Snacks are weird.

It's true---people will try to explain away differences in cultures for many things, including such minor considerations as politics, religion, and class distinctions, but when it comes to snack food, we're appalled at what the other guy eats. I think we're even willing to cut entrees some slack, since you have to eat something and maybe locusts were all there was (for example). But you eat snacks when you're not starving. You eat that stuff on purpose. Therein lies the horror.

When Americans go someplace truly foreign, they will either reel with horror from what the people snack on or will pretend that they've not only come to like it, they're something of an expert. Yeah, even the locals defer to my taste in fried tortoise testicles. I've got a rep, I guess.

Even within our own nation, other foods surprise me. I've never warmed to grits, or even a single grit. And I'd only heard whispers of things like this: 

Although the product has been around for fifty years, and is known internationally, you could not find these up north until recently, or at least I couldn't. Never ate a thing "in a biskit." Chicken-flavored snacks are like something you'd use to train the dachshund. But no, these are crackers for human consumption, flavored with dehydrated chicken, and things like this are popular in various places. I bought them and ate them... and I liked them myself. They tasted like chicken broth. What could be wrong with that? Crumbled crackers are used to top all sorts of casseroles; I'll bet these are great for that.

The Wikipedia page says that in Australia, Nabisco makes a Vegemite-in-a-Biskit cracker. That's taking things too far.

Another foreign snack that has a chicken variety is Twisties, made by Smith's Snackfood (owned by Pepsi). In Italy they are sold under the name Fonzies.

Aaaaayyyy!

I wondered if they were actually named for the internationally popular character Arthur Fonzarelli, the Fonz, portrayed memorably by Henry Winkler. Longwhitekid, who runs an amazing blog on New Zealand stuff (and a lot on food), believes so:

Interestingly, Twisties are produced in Italy under the brand name “Fonzies”. In the mid 1970s, General Foods and Bluebird, on the back of the success of the T.V. series “Happy Days” and the resulting 1950′s retro/ Greaser style revival that resulted – did a licensing deal with Paramount Pictures and marketed a cheesy snack product named “Fonzies”, for actor Henry Winkler’s character “The Fonz”, which was the epitome of cool to boys at that time and much impersonated.

My question, though, is this: Since Henry Winkler is Jewish (which came as a crushing blow to the Italian kids in my school -- not that the Fonz was Jewish but that he was not Italian), are Fonzies kosher? Hmm....

Here's something to ponder: Winker is 68 now; when he started playing the Fonz he was 28. The show Happy Days was originally set in the mid-50's (a second-season episode centered around Eisenhower's reelection campaign). Assuming Fonzie was the same age as the actor playing him, the Fonz would now be about 85. Which means Winkler could kick Fonzarelli's butt. 

Here's another: The great Al Molinaro played the character Al Delvecchio on Happy Days, but he was well known before that for playing Murray Greshler, a Jewish cop on The Odd Couple TV show. So while the Jewish Mr. Winker was playing the Italian Mr. Fonzerelli, the proprietor of the diner had once been an Italian actor playing a Jewish cop. Somehow I don't think that would have comforted the Italian kids in my school, though.

And a third: I thought Nabisco had been taken over by some bizarre Spanish firm, as all the product boxes say "Mondelēz" on them. But no: They decided to change the parent name from Kraft Foods, and while the company is still American, they chose a stupid name in a stupid way: "The Mondelēz name, adopted in 2012, came from the input of Kraft Foods employees at the time, Monde being French for world and delez an alternative to delicious." Mrs. Key thinks this a team-builder and a boost for employee morale. I call it maize. Which is in keeping with many of the fine corn-based Mondelēz products. 

Raise a cup to the 4th.

I don't see a lot of long faces moping around, miserable about the U.S. being eliminated from the World Cup thing. Most of the people I see around who have an interest in the sport are rooting for whatever hellhole they fled to come here, anyway. Thanks, guys. Your gratitude touches my heart.*

Meanwhile, one of Frank J.'s random thoughts yesterday sparked my imagination: "So, we didn’t win at soccer," he noted, "but we should console ourselves with the fact that it’s a really really stupid sport." To which I commented, "Do we really want to excel in a sport that rewards people for whining? No freakin’ way, cowboy!" I mean, really, a sport where people cry and overact like a Juilliard student on his first audition to get someone else penalized? What is this, an athletic endeavor or a meeting of the Kid Sisters' Association? You make real footballs depressed when you act this way.

Soccer used to be considered completely stupid in this country, barely worthy of contempt. In my high school I once saw a soccer game---an actual game, in season, in which a friend of mine from another school was playing---get moved off the field so that our football team could practice. And this was in New York City, not some Friday Night Lights town in Texas.

I think soccer's got some more respect here now, but it's got a long way to go. I was thinking that what might help is if we come up with a kind of intermediate game. Something that features the things that make soccer different that don't suck, and reworking or eliminating the things that suck like a sinkhole. Here are my thoughts:

Things We Can Live With

The whole you-can-only-kick thing. It's kind of like yellow to Green Lantern; it's a weakness that humanizes the superpower. So I think that's all right. You can't punch a tennis ball; you can't kick a bowling ball**; you can't throw a soccer ball. Okay.

Running around: Fine, but the field is so huge that it's all running and no scoring. Cut the area of the field down by a third.

Heading the ball: Whatever; it's your cranium. Just don't get handsy with that ball!

Things We Must Drop

The whining: A lot of the same penalties will by necessity be part of the game, but this yellow-card red-card crap based on the supposed severity of the offense is right out. This "screw the victim" attitude may be mean in criminal or civil court but it makes sports more efficient. A player caught trying to fake an injury will be subject to the "Geezinslaws Rule," wherein there is a large fine imposed for whining.

Wimpiness: Tackling will be added. Tackle all you want. Tackle anyone you want. Tackle all the time. You'll have to tackle, in fact, because...

Goalies: We're all proud of Tim Howard's work for Team USA, but goalies are un-American. (Hockey's a Canadian sport and you know it; don't give me a hard time.) You can't goaltend in basketball; in baseball the catcher's not even supposed to block the plate anymore***; in American football the whole defense is sort of a goalie but not really. Just shrink the goal. I figure a hole about twice the diameter of the soccer ball will do. You get it in there while the other guys are trying to clobber you, you earned that goal. The best defense is a good offense. The second-best defense is clobbering the guy with the ball.

Clock: I like the fact that the clock doesn't stop all the damn time as in American sports, but clocks in sports count down. Much more dramatic. And that's how you know when it's almost time to abandon your crap team and beat the traffic. Turn that sad clock face upside down, Pierre!

That should do for starters. Other ideas I have are Plexiglas walls to prevent balls from ever going out of bounds, two-point long-distance shots, and working in clubs or sticks somehow. Any of these might help. Start now and we can get this right for 2018.

And if not, at least we'll have a more American game. We could call it Americaball!

Happy Independence Day, everybody!

* Not necessarily looking at you, Belgian-American community; you could just be in the way.

** Well, you could kick a bowling ball, but you'd be sorry.

*** It's this kind of creeping Euroweenieness that will ruin American sports if we don't fix this soccer thing.

Catastrophizing in a bad shirt.

Catastrophize (v.) is not yet in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, but it will be. It means using one's sick imagination to construct a fantasy of enormous peril and disaster from a few commonplace facts. It may be used to global effect---"The temperature has gone up twenty degrees since breakfast! At this rate, by Sunday night we'll all be FRIED!"---but its best, purest form is the prediction of personal catastrophe from things no one else would take seriously.

The construction of simple, seemingly logical, but utterly absurd steps is the preferred method. For example:

1. I was twenty bucks off when I balanced the checkbook.

2. I probably bounced the mortgage check.

3. My credit rating will be in the crapper!

4. I will lose the house!

5. I will wind up in a box under a bridge!

6. I will get murdered in a hobo camp, and my mother will never hear of my tragic end!

There would normally be some intermediary steps, but you get the idea. You may even be a master of the form, like moi.

I had a good one the other day. I wore a shirt into town that I thought was a pretty good summertime shirt. Maybe not the prettiest shirt I've ever owned. Yes, I bought it on clearance, but that's beside the point.

I'd worn it a few times in the spring and thought it would be good for a summer's day.

Wrong! Not a good shirt for one of Manhattan's hot, humid, soupy days. I felt like a stewed clam. Suddenly the snappy shirt was a bit more clingy on me than I'd like. When I say clingy, I meant it stuck to me like the skin on a grape.

Now, I am not a candidate for My 600-Lb. Life, but I'm not an ad for Crunch gyms, either. I'm just a guy you'd rather see covered up, is all. Like most people.

So it's hot and I have an unflattering shirt on; I'm on the streets of Manhattan with a few strangers about. What's the big deal? How can that be catastrophized?

Let me show you how it's done, kid.

1. I'm not seen by anyone I know, but struggling poet Clarabelle Luftkopf sees me go dragging by. She is horrified by the sight and goes running for her pen and paper.

2. The New Yorker publishes "Fat Guy in a Bad Shirt," beginning Clarabelle's meteoric rise. I see the poem and realize it's me, and suffer a torment of shame.

[Excerpt from "Fat Guy in a Bad Shirt"]

Fat guy

In a bad shirt
A shirt, a skin, a skin of horror---
Horror by the yard---
A bolt to make you bolt.
 
Stewed in his own gravy;
White and hot
(Not hot in a good way;
Hot like Kentucky-fried Moby-Dick;
Call out the navy!)
Squishing along on Broadway
On the hunt for a cruller stick,
The White Beast and
The Ate White Weigh.
 
Variant vast varmint
Of ventricles and veins
Viewed---
A panorama of pancakes
A pandemic of pudge
Eat the world
And call it fudge.

Call him fat

But do not call him late
For lunch.

I have become a symbol of all that is gross and wrong. Thank God no one knows who it was.

3. Decades on, "Fat Guy" is specifically cited by the Nobel Committee when it hands Clarabelle the literature award. Children learn the poem in school; drama majors recite it in college. The poem is seen everywhere, accompanied by a color sketch (by the author) of the shirt. It is quite accurate.

4. One enterprising reporter, Julio Culata, discovers the exact date, time, and place Clarabelle spotted me, because she had noted it in her diary. Using old NYPD security camera records, Julio actually uncovers an unusually good still from that long-past date of the fat guy made famous by the poet, in his horrible shirt. Reeling with disgust, Culata publishes the picture, which is seen around the world by noon, ruining lunches everywhere. People I worked with at the time sit up and take notice, trying to draw memories from the well about ol' Whatshisname. I see the picture on the Internet; I lock the doors and cover the windows.

5. Culata gets a tip and tracks me down at the Happydale Mediocrity Home for Obscure Writers, enters with his camera crew disguised as grouchy nurses, and conducts an assault interview that leaves me in tears, apologizing for the world for being a symbol of misery and oppression to it.

Now THAT, my friend, is some first-class catastrophizing.

Yak.

Scraping by.

Nothing like scraping the paint off the deck to give a guy some humility. Unless you're an old hand and quite experienced, it's a job that is guaranteed to take longer and be more involved than you estimate it will. Why do we underestimate it so? Lots of discounting and eagerness. 

Discounting: The old paint is in such lousy condition it's virtually falling off on its own. I'll just go out there with my scraper and give it a little nudge, and in ten minutes, bare wood. 

Eagerness: It's gonna look so awesome when it's got that fresh paint on it---and painting isn't so hard! I love to paint!

The truth is, the old stuff will come off in patches, but other parts will stick on with the tenacity of a desperate, over-the-hill senator. Worse, though, are the areas that look like they're pretty well set until juuuust about the time you've finished the scraping... and then they want to come off and play.

Gah!

I hate paint removal. Oh, sure, you feel like a million bucks for five seconds when you peel off a big piece of the old flesh; it's like whipping off the shirt before you jump in the pool. Whooooee! But then you're back to scrape... scrape... are you coming off or can I paint over you? I can pain--- Okay, okay, scraping... scrape... scrape...

Made the mistake of going after it with the scraper first and the power washer last. The power washer is not that strong. Mine is a plug-in type, not gas-powered, which makes it more of a power-assist washer. But it's great, because you still feel like a Ghostbuster when you wield that big gun and fire a stream at the enemy.

I ain't afraid of no paint.

I figured I would loosen some more old stain, but I loosened a frigging whale of a lot more old stain. It flew everywhere, leaving little poison potato chips on the lawn for the dog.

But not all of it came off. Aaaaand you know what that means.

Scrape... scrape... scrape...

Unholy marriage...

...of Nabisco and Hershey:

Evil.

This is just cruel.

Unless you're one of the unfortunate souls that is allergic to peanuts or, even more tragic, chocolate, you're aware that Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (made by Hershey) are among the world's great candies. And Nabisco's Oreo is one of the world's great cookies. But we thought they were safely tucked away in their respective universes, like Loki and Set, Doctor Doom and Lex Luthor, Darth Vader and the Daleks. But something happened, and now this temptation to fat has been fired at us, and right at the start of swimsuit season. What will it do to my girlish figure?

I saw them in the store and desperately wanted to try them, but couldn't justify smuggling the calories into the house. So I texted this picture to the lovely Mrs. Key in a "Can you believe this?" manner and she texted back "BUY!"

I love her!

Her review was similar to others on the Net, as it turned out---too sweet, for one thing. "Too sweet" is a concept with which I am not overly familiar, but the point is taken. The Oreo doughnuts that have just made their annual reappearance at Dunkin' Donuts are really, really sweet, so it seems to be a Nabisco risk they run, a fine knife's edge trod by the Oreo people as they skate where angels fear to tread.

Eviller.

But I liked the Oreo Reese's. I've always been one to walk on the dark side. Or at least the oversweet chocolaty side.

Thoughts from the Guinea Pig.

No, I'm not looking at you today. You disappoint me. No.

My hands are not pink because I washed so many dishes. Guinea pigs do not wash dishes.

I suppose I am rather cute, but that is a relative thing. Compared to you, the tarantula a few cages down is cute.

Guinea pigs are nearsighted. Would you mind taking a few steps back from the glass?

What do you mean, hamster? I'm not a dad-blasted hamster. Hamsters are the scum of the earth. I eat hamsters for lunch, I'll have you know.

So no, I do not hamsterdance and I will never hamsterdance.

Elizabeth I had guinea pigs. Elizabeth II has dogs. And they wonder about the decline of the aristocracy.

The main problem with being in the pet store is not the other pets, let's just say that.

Yes, I only live four to five years, but if I have to be around people all that time it will feel considerably longer.

Why the name guinea "pig"? Well, perhaps I am related to your mother somehow.

You may be able to afford me, but you shall never be able to fulfill me.