My disdain wasn’t randomly inspired. Being 1/8 Italian myself, I have enough DNA to recognize culinary shenanigans when I see it. A few years ago, during a dine-out with friends at the OG, I asked the waiter for a some pesto. Didn’t know what it was. Had no clue. Bemused, I kindly asked for a manager on duty. Insanely, I was told they didn’t have pesto. At all. In any form. This is like the Vatican without a few bishops running around it in. Worse, he advised me corporate didn’t feel it wasn’t important enough to include on the menu. Oh, I don’t know. It’s only an age-old staple!

Unless you live in or near a big city, it can be daunting to find authentic cuisine of any nationality. There used to be a time, at least in the South, where a nitwit family would go out for Italian on Friday night. Do you know where they ended up? Pizza Hut. Greasy, disgusting piles of processed meats and ingredients heaped onto a slab of gooey dough that somehow passes for pizza. The fat little accidents called children scarfed this stuff down like Sally Struthers at a Golden Corral. Then along came Olive Garden, usually right next to a mall. Granted, it’s still a mild step-up from the aforementioned abomination Pizza Rut.

Americans need to get out of their comfort zone with these hollow, by-the-numbers chain restaurants. They won’t, clearly, but they should.  Is your palate so easily placated? If you ate for years at the OG then you were suddenly introduced to authentic Italian cuisine, your head would probably explode with the sensations of freshness, flavor, and plain-old unprocessed goodness. You’d never go back to OG and that scares the shit out of their stockholders. So the next time you drive by that little restaurant on the corner with a sweaty Italian guy in a tank top hacking up a live chicken in the kitchen and tossing around pizza dough at the same time, take a chance. You’ll at least have a more interesting and flavorful experience. Fuck Olive Garden. I love their slogan, too. “When you’re here, you’re family.” Shit, you’d think they treat you better than that. It should actually be rephrased “When you’re here, you’re just another asshole customer we want to sodomize with our tasteless bread sticks.”

During a routine shopping excursion this morning, a package of Charmin bathroom tissue jumped out at me with the proclamation “For a Clean You Will Notice!”

Who? Who will notice? Undoubtedly, they mean the actual user, but it also implies that a third party might be involved in observing the cleanliness of your behind. Unless all of your friends are dwarves and you frequently use them as chair cushions, they aren’t going to notice the magic housekeeping Charmin is performing down there.

This leads me to think the authors of the aforementioned ad slogan live in an imaginary world where nobody wears anything below the waist. Maybe it’s not imaginary in some countries. I don’t know. The scenario would surely inspire odd conversations at cocktail parties:

“Hey Barbara, did you notice how clean Bob’s asshole is? I couldn’t help but notice!“

“I sure did, Betty. What’s his secret?“

Bob walks up. “Ladies, I thought I heard somebody talking about my asshole!“

“Bob, you must tell us your secret!” Barbara implores.

“It’s no secret. I use Charmin Ultra Strong. Just like it says, it’s a clean you will notice! Why the whole party is marveling!“

Betty laughs. “Well, I certainly noticed! I’ve been using White Cloud for years and no one ever notices. I want Charmin in charge of my asshole!“

Bob glances down. “You sure do, Betty!“

Laughter from the crowd.

Like a bible thumper with an itchy judgment finger, some things just jump out at me.  Specifically, shitty grammar.  It’s all over the internet like Lindsay Lohan on an hor’dourves platter of cocaine truffles. I expect it from any nitwit littering YouTube with their meaningless blabber, but when I spot it in ads from presumably professional companies marketing their product, it just pisses me off.

This is not just a pet peeve. I get a serious, intellectual hemorrhage when I encounter this sort of linguistic incompetence. Proper spelling and grammar used to be an expectation of professionalism and public communication.  Not anymore. These days, the fucking cow in the Chick-Fil-A ads seems to have a better grip on the English language than most of the population.

Consider the above ad, for example. At first glance, you might not spot anything wrong with it other than the fact some prick is smoking electronic cigarettes(go get the real thing, douche, if you’re going to do it at all).  For my money, it contains the most annoying of grammatical snafus. A dog never, ever wags it’s tail.  If it does, then you’re saying the dog is wagging it is tail–and that doesn’t make any sense at all. Regardless how the above ad reads, boldness does not have it’s rewards.  In such cases, all one has to do is kill the apostrophe or, at least, put is aside when you’re actually using the contraction of it is.

Better yet, I’ll tell you what we can do with that renegade apostrophe. Since I have a vivid imagination, I picture that cute little apostrophe(based on its shape) as a turkey leg from a nice, big-boned bird waiting to be gnawed on by your uncle Edward at Christmas.  With a firm grip on the base, I’m going to beat you directly in the skull repeatedly with the golden brown turkey leg apostrophe until you wish you had applied yourself better in English class. It’s just my way of defending the language. I spent too much time practicing proper English and expecting it to count for something just for some jackoff in a marketing department to casually undermine it.

Additionally, I hope you’ve amended your historical knowledge with the understanding that “apostrophe” is not the name of a Greek philosopher.

Anyway, speaking of hands…

You know what I wanna see? I’m waiting–and just watch–it’ll happen. I’m waiting for some guy in a space station to post the first adult upload video from miles above the earth. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Why not? Hell, everyone else down here is waxing their dolphin all over the internet wasteland and gunking it up like KFC in your inferior vena cava.

I’m ready for some bored satellite repair technician to whip it out and start beating it in zero gravity. I think, at the last the first time, it would be fun to see if his nuts would bounce around weightlessly like raw egg yolks. You know,  like that shit they put in lava lamps. Very entertaining stuff, especially if you could set it to some whimsical classical tune.

Even better, imagine the hilarity that would ensue when the guy finally shoots a celestial load that floats around the room like a renegade pearl necklace or some Poltergeist ectoplasm. I can picture the surprise and delight of the crew member who unwittingly walks in on the action and collides with a cascading ribbon of dick milk. Guaranteed laughs and fun for the whole family.

I don’t know about you, but I’d pay a buck ninety-five for something like this. Why? Because, for one thing, they failed to do it on Star Trek. There was an episode called “Space Seed,” but I don’t think they took full advantage of the title, even though Captain Kirk had a habit of pumping alien chicks full of Iowan DNA. This is not to say I’d ever want to see Sulu giving Scotty a handjob and then wiping him off with a tribble. As for a purely animal reason to watch such a thing, it is a guy jerking off after all. Unless it’s Newt Gingrich doing the Pillsbury stroke, then I’ll skip it.

At the very least, if the trend of firing off your meat torpedo in space takes hold in the culture, we’ll have a brand new reason to call it the Milky Way.