This week: Lemons Edited by: Robert Waltz More Newsletters By This Editor
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When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.
― Cathy Guiswite
When life gives you lemons, chunk it right back.
― Bill Watterson
When life hands you lemonade, don't try to make lemons.
― Vince Guthrie |
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Life gave me lemons the other day.
Well, by "life" I mean "Instacart;" by "gave" I mean "sold;" and by "lemons" I mean two actual small yellow oval citrus fruits.
I get my groceries delivered because a) I'm lazy b) I don't have a car and c) the nearest grocery store is a half mile away, but it sucks, and the nearest good grocery store is half a mile past that one.
99% of the time, I get what I ask for, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. But sometimes mistakes happen. I'd ordered navel oranges. While oranges and lemons are both firmly in the category (as per my last newsletter, everything has a category) of citrus fruits, oranges and lemons have little else in common. I mean, I can understand subbing lemons for limes, for example; both are perfectly good drink garnishes. But oranges? Sure, you can garnish with them, but I wanted to peel and eat them. You can eat lemons if you want, but then you become a sourpuss.
Receiving the unexpected lemons in place of the oranges I was craving led me to remember the old saw about making lemonade. Lemonade is, as I understand it, composed of three ingredients: lemon juice, sugar, and water in two different phases (solid and liquid).
And I don't usually have white sugar in the house. It happens that I have a bit now, because I had been experimenting with simple syrups for drinks that would eventually need a lime or lemon garnish, but normally, I only use brown sugar, honey, or maple syrup. Something about simple vs. complex carbohydrates; whatever. Point is, you need white sugar to make lemonade. Also, two lemons would barely make a single glass of the stuff.
So I got to thinking, as writers sometimes do, about worst-case scenarios for when life hands you lemons. Something like the following text message exchange, for example:
Sweetheart? Life just handed us a bunch of lemons.
Can you pick up some sugar? I'mma make lemonade like they say you're supposed to.
There's a whole container in the pantry, honey
Ew. No. *Someone's* been dipping the wet coffee spoon back into it again
So?
So that's disgusting and we need clean sugar.
Walworld is out of sugar. Something about supply chain issues. I'll try Kreuger.
Cupcake? Why is there no ice in the freezer?
I made a pitcher of margaritas yesterday.
Why is this the first I'm hearing about this? And why didn't you make more ice?
Because I didn't tell you, and because I was too drunk to remember.
That explains why we're out of salt. Wait, are you driving?
Yep.
Well *when you're done driving* maybe you can explain to me why there's no water coming out of the faucet.
I might have spent the water bill on tequila and Cointreau.
YOU WHAT?
Relax. Tequila's fifty percent water. Good news! Kreuger has sugar. Sort of.
Sort of?
It's brown. Hey, they have the good beer here, too.
DO NOT BUY BEER WHEN WE CAN'T PAY THE WATER BILL
ALSO YOU CAN'T MAKE LEMONADE WITH BROWN SUGAR
hey
HEY
PULL OVER AND TEXT ME BACK DAMMIT
THAT'S IT. You'd better be dead because otherwise I'm divorcing you.
Anyway. The actual point here is, when life gives you lemons, sometimes you just can't make lemonade.
And it's always someone else's fault. |
No lemons here, just funnies:
| | Feathered Evil [13+] #2269620 They're out there. Poem of too many words and too many lines. (Don't take it seriously...) by s |
[I couldn't resist featuring those last two back-to-back.]
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Last time, in "It's Classified" , I talked about how humans love to categorize things.
NaNoNette : As a parent, I always called small tomatoes "tomato berries." Gets them to eat their vegetable/fruit/berry.
As to beer, it's clearly liquid bread. Just ask Bavarians.
And I call eggs "cackleberries," but that doesn't mean they're a vegetable.
Beholden : I find Armin van Buuren's reasoning to be faulty at best. It is precisely because we are not animals that we name and categorise everything. No animal ever saw another animal and thought, "Ah, a member of the felix felix genus, I believe." They have two options on what to think of a new animal: either "Ah, dinner is served," or "Run!"
As humans, we are still obeying an initial order that God gave Adam: to name all the creatures of the earth. The act of naming and categorising reduces the terrors of new things, placing them in common with others of their ilk which are already known and assessed for their use or danger. It reduces things to a sensible size with which we can cope and allows us to survive in an active and changing environment.
Who the heck is Armin van Buuren anyway? Don't answer - I already googled him.
I didn't. I just saw a quote that fit the newsletter and shamelessly copied it.
So that's all for me for August. See you next month! Until then, don't take any lemons, but...
LAUGH ON!!!
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