Reading the cereal box

I eat lunch alone almost every day. I think it's okay to eat lunch alone in public, it doesn't carry the same stigma that eating dinner alone does. If you see an adult man wearing a sweater and a mustache eating a plate of beef and potatoes all by himself at Denny's, and it's DINNER time, you should always call the police and report a suspicious person. Just to be on the safe side.

Anyway the problem with eating LUNCH by yourself is that you don't know where to look while chewing. At the Wegmans cafe there is this TV close to where they keep the toys and during lunch it usually has Dora the Explorer on it, so I have to act interested in that. I am beginning to learn things about that show, such as that there is a monkey on it. I look forward to seeing the monkey more than the other characters, I can't deny it.

Mighty Taco is a good one because they give you a placemat with some kind of very wordy cartoon. There is a lot to read and look at. Everyone is eating tacos in the cartoon, and you're eating tacos too, and the whole place smells like tacos. It is downright taco-mania in there.

Now the one other place I ever go is the mall food court. It is a rarity, but every couple of months I like to go to this Greek place for coffee and a gyro. Everyone else is in line at either Arby's or Subway, I guess just out of habit. I do not understand this. The Greek place is RIGHT THERE, with better food that's priced about the same, and what look to be actual nice friendly Greek people are happy to make it for you. They are very clean and do not wear uniforms.

So I get the good food but then there is again this problem of eating alone and not knowing where to look. All they give you to look at is this table tent. It has a smiling man on one side, and a smiling lady on the other side. So I always turn it to the lady side and stare at her while eating. I wonder what her name is?

I remember that when I was a kid eating cereal for breakfast I would always want to read the back of the cereal box. Most other kids did the same. If you got tired of having to read the back of the same cereal box too many mornings in a row, you would get desperate and start reading the nutritional information instead. I was very impressed with the iron content in "Total," it made me feel strong. Or else I would look at the front of the box real intently, really analyzing the artwork. I remember staring Toucan Sam in the eye for a long time until I almost started freaking out.

The cereal box was also a good means of defense that you could use to not have to watch your brothers and sisters eat cereal, too. Everybody ducked their head down real low while eating, reveling in that little sanctuary of cereal box privacy.

But the thing with the lady on the table tent is, after probably having spent the totality of an hour looking at her over the past year, I still have no idea what product or business she is meant to advertise. I think it's something like eyeglasses, but she doesn't wear those! Earrings maybe? It's something that goes on your head.

But since I can't say for certain I would like to go on the record stating that table tents do NOT work. They are too small and there is no shield factor. So I say start putting cereal boxes on the tables in diners and cafes instead. Everyone would read them. and a cereal box is pretty big, so there would be plenty of room for advertising space. This idea is a MONEY-MAKER.

Until then my other idea is to start carrying around a Wall Street Journal. I can pretend to read it. That kind of newspaper is small so you can easily read it with one hand while eating with the other hand. Or maybe I should go to the track and get a racing form instead. That would probably be more believable.

Here is everything I thought about lately

Some football stadiums have fake grass. a good invention would be artificial sand. It would look and smell like regular sand, but it would not get all clumpy on wet feet. You could keep it around your swimming pools and bathtubs. The sand would also be safe for children to eat, but it would not taste good. Kind of like Play-Doh.

The board game "Clue" really took liberties with the concept of weapons. Has anyone ever robbed a bank with a candlestick? Don't even TRY to get on an airplane with a ROPE.

If you are drinking coffee in a restaurant, a waitress will frequently come over to "top you off." It's like being on a sightseeing tour where they keep taking you back to the beginning, but you still have the option of finishing it whenever you want. Usually seeing or drinking the beginning of something about four times is enough.

Whenever I hear someone described as being a "philanthropist," I always spend the first two syllables thinking the person is gonna say "philanderer." Then the next two syllables are such a let-down. That must be why philanthropists are regarded as being so boring.

The army says you can't ask people if they are gay. I want there to be other forbidden questions. "No asking somebody if they have a favorite bird." "Don't ever ask a guy if he ever had a paper route."

You only cook certain foods over a campfire using a stick. It's always low-grade stuff, hot dogs and marshmallows. That way you don't care if it gets dirty or falls in. It was essentially garbage to begin with. If you get really good at it, I think you should try some other things. "Look at this nice toasty French bread pizza that I am COOKING over a FIRE." I also wonder if there's some elite camper that makes a cool shish kabob out of hot dogs and marshmallows.

a lot of people quit jobs by making an announcement. If you make a lot of money, like the President or a football coach, you hold a press conference and quit your job in front of the whole world. If you make hardly any money at all, you create a little scene just for the benefit of anybody that happens to be in the room. Some kid at Burger King "I'M SICK OF THIS BULLSHIT!" Then he throws down his visor and storms out. People with middle-of-the-road jobs don't tend to quit a lot. a dentist never puts his drill down all like "FUCK this." a UPS driver never gets on a microphone saying "I will no longer deliver packages."

Denny's used to give you a free breakfast on your birthday. Some silly place like White Castle or Quiznos should give you a free meal if you decided to quit your job that day. After eating you can fill out an application.

Vincent Van Gogh was a great painter, but then he cut his ear off because he felt tormented by a woman. I want a house painter to do that. "I am passionate, too."

You can't pull off a surprise party unless you can get somebody to walk into a certain room at the right time. I want to be really good at surprise parties. That's why I hold so many practice runs.

"Hey go in there for a minute."

"Why?"

"Please just do it."

"Okay."

The miners are RESCUED!

Something went right for once. There was a mine disaster and none of the miners were killed. That's like a Christmas tree fire that somehow spares all the gifts, or a pizza oven exploding but the pizza still turns out okay.

How can we prevent future mining accidents? Well first of all I think that people should STOP GOING INTO MINES. It's 2010. You can't eat peanuts on an airplane or smoke a cigarette at the bank but you can still go into a mine. That is not correct. There are enough computers and robots and underground-loving animals around that we should be able to figure out a different way.

and I know that a lot of miners will argue "but that is the only way we can earn a wage!" That's just negative thinking. Doesn't a willingness to work in a MINE seem like it would carry with it a good deal of optimism? Are there miners that are all like "I'm never gonna find anything down here! This is HOPELESS!" So think of it that way, guys. You're not just job-hunting, you are mining for WORK.

Miners from West Virginia may have a more difficult time finding jobs since many of them lack reading abilities and teeth but for those people there is always the Sears Blue Crew.

Now let's get to what EVERYBODY wants to talk about and that's this guy with the mistress. The mine caves in, 32 people are afraid for their lives and just this one other guy is thinking "ohhhhhhhh shit, that bitch better be cool up there." a lot of marriages run into problems when a wife goes through her husband's cell phone or finds condoms in his wallet. This guy was apparently golden in those areas. I guess he never accounted for the possibility of his wife showing up at a candlelight vigil being hosted by the mistress. Was there a CATFIGHT? How badass cold would it have been if the wife sent her wedding ring down to him in one of those blue tubes?

Finally I thought it was commendable that people clapped and cheered EVERY TIME one of the miners was raised up. You would think it would be like when they hand out the diplomas at high school graduation. Everyone is all enthusiastic at first but by the 50th or 60th kid they're sick of it. "Robert Nathan Hall? I never heard of THIS kid, hmmm.........don't think I'll clap." "Stephanie Anne Hancocker? Bet everybody makes fun of THAT name. Keep movin', sister."

My FREE GIFT from DirecTV

Well what do you know? According to an e-mail I received, it has been a full EIGHT YEARS since I became a subscriber to DirecTV. They said they wanted to thank me for being a valued customer and notified me that my loyalty would now be rewarded in the form of a FREE GIFT.

(Yes, a FREE GIFT. As opposed to all those GIFTS you receive and then have to PAY for.)

I would like to say that, over the past eight years, I have been very happy with the DirecTV service. Yes it is expensive, but so is all television, whether it's satellite or not. It's just a thing now that you can't watch TV in 2010 unless you pay a LOT of money.

See television doesn't work like other bills that you pay for your house. If you left the bathtub faucet running for an entire month, your gas and water bills would be thousands and thousands of dollars! But if you keep it mostly off, you can pay a much smaller fee. TV ain't like that. You could forget to use it for a whole year and they would still charge you the same rate as if you left it on the whole time. It's kind of like car insurance. You pay just in CASE something happens, but instead of an accident or injury you are paying a lot of money in case you feel like watching Comedy Central.

I don't have a calculator handy but I would estimate that in paying eight years of DirecTV bills, I have probably spent the equivalent of what it would take to start a small business, purchase one of the motorcycles that older men like to look at on calendars, or get a passenger seat on one of those upcoming civilian trips to the moon. But this e-mail I got the other day, with its promise of a FREE GIFT, seemed to validate my continuing support of the undisputed leader in satellite television service. What would it be? a free equipment upgrade? a new, thumb-friendlier remote control? I scrolled through the message, my eyes like heat-seeking missiles in pursuit of the exact details of this exciting treasure DirecTV had selected to thank me with. and finally they locked on the information in question:

1 FREE DIRECTV CINEMA MOVIE

NO STRINGS ATTACHED! (What would you attach them to?)

They recommend either Iron Man 2 or Sex and the City 2.

I have been invited to log into my account for more details on the free $5 movie. They also say that my OFFICIAL notification about the free $5 movie will be arriving in the MAIL shortly. I hope it's a registered letter, all with forms to fill out and such.

But assuming it's a postcard I am just gonna write "CRAPPY GIFT - NO THANKS" on it and mail it back. Like those sassy waitresses that bust out the "Sir, I think you forgot your change!" routine on bad tippers in restaurants.

Kiss my grits, DirecTV.