Stuff You Can Find in Stores These Days

I went to the supermarket specifically searching for it, even though I thought I would be too late to find it on the shelves. But there it was, in abundance.

What makes these two-liter bottles of Coke so special, you ask? The yellow cap indicates something. Coke bottles with yellow caps are only out in stores in the US for one week per year: They are kosher for Passover. The difference between regular coke and kosher coke is this:

The second ingredient is honest to god sugar, instead of high fructose corn syrup. You know, like it's made in the rest of the world that doesn't have to use corn as its main sweetener. It's not as sticky, and tastes better, and most people in the know raid the stores for them the second they appear on shelves, which was why I was shocked to find them toward the end of Passover. Hooray!

The second thing I spotted was in my local comic book store, which has a large display of sports figurines from McFarlane Toys. I spotted this one of Andy Pettite.

Can you see that someone wrote "HGH" on the price tag?

I shall end this with something Jarret spotted while we were in his local CVS.

"Love dolphins, but not condoms? Problem solved by being smart like our friends of the sea. Dolphin condoms are the perfect mix of fun to play with and safe to ride. Be confident and enjoy knowing you're protected and secure in the most beautiful-shaped condom ever."

I don't know what horrifies me more: That this product exists or that someone got paid to write that paragraph about it.

The Hypochondriac's Best Friend

I've been sick the last couple of days. Sick enough to actually take off from work on Friday. I should probably take off Monday, too, but I'm probably not going to. My brother Bryan has been sick lately as well, and this weekend we had fun diagnosing ourselves with WebMD's symptom checker.

The problem with this thing is that it can take your vague symptoms and turn them into serious illnesses. For example, my symptoms probably mean I have a touch of the flu, which I am not happy about since I had my flu shot in November and I was almost in the clear for flu season. However, according to WebMD, I might have Legionnaire's disease. Or possibly West Nile Virus. Okay. Right.

Bryan (who will turn 20 at the end of this month, by the way) became obsessed with the fact that "foul smelling stools" was a symptom you could look up. He decided that he himself had foul smelling stools, and decided to see what he could have. Included on the list of things he could be suffering from were Crohn's disease or cystic fibrosis. Well there you go, people. If you have foul smelling poo, don't just light a match and spray some Lysol. Check yourself for cystic fibrosis.

Vignette

I'm sitting on the concrete steps in front of the school with the one student whose ride hasn't arrived yet. Two guys walk down the street past us.

"Hello, how ya ladies doin' tonight?" One says to us. I sarcastically say "hi," obviously not interested.

As they walk away, his friend claps his shoulder, laughing. "Yo, man, she don't give a shit about you!"

I turned to my student. "You know what?" I whispered. "I don't!"






(And...............scene.)