The Quarterly Grain Report

Obligatory, Pre-Thanksgiving List-Post

WOW! This is weird. A new post for the fall season. Or, the post-Halloween,-onset-of-Christmas season. I was gonna go with a total redesign of the front page, but I figured that might alienate readers who have become accustomed to the calming blue effect of the main page. If there was any way I could've made the background bursting with lights and presents and Tim Allen I would have, but alas. Grey and Blue. Oh, and by the way, there is no error. That was indeed a comma directly followed by a hyphen for those of you who caught it back there. I'm re-writing all the rules this Christmas, motherfuckers. (That sounds like a horribly delicious tagline for the next Samuel L. Jackson holiday movie, but I digress.)

Chewy Fruit Snacks. Just to clear up any confusion, they are shaped like the fruits that they are supposed to taste like. Unless they are uniformly-shaped, like Dots, in which case they all taste the same.

Okay, now on to the real meat of the day.

Since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, we (I) here at the QGR thought the best way to get back in the groove (grove) of things would be to put out a list of some sort. Everyone loves lists. So, without further ado (adieu), we present Thanksgiving Traditions from Around the World! (in bulleted, list-form.)

• Thanksgiving tradition in the United States dates back to 1621. Early settlers of Plymouth Colony, having endured their first serious famine since arriving in the New World, gave thanks to the Native American tribes of the region. The weak Native American immune systems were thankfully unprepared for the vast array of infectious diseases that accompanied the Pilgrims to North America, and they provided the New Englanders with more than enough protein to last the harsh Massachusetts winter.
  


• Canada: Maple Leafs/Stars, Sabres/Canadiens, Canucks/Blues, Avalanche/Flames, Oilers/Predators

Does two items qualify as a list? I don't care. I have grown weary of this topic. Another thought has crossed my mind that is not entirely unrelated to the impending holiday season. That is the concept of a man who is absolutely unable to ration his milk consumption when eating a meal.

No. Not just a meal. Anything. Pie. A sandwich. Much funnier. The translation of the image in my mind to words on a screen might prove unsuccessful, but at least if it is a failure I'll have this as a reference and be able to channel the scene in my head at will.

Imagine if you will a man taking his first bite out of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He begins with the squared-off corner on the bottom left, because it is the least aesthetically pleasing to him. He chews, swallows, and moves on to the opposite, rounded corner in the upper right quadrant. To achieve symmetry. A top-heavy sandwich is even worse than a sandwich with one squared and one rounded corner remaining. He takes a small drink from a pint glass of milk to act as saliva and assist in chewing. Upon completion of the second corner of the sandwich, the man suddenly takes four large gulps and finishes off the rest of the milk in his glass.

"Dammit!!" says the man. He must now refill his glass.

He returns to the scene with a glass that is filled halfway with 1%. The man continues on to the third corner of the sandwich: the second squared-off corner. It is then time to move to the straight-edge portions that were created from the consumption of bordering corners. Each is more satisfying than the last. They are all shaped like miniature, symmetrical, breaded anvils, he thinks. The man finds himself to be very clever for thinking this. He finishes his sandwich in four more swallows, takes a large gulp of milk to top it all off, and is left with one-third of his glass still filled with milk.

"FUCK!!" he exclaims.

If only he were able to calculate precisely when, and exactly how much milk to drink, he could have lived a normal life. Instead here he sits. Clutching his one-third glass of 1% in one tight fist, a paper plate with a few crumbs resting in the open palm of his other hand, and his dead mother's head sitting limp and inattentive in his lap.

"Do you see, Mother?" the man asks rhetorically, as no answer will come from the mouth of the decaying woman. "Do you see what has become of your son?!" The man needs to lie down.

Happy Thanksgiving!

posted by Arthur Croft Yates @ 12:03 AM