Sandwich Day

There used to be this fantastic deli and sandwich shop right down the street from my high school. For four years, I used to save my week’s lunch money and then, on Friday, I would walk there, get a sandwich, and walk home. There was one sandwich in particular that I fell in love with - and the only thing I really knew about it was that it was sliced chicken breast with a delicious horseradish mayo on a freshly baked bun.
When I left for college, I longed for “The Titan.” The sheer brute force of the horseradish flavor was unmatchable. So I waited and waited until I came home on my first break from college.
And the sandwich shop had closed. In fact, the entire plaza where the sandwich shop was housed had shut down.
I eventually found an alternative within the boundaries of my town, but it never matched the flavor and deliciousness of “The Titan.”
So, I decided to figure it out. Once a year, usually within the first few weeks of being home from college, I wander around the supermarket and try to piece together the sandwich I once loved.
Two years ago it was a Portuguese roll, chicken, swiss, lettuce, tomato, and pre-bottled horseradish mayo. And that wasn’t right.
Last year it was chicken, a standard hard roll, cheddar, lettuce, red peppers, tomato, and the same pre-bottled horseradish mayo. Still not right.
This year? I nearly have it right.
The only reason it was close was because, as I’m standing in line for the deli, the woman right before me asked for pepper jack cheese. I’m pretty sure I gasped loud enough that the deli workers thought I saw a hobo forcing a newborn baby to smoke crack. I had actually just realized that pepper jack cheese was the lost flavor. I also bought a bottle of straight-up horseradish, hoping that a homemade mixture would be a better version of the pre-mixed mayo I had tried for the last two years.
I, like a moron, forgot to mix the horseradish with the mayo, so it was a little TOO spicy, but other than that, it was almost exactly “The Titan.”
I’ll have to wait until next spring to try again, but at least this time I know what the right combination is. And I think that’s a suitable college graduation present.

Presidents

So a few days ago, before I left for school, I was at Target looking for a bift, which is a portmanteau for “bad gift.” A bift is a completely useless or pointless object given as a gift.

I bought phonics flash cards. I also found U.S. Presidents flash cards. I wanted them, so I got ‘em.

The last night, I was packing to return to college, and I threw the box of presidents flash cards into the suitcase I was going to check. They were still in the box, perfectly fine, when I zipped up the bag and headed to the airport. I paid the $25 checked baggage fee and handed my precious cargo off to the TSA agent so it could be scanned for potential dynamite-filled underwear (of which there were none).

My travels went off without a hitch. I was reunited with my beloved bag in the baggage claim at my final destination. I got back to my dorm room, unzipped my bag, and looked inside, expecting to see all of my clothes and other objects just as I had left them.

Nope.
There were presidents EVERYWHERE.

Somewhere between home and college, the box of U.S. Presidents flash cards opened up and dumped its contents among my fashionable garments.

Office Politics (Global Warming)

Just so everyone knows, it’s the second week of October.

You wouldn’t be able to tell by stepping outside, though. The normally brisk and chilly morning air is unusually humid and stuffy.
And by that I mean the temperature is in the 70’s and 80’s when it should be in the 50’s.

It seems that Mother Nature never got the memo about it being autumn now.

So what’s the deal? In an office, continued failure to comply with company regulations would get you fired. I think it’s time we issued Ms. Nature a warning. Another mishap like this and she’s getting shit-canned, so to speak.

Seriously, Ms. Nature. File those TPS reports or we’re going to have to let you go.

FCC what you did there.

Why do censors beep the “hole” in “asshole?” Doesn’t that seem a little ass-backwards?

Whether weather.

If rain is ‘god crying,’ then what the fuck is hail?

Well, can they?

Can deaf people recognize when their farts are going to be loud?

Wednesday night’s alright for something.

If Saturday night’s alright for fighting, then what’s Tuesday night alright for? What about the rest of the days of the week?

Stop and Think.

I woke up this morning, checked my usual stuff online, got dressed, and went to breakfast. As usual, I headed to the bookstore to pick up my daily New York Times (I wanted a good crossword to get my brain juices flowing), only to find that the bookstore was closed. I grabbed a USA Today upstairs instead. Not the best crosswords, but whatever. It’s something to do. I ended up finishing the crossword early, so I skimmed the paper. That’s when I saw this article.

I’m pretty sure everyone around me heard me face palm so loud that they actually turned and looked.

Here’s the thing. The man is the fucking president. For the last time, deal with it. We were subjected to George W. Bush for 8 years, can these kids get a break for once?

I was talking to one of my old teachers today and he mentioned that they aren’t allowed to watch the address on Tuesday. My old school district. The one I spent 13 years of my life in. Mine.

Here’s the deal. I’m going to say this one last time and if it sticks, great. If it doesn’t, I’ll see you out there with your misspelled signs and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, okay? Okay.

Ready?

1. Obama is your president. Suck it.
2. He wasn’t born in Kenya. He showed you his birth certificate. Stop.
3. Government is already in medicare. Medicare is a government-run program. Like Social Security. That’s like saying you don’t want corn flakes in your corn flakes.
4. Stop saying things are socialism if you have no idea what socialism is, and none of you do.
5. Stop, to use your word, indoctrinating your kids into whatever it is you believe. Give them a fucking chance, okay? They’re kids. They’re smarter than all of us. They don’t know what Republicans and Democrats are. They don’t care. They just want to laugh and play and maybe learn about stuff. If I could laugh and play and learn about stuff instead of working, that’s paradise.
6. Don’t pull your kids out of school because the president of our country is going to speak to them.
7. Don’t complain about it either. What the fuck does that accomplish?
8. One more time, to sum up, stop doing everything you’re doing and think hard about shit. Especially how to spell things on signs.

Pie…mmm.

Sometimes I wonder how many Americans know the first ten digits of Pi.

My moral point of view?

I just had to write on a prompt that went something like this.

My idea of the meaning and purpose of life is __________. It has been formed by __________. It seems right to me, or I justify it because __________.

Surprisingly, I had trouble getting started. I know, right? I decided it would be beneficial to everyone if I just…didn’t take this seriously.
My introduction is as follows:

As the late, great George Carlin once said, “There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.” In a way, living a moral life has a lot to do with living the way Carlin describes. Morality is based on our individual beliefs and our environments. My personal idea of the meaning and purpose of life is to live as well as you can and, every once and a while, do something that helps someone else. Briefly, the things that have formed this view include the way I was brought up and the things I have learned in my life so far. I can justify this because…well, to be honest, I can’t actually justify this, but I can always try.

My conclusion is even better. It’s where I just gave up completely on making a convincing argument.

I can’t justify why my views on morality are right. They’re just what I think. Revisiting the Carlin quote from above, there really is no present. There are things we have done and things we are about to do. As long as we balance our ‘recent past’ and ‘immediate future’ so our lives are not negatively affecting the lives of others, our morals are fine.

And that, kids, is your less on “Values and the Responsible Lifestyle” for tonight.

I’m pretty sure Howard Dean was in on this.

I got into a Twitter argument with two people today. Well, technically I got into an argument with one person and a name-calling session with the other. It all started when I tweeted about Glenn Beck’s spelling mistake. My exact tweet was:

Me: I kind of hope there was some cameraman on Glenn Beck going, “no!! that’s not how you spell that!!”

Which, to normal people, isn’t a bad comment, just a playful joust. Well, the first argument came shortly after.

UserA: @KatieEber who cares if he can’t spell. Half of America can’t spell

The content was centered more around the politics of punditry and what people with the outreach that Beck has should and shouldn’t do on air.
Well, for some reason, that person felt the need to call for backup. I’m just overwhelming, I guess.

I got bombarded with questions from another user, mostly about health care reform. I think my favorite response to one of my tweets was:

UserB: @KatieEber Aha, so you’re a communist…I mean Democrat.

I proceeded to explain that yes, ideologically I am a liberal. However, I am not a Democrat. On my voter registration, it clearly says “Independent” under party affiliation. Apparently this was too much to understand. It got to the point where I needed to get to my Shakespeare and decided to dismiss the argument with something that would make me laugh and make this user extremely annoyed.

UserB: @KatieEber You seem to be forgetting who truly runs this country. Does this ring a bell? “WE THE PEOPLE”
Me: @UserB Oh, okay then.
Me: @UserB CONSTITUTION FIGHT!!!
Me: @UserB DON’T TREAD ON ME
Me: @UserB LIVE FREE OR DIE
Me: @UserB FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO

This didn’t work, and I started to become suspicious that one of these users was actually just Howard Dean throwing a curveball at a supporter of Health Care Reform. When UserB started with the name-calling, I decided that it probably wasn’t Howard Dean, but I still had my suspicions. I was growing weary of the argument, so I decided to go directly to the source and plead with the person in charge of training these numbskulls.

Hey, @glennbeck! Call your watchdogs @UserA and @UserB off! They’re barking so loud I can’t get anything done!