I am, in general , a huge fan of late night infomercials. In particular, my favorite is by far the “Set it and Forget it” product. In case you are not familiar with this wonderful item- it basically allows you to cook like an entire cow in under thirty minutes. And the best part of all, is that you don’t even have to babysit your slab of meat, instead you can just “set it and forget it”. Of course, in their late night infomercials, the manufacturers fail to address the exact statistics with regards to the chances of your house being burned to the ground. But nonetheless, it seems like quite a snazzy product.

I am usually a fan of anything which will help me cook or clean faster. This past Christmas, I got a George Foreman Grill which cooks meat so freaken fast that I fear it may one day cook my steak before I even have a chance to remove it from the freezer. Yep, no more microwave cooking for this girl. I no longer have to live in fear of radioactive rays and such. Cause you know what, I don’t give a flying fuck what the “experts” say- the microwave is going to be the death of our generation. Years from now, a history teacher will be sitting in a classroom, telling an amazed bunch of students about how our generation used to cook food in radioactive rays! And how we didn’t even wear a lead vest or anything! In fact, we were so freaken dumb that we kept looking in the window to see if our food was ready yet. The teacher will then go on to describe how in 2025, all of our noses and ears started falling off- much to the surprise of the “experts”.

I am no fan of the microwave. Well, actually, I am not a fan of a bunch of stuff we use in our everyday lives. I mean, c’mon, all those disinfecting type sprays. They can’t be good for us. I think they did a test once with lab rats where the rats were put in a room and given spray bottles of disinfectant and the rats sprayed the bottles at each other and then they all died. Well, except for the big brown rat, but that’s just because he was already dead from some other experiment…

Anyway, my point is that that stuff scares me. Maybe, it’s because my feet burn after I spray it in the shower or perhaps, it’s because I now have fourteen toes and I could’ve sworn that I used to have only ten. What is it about bathroom cleaning products. Do they have to be quite so ummmm toxic? And yet, they still don’t really work. I guess soap scum must be some pretty strong stuff. But can’t we like extract the sticky element from soap scum and make some kind of vaccine against it- much along the lines of removing venom from a snake to make a vaccine for the snake’s bite. I sometimes play with the idea of ordering one of those “Oxy-clean” or “Orange Based” products that you always see on the infomercials. You know those “all natural”, “Mother Nature” created type products (cause you know Mother Nature hates soap scum in her ceramic shower!) But then, I whimp out, because I can’t deal with the feeling I’d get if I spread that orange paste all over my shower and then nothing happened. It would just be such a depressing portrait of how far mankind has actually failed to come…

The shower, in case you can’t tell, is a great source of angst for me. Another big problem is that I can’t get my drain unclogged. Now, I know years from now, they’re going to rip down my building and find a drain pipe with like a stuffed bear stuck in the middle of it. But I still try my best to unclog that freaken thing. I’ll pour like a whole bottle of the draino type substance down there; and then sit and wait and wait and wait for days on end without showering. But nothing! And the funny thing is that the package is so adamant about flushing the pipe with hot water after you use the product. Apparently, this is because the drain cleaning product is so strong that it might eat out your PVC pipe. Give me a break- I can’t even get it to burn through some measly hair. And I’ve tried it all. You ever see the commercial where the drain is all clogged and the liquid drain cleaner just cleans the bottom of the pipe whereas the “foaming drain cleaner” cleans out the entire pipe. The pipe goes from some crusty, rusty, old thing to like a brand spanking new pipe. Yeah, well that pipe doesn’t have a freaken bear stuck in the middle of it. And I think maybe the bear’s absorbing all the foam; cause the stuff doesn’t do a damn thing for me. Now what I’d like to see is a commercial that looks something along the lines of this…

Opening Scene: A crusty, rusty pipe with a stuffed bear stuck in the middle of it.

A liquid drain cleaner such as Liquid Plumber is poured down the pipe. The bear just drinks it up.

A foaming drain cleaner is poured down the pipe. The bear mockingly pretends to have a shower in it.

My “Super Former-Nuculear-Waste” cleaner is poured down the pipe. The bear goes up in smoke as the “wipe-out” song plays in the background.

Closing Scene: A smiling mother with a two-headed child exclaims: “Thank you “Super Former-Nuclear-Waste” cleaner!” The child yells “Yipee!” from both of its’ heads.

The End.

Alright, I have rambled now for plenty long enough. I hope everyone’s cleaning/ cooking is going better than mine…