One of these is Pepsi Blue. For whatever reason, that was a massive market failure. I never had it, so I couldn't personally tell you. But there are others that were extremely good (in my opinion, of course) and I'm really sad to see (or rather NOT see) leave the shelves. Like Snapple Elements. Those were delicious! And they came in these really cool bottles. I actually had a collection of the bottles going, where I had one of each element. At one point, they just sort of disappeared from stores, and I didn't even notice until someone brought them up a few days ago. Sad panda.

Squeez-its were awesome! They were the greatest sugar water a 5 year old could ask for, and the little twist off cap was just the right size to tuck between your upper lip and your teeth and act like a vampire. Of course, this was made more realistic if the Squeez-it was the red variety of sugar water. Then Koolaid had to come in with their version of the product, but with a slightly different lid. It tasted the same, but it all came down to that lid. It just wasn't as good for playing vampire, but Koolaid won the battle for shelf space, because I still see theirs from time to time. Poor Squeez-it.

Berry Berry Kix, the greatest kids cereal of all time. The only close competitor was lucky charms, of course. Normal Kix are still available, thank the cereal gods, but the berry version of the delectable cereal has mysteriously gone missing.

These are, of course, only some examples of the various products that have gone missing. There's only so much that can be done about these disappearances, but if too many things go missing, I may have to start taking out "have you seen me" ads on the side of milk cartons. I find it interesting that the products I've listed above are all food... apparently I'm hungry. Anyway, lets all have a moment of silence for the dearly departed that we will miss so much.

And then a moment of brooding for the products that, for whatever reasons, will not go away, despite their being awful. That's a different story, though.

Cake

Ok, so I grew up with my mom's cake. It is amazing cake. My personal favorite is a devils food cake that is quite heavy, but so moist and rich that it makes me drool just thinking about it. Now, on this cake, there was frosting. My mom had this really nice cream cheese frosting that she would put on the cake, and it was very sweet and rich, and also a little weighty itself. It had substance. Then, the frosting would mingle with the air, and just the outermost layer of the frosting, just half a millimeter's worth, would get just a little hard and crusty, and...mmmmmmmmm. It's a party in my mouth and more cake is invited! Oh, and milk...

Then...

There are store cakes. I will grant that not every cake is this way, but for the most part, when you buy a cake at the store, it's very light and airy. I know a lot of people like this kind of cake, but I feel like I'm not getting anything except a mouth full of vanilla air. It's gross. It cuts too easily, it's dry, and and I feel like I need a slice five times as large as usual to satisfy my craving.

And the frosting is awful.

It's like semi-liquid cotton candy. It's way too light, there's too much air, and I feel like a single tablespoon could put me in a diabetic coma. If I get one of those stupid frosting roses on my piece, I scrape it off. Too much air, too much food coloring, not enough frosting! I ordered cake, not air! If you can blow the icing off the top of your slice of cake (which I have done), then it's too light. I want substance!

Also, if you can TASTE the food coloring in your icing, you've used too much color. Blech!

Cake should not be trifled with. Unless, of course, you are cubing it and putting it in a trifle... hmmmmm