Complex Numbers

Consumer Angst

I hate those little tags they stick on produce at the grocery store. I went to get some plums today, thinking, "cool! I get to eat me some plums!" I took them back to the office and started to wash them, then noticed the sticky tags. I tried to thumb them off - no luck. I got in a little fingernail action (difficulty: I trimmed them last night); still, no luck, even when I was digging them in as if it were a nose and the tag were a booger. Nope. Finally I gave up and sliced them - along with a good amount of plum skin and meat - off with a knife, thus ruining the pristine, shiny goodness of the plum.

Bleh.

You know what else I hate? I hate that whenever you buy something from, say, Stables or Office Despot, they're so overwrapped in 5-gauge plastic that you need the fucking Jaws of Life to extract the tiny electronic contents. And woe be thee if the thing you buy is a pair of headphones, because you're guaranteed to slice through the tiny headphone wires in your frustration. And maybe your fingers, too.

While I'm at it, what the hell is up with running ads before movies? I know they need to pay for all that stale popcorn and watered-down Coke, but I didn't pay $10 to see goddamn ads. I don't have cable TV because I refuse to pay to watch ads; why do I put up with it for movies? Here's a novel idea: start charging kids and seniors full-price. It'll be worth it for me if they'd only stop showing those godawfully stupid Sprite commercials.

Well. Hell. Next time I'll just bring some juicy, overripe, tag-less plums to the movie theatre and express my displeasure in the old-fashioned way