Plastic Dessert and Other Aggravation

My students asked me if I've ever eaten Dippin Dots.I have, and there's one thing you should know: Dippin Dots are not the ice cream of the future. They are an abomination thrust upon real Americans who like their ice cream pure and creamy. I'm not exactly sure what they are made of; all I know is I tried them once. Kinda taste like frozen plastic beads. Remember when beads were all the rage? My girls loved them. Bead stores sprung up across the country: rows and rows of buckets filled with colored plastic beads. Make bracelets! Make necklaces! Make dad broke! They finally went the way of Cabbage Patch Kids; all their outlets dried up. The salvage companies swooped in and held all the product in storage for the next outbreak of bead fever. But it never came. I think they sold them to a guy who owned a cryogenic lab. That's my theory, but I'm not sure. One thing I am sure of: ice cream is the ice cream of the future.

Note: where do you find the most Dippin Dots kiosks? At shopping malls! Further proof of their evil. I have a hard time with shopping malls. They emit electromagnetic waves that scramble my brain whenever I drive within a two mile radius. True story - I once drove in circles around a mall for approximately three and a half hours, completely unaware of what I was doing. I was only able to break free of it's grip when the mall closed for the evening. It's what Ufologists call "lost time." I had a lost time episode! I have no idea what transpired, but I felt violated. I tried to work in a mall once, but I blacked out my first day. They found me endlessly riding the escalators. Down one side, u-turn, back up the other side. They say I was gone for over six hours.

That wasn't my worst job. I flunked a few classes in college and had to attend summer school to make up the credits. One of the classes was a theology seminar, and since I went to a Catholic college, I couldn't just blow it off. So I took two courses at Loyola in the city. Thing was, they were night courses, so I had to work graveyard shift. I couldn't work a regular day shift because I wouldn't be able to get off work early enough to make the 16 hour commute to the city. The only company hiring a third shift at the time was a new amusement park called "Great America." That's right, the only hell worse than a mall. I watered flowers. For eight hours. Oh, I got a lunch break: Dinty Moore Stew in a can from the vending machine. My co-workers were college students, too. Most of them. They asked me what I was studying. "Oh, Augustine, Henry James." "Who?" was the only response.

"I'm taking a course at the local college," one of them said. "It's really cool; it's called Philosophy of Star Trek." Another co-worker chimed in: "That sounds like the dumbest course anyone could ever take." The first one countered with, "So what are you taking?" To which he responded, "How To Be A Better Student." I laughed and mentioned the ultimate irony if somebody managed to flunk that course. "I did," he said. "This is my second time."

By the way, amusement parks usually boast several strategically located Dippin Dots kiosks. Draw your own conclusions.

You can find Dippin Dots at most Major League Baseball parks, too. But that's okay, they have baseball there as well. And real ice cream. I like it when they scoop it into those miniature batting helmet replicas. The only bad thing about that is sometimes I fell like Hannibal Lecter when he was eating that FBI guy's brains right out of his head. Yikes. Speaking of baseball: The best hitter in major league history was Ted Williams, and guess what? His family had him cryogenically frozen. Three guesses where he is right now, and the first two don't count.

You Deserve a Break Today, or, Even Wal-Mart Gets The Blues

McDonald's recently held a National Hire Day, and I thought, is that really necessary? Well, apparently it is. Over one million were served applications for McJobs. This is a recovery? Only 62,000 were hired, by the way, out of those one million applicants. That's a 6.2% acceptance rate. Somebody pointed out that it's easier to get into Harvard, currently accepting 7% of all applicants. But that makes sense, considering that most college graduates are finding themselves slinging burgers anyway. I say skip University and go right to work. You have landed a more prestigious appointment than any Ivy League school could offer. The average state college tuition is $15,000 yearly; the average private institution will run you $36,000. Lay out that money for higher learning and wind up finding a job at the mini-mart. Save yourself the hassle: you will find yourself ahead of the game in the long run.

Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke recently fretted (yes, I used the word fretted) about a down-turn in sales, due, in his humble opinion, to the meteoric rise in gas prices. It couldn't have anything to do with the loss of jobs to cheap, overseas labor, could it? Or perhaps because more people than ever before are discovering their mortgages are so far underwater they need SCUBA gear? Wal-Mart also sees inflation soaring in the near future. It will soon cost you more to buy Indonesian sweat pants.

But that's okay, blame the unions. Yes, the same unions that built the middle class in this country. Even if you work in a non-union workplace, your wage and benefits are a direct result of union struggles. They are (were) bargaining chips played in an effort to secure your services. Several states are trying (and succeeding) in outlawing bargaining rights for public service sectors, and all hell breaks loose. "Isn't it awful what's happening in Wisconsin?" Yes, it is. Why don't we just outlaw breathing, and get it over with.

 One man walks away with 52 billion dollars, but blame the unions.  HEY! THAT GUY'S IN JAIL! WE CAN GET OUR MONEY BACK! SURELY HE COULDN'T SPEND 52 BILLION DOLLARS! WHA? WHERE'D IT GO?

No, wait: blame the teachers. Yes, teachers. I remember when I was in high school, all of my teachers made sure I knew how to run a proper Ponzi Scheme. First period, English; second period, Chemistry; third period, Fraud and sucking the soul out Grandpa's retirement fund..

Well, I suppose McDonald's will need all those new hires. Typical recession-proof businesses include movie houses, bowling alleys, and fast food. Wolf it down and then see if you can afford medical care. You deserve a break today. Have yourself a Happy Meal.