Man I’m a dork.

I just ordered a “Thai iced tea” at an Indian restaurant, and didn’t realize my mistake until several minutes later.

They brought me one, but it was probably a bit heavier on the spit than the traditional Thai recipe generally calls for.

Despite what my little Harry Potter map shows, we are spending the weekend at the coast, in Lincoln City, OR.

The hotel at which we’ve chosen to stay is pretty crappy, but that’s part of the reason we’ve always opted to stay there. It’s cheap, right on the beach, and tucked away off of “the main drag” that makes up Lincoln City.

This time, however, we’ve found it too be just a bit too cheap for a variety of reasons.

Last night we could tell that the people on the left were watching “CSI: Miami,” not because we could hear the TV (well, we could hear the TV, but having never seen “CSI: Miami,” we wouldn’t know it from “CSI” or “CSI: Lancaster, PA¹“), but because we could clearly hear them say “Ooh! Let’s watch ‘CSI: Miami!’” in an only slightly louder-than-normal voice.

There is no fan in the bathrom, meaning you either have to suffocate in shower steam, or open the window — the window that is at eye level for anyone who needs to walk by. Everyone needs to walk by. The lack of fan in the bathroom gives those of us with constantly-ringing ears an extra bit of poop-shy that we really don’t need. Also, tiiiiny round bowl. Also, 3/4 grit toilet paper (not that I’ll be needing that…)

Highlight of the trip so far: while the neighbors were watching “CSI: Miami,” they kind of argued a little over something I couldn’t make out, and then the guy said “Would you pleaaase get your finger out of my ass?

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1: Watching Jebediah, Ezekiel, and Sarah use turn-of-the-century forensic techniques (such as “dusting for dust”) to determine who tainted the funnel cake batter, which buggy-racing teens were responsible for the hit-and-run homicide, and whether or not that collapsed rocking chair was foul play might just get me to tune in. (Call me, Jerry!)

Dear Mr. Progresso, Marie Calendar, Wolfgang Puck, Bruce Campbell, Emeril (and Andre¹) Agasse, and all the other soup manufacturers,

I like chicken soup. A lot.

The most convenient form of chicken soup for me is, more often than not, from one of your vibrantly-labeled cans.

While you’ve made quite a few advances in canned soup technology in the last few years, (pop-top rings are awesome!) one of the biggest problems still remains to be solved: the chicken in your soup sucks. Dry, chewy, flavorless zombie chunks mingle with the tasty vegetables and flavorful broth, essentially ruining an otherwise delightful soup. More distressingly, this is leaving our nation’s bountiful chicken flocks depressed at the thought of giving their lives for this terrible purpose.

See, chicken soup is only good for the consumer’s soul if all the chickens are contributing their souls to the soup. This can’t happen if they feel the inherent purposeless in living only to contribute zombie chunks to otherwise-tasty soups. Those clinical trials you’ve been running? The ones that are not returning the “good-for-your-soul” data that you expect them to? You aren’t getting quantifiable results because you are eradicating their flavorful life-essences before they get a chance to even become part of the soup.

My suggestion? Skip the zombie chicken, instead putting in more vegetables and a more-flavorful chickeny broth. Vegetables and better broth are bound to be less expensive than whatever magicks the zombification process entails, leaving you with a cheaper, more pleasant soup. And chickens without the soul-draining ennui that keeps your soup from being verifiably “good for the soul.”

If you could please let me know when these changes have been made so that I can start buying your soups again, I’d much appreciate it.

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1: I’m inferring the involvement of Andre based on the perfectly square chunks of potatos present in most of these soups. What besides a swift, forceful BAM! with a tennis racket could create such chunks?

Two questions should anyone feel like answering:

1) When you were waiting with the unclean masses to get your (Wii, PS3, Phantom of the Opera tix, Gov’t cheese, whatever) were you waiting in line, or waiting on line?

2) What state/city do you live in?

I’m trying to figure out just where the line is if you were to look at a map.

Thank you.

In case you’ve ever dismissed proper hyphenation as an unimportant aspect of writing, I submit these two examples:

“I was attacked by a bi-polar bear. Luckily his mood swung, leaving him too depressed to do much damage.”

“I was attacked by a bi polar bear. I’ll never be able to sit down again. Neither will my wife.”

As you can see, the hyphen is incredibly crucial to the meaning of those two sentences.