In Defence of...
Correct Change, Hooters, Spam, and All-Nighters.
Posted April 1st, 2007
Using correct change By Miles Baker
When I buy anything I try to give exact change, or as close as I can get.
You’ll often see me ahead of you in line scrounging through my right pocket, failing, scrounging through my left pocket, fumbling with my keys and then finally producing a dog’s breakfast of change. Then I’ll count it and hand it to the person behind the counter.
Every now and then I’ll make an error in the math and the cashier will have to ask me for more change. And then the process repeats. I’ll do this for as long as it takes so that in the next place I won’t have any change and won’t have to fumble with it then. I’m sorry to those behind me, but I don’t want to have a leaf, sail boat, or beaver in my pocket. I’ll take that moose because I need him for laundry — but that’s it. So be patient with me, I’ll be patient with you when you use your debit card to pay for your Honey Nut Cheerios.
Sure, it's kinda sexist and demeaning and the food's not very good – hell, they managed to ruin a garden salad – but Hooters has a certain je ne sais quoi.
Where else can you have your 20-person reservation lost because "the girls just aren't that smart"? Or get the ever-classy chicken wing and champagne dinner? And where else can you throw a party that makes the majority of your guests wildly uncomfortable?
Hooters, that's where!
For a kitschy good time and 150 free chicken wings (if they lose your birthday reservation) nothing beats Hooters. Hoot, hoot!
Spam By Katherine Chung
I first became aware of food-stigma in grade school, with the discovery that SPAM was a much-mocked and maligned meat. Or "meat", as the joke seemed to be.
This created a problematic conflict of desires in my ten-year-old eyes, so conscious of shame and obstacles to social acceptability. Definitely not a stranger at my family's dinner table, eating SPAM was a heartily-enjoyed experience. And we're not even talking real SPAM here – a gastronomic delight that I didn't try until years later – we're talking inferior knock-offs. Yes, there are knock-off brands of the infamous SPAM, I kid you not. KLIK, KAM, PREM, Fancy Feast. It goes on.
Although it's the namesake of junk email, this affordable tinned meat really isn't so bad, and has been commercially successful for forty years to boot. Its ingredient list boasts surprisingly few basic items: pork, ham, spices, water, and sodium nitrite. (The latter keeps pork products pink, and you don't want to know what colour the meat would turn otherwise!) How can I turn my nose up at that when I am a self-professed lover of ground beef and hotdogs? And even though I don't generally admit to this liking of SPAM (until now!), there are many that do. There is an entire website that suggests that I am not so alone.
And so, in writing this to the world, I have publicly come to a full-circle re-acceptance of this food, and can freely carry the Monty Python banner of "SPAM, SPAM, wonderful SPAM!!!"
Staying Up All Night By Dan Taylor
The first time I got insomnia I was six years old. My father set me up on the couch with a pile of blankets and a video of the surf on the beach that he bought when we went to Florida the previous winter. “It’s soothing,” he said. “You’ll be asleep in no time.” I sat there and watched that tape six times.
Left to my own devices and no schedule, my sleep pattern always migrates from about 4 am to 2 pm, but even so I get unstoppable bouts of insomnia about twice a year. Sometimes it’s stress, sometimes it’s because I’ve quit smoking. Sometimes I just don’t know, and at this point I don’t really care. I’ve gotten used to it. God help me, I even enjoy it.
I get a lot more done during the night, it’s peaceful, and it’s somehow reassuring to know you’re experiencing a part of the day that everyone else is sleeping through. Drifting off to sleep as the sun rises, I can’t help but think to myself “Hey man, I’m living the best part of life.”
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, that shit will fuck you up! Having renounced recreational drug use as The Parasail of the Foolish Man, 2-3 days of insomnia is about as messed up as I can get without a litre of Jack Daniels’. And it’s completely free! I don’t even bother with valerian root or Sleep-Eze D anymore. Bring it on, Endless Night. This kite’s gonna soar!