'Have you looked at their lemon pepper seasoning recently? Doesn’t contain any actual lemon. ’

Sounds on program for them. Heh. I wasn’t trying to harsh you, I know sometimes spice collections are inherited and we aren’t going to throw out something handed down from our elders.

Or, maybe you are like me and you hold onto a nasty tube of garlic powder, even though there is a market literally a block away where I can get fresh garlic…

But that garlic powder is how Memaw made her I-talian bread, and that is the recipe stapled into the cupboard of my mind.

Before people freak out, McCormick and some other mainstream spices use sand (silica dioxide) and/ sawdust (cellulose) as a filler or anti caking agent.

If that doesn’t bother you, continue enjoying your pretend seasonings.

Get that McCormick out of there, then you can rebuild.

The ‘let the kid touch the hot stove’ approach.

It worked on me, but I fear other people might nurse their burns and pray that next time things will be different.My experience is different. It’s a dense urban grocer. Now that you mention it, I’ve been to Target in the suburbs where SCO was like thunder dome. A little more room for bagging, but not much. I feel so bad for the one team member dashing around checking IDs and explaining why coupons from a decade ago no longer work.

My location (different grocer ) may be privileged, because, even when it’s slow, there are two full service registers. I remember how gross it felt watching a checker at Walmart in 02 also bag the groceries because baggers didn’t exist any more.

Just do like me and replay a Homestarrunner cartoon while waiting in line. Then reference it like the 18 year old at check out knows what the crap you are talking about.

‘I’m sorry, Mergetrude, can you halp an old master gather his particles…?’

Hate to break this to you, but you are on the QTEE list and everyone is looking at your picture while they get coffee in the morning in the break room.

But we love it when you visit… (Camera cranes in for an unrequited hug.)

I have witnessed far to many people with full carts que into the self check out, and than they get frustrated when every other thing they scan throws a flag.

Bitch, SCO is for 10 items or less!

I remind my currently 20 something nephew how he would cry crinkly crocodile tears if he wasn’t given a dose of Talking Tom.

As additional pressure until the water runs red.

Man, I had around 10 gigs of vintage mp3s that is created since the days of Limewire/Napster. Uploaded it all to Google Music and lost track of the external I’d had the collection stored on. Whatever, it’s all in the cloud now.

Then it wasn’t.

I really, Really, need to back up all of my Gdocs, just in case that service ceases to be.

(I wonder if ancient crunchy low bitrate mp3s will be an aesthetic, the way that dusty vinyl or worn out tapes are?)

Yeah, they want to be able to ‘People that look like This listen to This’ so that advertisers have more options when they are locking down commercials.

Alternately, a spritz bottle with a few meters of range loaded with cheap Cheyenne/ hot pepper powder water might keep them at bay?

I’m not a local. Pissed off spicy monkeys might need an unfortunate result.

I want this, but with an irrationally large Evil Dead esque cellar, for my hobbies.

‘Is Butterbean OK?’ -Johnny Knoxville

They ate themselves alive.

Easy clean up.

This is me. I have three unfinished scifi/horror manuscripts that will probably remain so because I took so long to write them that the future I created would be a boring dystopia if it got published today.

Post apocalyptic stuff still sells, though, or stuff that is so esoteric and far in the future that it’ll be timeless for another 20-50 years.

You never see someone taking a shit while running at full speed. -George Carlin

Yeah, somebody hasn’t refreshed their browser since 2010.