Enjoyable Freshness
Did you know that TicTacs now have even more ?Enjoyable Freshness?? A perky blonde in a white miniskirt with matching Go-Go boots told me so. What she didn?t tell me, though, as she struck any number of freshness-related poses in a futuristic, egg-shaped chair, is when the hell ?enjoyable freshness? became a meaningful term, much less a quantifiable unit of measurement. How, exactly, is ?enjoyable freshness? measured? Grams? Seconds? Kilometers? Is ?enjoyable freshness? an imported ingredient, or should we expect ?Enjoyable Freshness? Rendering Plants to spring up all across America? Is it extracted from plant or animal sources? Is magic involved, and if so, good magic or black magic? I don?t want to be eating (by ?eating? I mean ?enjoying?) a mint tainted with evil, now matter how fresh it is. I tried researching TicTac?s ingredients at www.tictacusa.com, but the website makes no mention of what?s in them aside from refreshment. They do, however, have pictures and videos of the perky blonde. What is the blonde hiding? Does she know the top-secret formula for ?enjoyable freshness,? or is she merely a decoy? Or does she know too much? Will her Go-Go boots be found dangling over the edge of a back alley dumpster by a homeless person about to make a grisly discovery?

And if ?enjoyable freshness? isn?t an ingredient, per se, but rather an elusive, ethereal quality possessed by the mints themselves, which impartial panel of lab technicians and electrode-wired test subjects validated the increase of enjoyment and freshness? And is TicTac's ?enjoyable freshness? only experienced while fashionably dressed and in a futuristic egg-shaped chair? If that?s the case, why do so many prostitutes carry them? I demand answers! I demand scientists with pointers dressed in white lab coats! I want diagrams, graphs, and flow charts. I want paid testimonials of average citizens saying, ?Mmmm.?

Is making the mints larger really just a ploy to bombard us with more of the same ol? run-of-the-mill freshness, but in confusing quantities? Is this another example of the Vegas Early Bird Buffet Syndrome? Sure, TicTacs may be bigger, but now you get less of them per package. If ?enjoyable freshness,? like TicTacs themselves, is sold by weight and not volume, then there is no ?more? to be found here. And since when does a product with years of shelf life even begin to concern itself with freshness? The only thing added is another ridiculously asinine marketing phrase that makes me want to hurl my television off an overpass and into the path of a TicTac truck.

Yes, in the end, it?s all about making money with an absurdly meaningless promise, but, unlike the Catholic Church, TicTacs can?t expect to get away with it for long. They?d better be working on a better ad campaign. I?d suggest something along the lines of, ?Now with 30% Louder Movie Theatre Rattling!? I haven?t had a TicTac in years, but it hasn?t been a conscious choice. Now, however, it?s bound to be years before I can walk by them in a store without making enraged sputtering noises and causing a scene. Just ask Shawn. He?ll tell you.

Enjoyable Freshness my ass.

Resume Titles
As many of you know by now, Target no longer has me in its evil, vice-like grip. I?ve escaped with my sanity! I?m free! I?m unemployed! The specifics of my departure and a general listing of work-related gripes will undoubtedly be posted in the future?but for now the horror is too fresh and I simply can?t relive it.

And so, job huntin? I will go. Fiddle dee dee hi ho. (It?s a shame you can?t see the little dance that goes along with this.) After heavily peppering my resume with eye-catching action words (POW! BAM! ZIFF!), I was off to post it on the internet, and was then ready to sit back and let the offers come rolling in. However I hit the same brick wall in every site upon which I attempted to post my resume, and that wall looked like this: RESUME TITLE REQUIRED.

Since when do resumes need titles? As far as I?m concerned, every resume already has the same implied title: I Need a Job. Monster.com suggests that I create a resume title that "creates interest and is meaningful to you." Jobing.com cautions me to keep my title "simple but expressive." I Need a Job works for me. But I Need a Job looked clumsy and backward when compared with posted examples of outstanding resume titles, such as: King of Closing: Semiconductors/Integrated Circuits, Award Winning Graphic Designer, and CPA-Turnaround Expert.

With these simple but expressive, yet meaningful and arousing titles to inspire me, I think I got the gist of the thing. My title must be dramatic, concise, and above all else, alluring! I must entice prospective employers to say, ?Hmmm?what?s this about?? A daunting challenge, but one I accepted! Thus emboldened, I went to watch a few episodes of ?Divorce Court,? ?Dr. Phil,? and ?Family Feud.? Later on, after a nap and a grilled cheese sandwich, I came up with this list of possible titles:


Pow! Bam! Ziff!

I Typed This All By Myself!

Come Closer...Closer...

Pope's Dying Wish: Let John Work

This Isn't What It Looks Like

Girls! Girls! Girls!

Free Toy Suprise Inside!

Don't Make Me Use This

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Last Interview...

SEX! Now That I Have Your Attention...

God is My Professional Reference

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Witty, Sincere, Handsome 33M Looking For New Position

I Am A Rock, I Am An Island

I Need a Job

Ducks
Last week it was all about the ducks. Last Sunday, Shawn and I took our doggies for a walk down by the little concrete canal we have here, where ducks and geese cavort and frolic and the willow trees hang down over the water. If you ignore the apartment complexes stacked along either side, it can be quite pretty, especially in the evening. At some point during our walk, Dougal had picked something up off the ground and was playing with it in his mouth. It was dark and I couldn?t see what it was, so I had him drop it and then tied him to a tree. I went back to investigate, using my lighter for light, and found a tiny duckling writhing around on the ground with its neck broken and the back of its head missing. Aside from feeling horrified and guilty, I was thinking of a way to humanely end its suffering when it died there in front of me. I walked back a few paces, and saw several other ducklings all running off into the darkness, and one lying in the dirt and not moving. The duckling was still alive, and it wasn't bleeding anywhere. But it would not move. We had no idea what to do, so we left it there and came home to try to figure it out.



Naturally, these things always happen late on Sunday nights, when all the wildlife and rescue organizations are closed. We did some research online, and it seemed that best course was to go back and see if the duckling had left or if its mother had come back for it. We went back, and it was still where we left it, and hadn?t moved at all. None of its little friends were there either, and there wasn?t a duck in sight. I felt so awful for the little guy. We put him in a shoe box and brought him home (following instructions from a wildlife rescue website) and put towels warmed in the microwave around the box, so we could drop him off at a wildlife rehabilitation center the next day. But, alas, the duckling was dead by morning. It was very sad, he was very cute.



The next day, two full grown ducks, a male and female pair, took up residence in our swimming pool. It was very funny to see them swimming around in there, and after the winter, the pool looked enough like a pond that they seemed right at home. I chased them off with a pool skimmer, but they kept coming back. I was waiting for Dougal to dive in after them, but after having fallen into the pool two and a half times before (the last time, only his hindquarters hit the water), he seemed to have had enough. After a day or two they flew away, and we haven?t seen them since. You have to wonder if they somehow knew about the duckling. Weird.