Variety Pack Is Whack

Dear Diary …

They say “variety is the spice of life.” Well if that is the case, then I’m here to declare that I don’t want any spices. Now don’t get me wrong … I like variety for some stuff … different foods, different vacations, sleepin’ with random people … wait … what? Kidding!

But seriously … variety is fine for some things, but when it comes to those variety packs at the store. I hate ‘em. I want ‘em gone.

Diary … my son plays soccer. So as any parent knows if they have a kid in an activity, you gotta take turns being on snack duty. Cool. No problem.

So this week we were on snack duty, and I wanna get some little bags of chips for the kids, and darnit if every single one of the packs at the store is a cursed variety pack. This is a disaster!

“But why Zack? That just means the kids have all different ones to choose from.”

Oh yeah? You ever been anywhere where there just so happens to be exactly three kids that pick cool ranch Doritos, and exactly three that pick Sun Chips, and then four that pick plain potato chips? Yeah … I didn’t think so!

I’ll tell you what flavor kids want … whatever flavor you don’t have enough of. This is why children don’t get choices. Because the minute they do, they all fight over the same three bags of Cheetos.

And even if there aren’t other kids involved, the variety pack is useless at home too because there’s always some flavor none of your kids ever wants. (Plain Lays potato chips I’m looking at you.)

I mean … my kids want strawberry yogurt in those stupid little tubes. Strawberry. That’s it. But do they sell strawberry? Of course not! They packet it with something awful like strawberry-banana. Ugh.

Why are we pushing banana flavored anything on people? Nobody wants it … it’s gross … and it makes everything taste like tangy medicine. Somebody’s gettin’ kickbacks from the Chiquita banana people for sure.

I don’t want variety pack anything. Nor do I really want mixed variety anything. Think of a jar of nuts … what do you invariably end up with? A bunch of stupid plain peanuts and those big dumb Brazil nuts that suck all the moisture out of your mouth.

How did that Brazil nut ever make the cut for mixed nut consideration in the first place? We couldn’t find a better nut to put in there? You know … just because something is edible, doesn’t mean we HAVE to eat it.

Till next time Diary .. I say … Goodbye.

The Mysterious Light Bulb


Dear Diary …

We all have different hobbies, tastes, and interests. That’s pretty obvious, right? So then why in the world do so many people feel the need to open their mouths about things that they aren’t personally into?

“Never seen an episode of Game of Thrones in my whole life. Don’t care to either.”

[SLOW CLAP]

Oh I’m sorry … I just assumed you were expecting some sort of standing ovation for your impressive declaration of awesomeness.

Last time I checked, “Game of Thrones” didn’t have 260 million people watching it every week, so clearly there are humans in this country that aren’t tuning in to it or “This Is Us,” or “Walking Dead,” or whatever the heck it is.

You don’t watch something? Big freakin’ whoop. But don’t be posting about it like you’re some kind of TV martyr that’s better than the people that do. Something tells me you aren’t reading the encyclopedia during that hour of free time in your life or figuring out how to bring on world peace, so just shut your snackhole and let these people enjoy the things they enjoy.

And while I’m at it … If I post a story about a celebrity, there’s no need for you to reply “I have no idea who that is.” Well congratulations to you, Lord Uninformed. Oh and just in case you were wondering, there IS this thing called “Google” if you wanna find out who the person is.

Moving on Diary … What kind of alien lived in your house before you did? I ask this, because there always seems to be the most bizarre, other-worldy decisions that were made. For example … when you go down to the electrical panel in a house, that thing is NEVER labeled correctly. “Living room” is never the living room, “master bedroom” is a light bulb in the garage, and so on and so on. Not to mention the four or five random unlabeled breakers that are seemingly attached to nonexistent parts of your house. Who labels these things?

And then there’s there’s the products and the fixtures … In my last house the light bulb went out over the oven, so I went to the store to buy a new one. Guess what … of the 247,000 lights bulbs they have at the store … not a single one was the one that fit my oven. It wasn’t even on the internet! THE INTERNET!!!! The place where I can by 20 year old jugs of Crystal Pepsi or a statue of a cat drinking a margarita … but no light bulb replacement for this oven.

Where did they buy this oven … Yugoslavia? How is this even possible?

And yet this seems to happen every time you need a refrigerator filter, or washing machine part, or whatever … your model is magically the model that has weird shaped everything and doesn’t work with anything offered at the store. How did we even make these things in the first place, and why are they always in my house???

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.

The Time Suck Saga

Dear Diary …

Here’s something I don’t understand … EVERYBODY says they’re busy. Ask anyone, “Hey how’s everything going right now?” …

“Oh man … I’m really busy right now.”

Or better yet … ask them to do something …

“Oh man … I’m REALLY busy right now. Sorry I didn’t get back to you right away. Busy busy busy!”

Hmmm … OK …

I get it … everybody thinks they’re busy. And hey … I think I’m busy too. So it all makes sense. But what I don’t understand is … despite CLAIMING they are busy … everybody else sure does seem to like to take up MY time. So how can they really be THAT busy when it seems like all they ever wanna do is have long meetings and boring phone calls with your friend Zack Jackson?

For example …

I had to sit on a phone call last week for work. A LONG phone call. An hour going over all these fancy bells and whistles and functions of our new K92 Radio app. (Download it by the way, because I’m SUFFERING for you enjoyment so DOWNLOAD IT!!!!)

Anyway … I get done being shown all features and blah blah blah … and at the end of the hour the dude says …

“OK … I’d like to go ahead and schedule a follow up call so I can show you the rest. It’ll take about a half hour.”

AHHHH!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!

No more calls. No more times. You had an HOUR. If I can’t learn it in an hour … I DON’T WANNA LEARN IT!!!!

These are things I can’t stand … I call them the “Time Suck Sagas” because they NEVER seem to end.

Think about the times you’ve had something go wrong in your house, and it just becomes this Time Suck Saga. You spend an hour hunting down a person to come to the house, service person comes out, and either they can’t find the problem or don’t have the proper part to fix it. So then it becomes ANOTHER time … and that time comes and goes and the thing still isn’t fixed … and then it’s ANOTHER time … and on and on and on. Hanging over your head and refusing to go away.

Diary … I have an electrical issue in my house with a couple plugs … years … YEARS this thing is going on. Nobody can fix it … they just all say “hey let’s spend a ton of money and rewire the whole house.” NO! Don’t wanna. You find and fix the ACTUAL problem.

It’s all just one giant time suck.

Not to mention the fact that any time you try to have a service done … they’re late … or they don’t show … or they push you to another day.

And they always say, “Sorry .. I got real busy on another situation.”

You know what? Just ONCE … I wanna be this “other” situation. Why are they always ahead of me in the pecking order? You be busy with ME … not them!!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.