Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: Mountain Dew

Scrambled Legs.

Now – if I had just read that headline, instead of having written it, the words would have been deciphered as scrambled eggs. At some point, my eyes and brain began plotting against me, telling me what I wanted to hear, instead of what was really there.

Bruce Springsteen

The Boss at 60: Bruce Springsteen

When I saw a magazine on my mother’s endtable with Bruce Springsteen on the cover, it became a copy of Rolling Stone. Later, when I thought to myself, “Why is she subscribing to Rolling Stone?” – I took a closer look and realized the magazine was AARP, news from the American Association of Retired Persons.

There’s the rub, I believe. Think about it. Springsteen on the cover of AARP. The headline reads, “The Boss Turns 60!” How is that possible?

It does go a long way to explain my eye-brain conspiracy. They’ve seen so many things, so many times, they aren’t bothering to connect the real dots. I saw a big green box outside a construction site with “Gator Tainer” written on the side.

At a glance, I came up with some kind of Cajun spuds, “Gator Taters.” I looked closer and it became trainer. “Ah!” I said aloud, wiping the confusion from my brow. “It’s an alligator trainer, keeping the gators in that green box. A little inhumane, but understandable.”

As I drove off, it dawned on me that the “Tainer” was simply a Con-tainer, a big box to put trash in. A dumpster.

Then, blinking hard, I took a big gulp of my Mountain Dew, and the cobwebs cleared and the world became a bright, clear, perfectly understandable and predictable landscape.

But Bruce Springsteen was still sixty.

Use it or Lose it.

Here is the scene: breakfast table, Mountain Dew, a napkin serving as a plate, and the cupcake package. Gotta read something – but I’ve been examining the Dew ingredients list for a quarter of a century. Or more.

On the cupcake package it says, “Best if used by December 20, 2010.”

Used?

I said to myself, mouth full of cake, “what will I use it for?” What do they mean, “use” the cake? Isn’t it made to be eaten? Are they interchangable terms? “What are you doing for the holidays? Wanna come over and use some dinner?”

It does sound a little awkward to print on the label, “Best eaten by…,” but they could have gone with another tack, like “fresh through December…”

In trying to think up uses for the tasty cakes, I came up with nothing I can list here…but I’m thinking about lunch already.

Might use a burger.