The Lie of Quick Ice

Dear Diary …

“You get what you pay for.”

To me, that’s a reasonable motto for life, and I am perfectly OK with the system in place. If you buy a wonderful, farm-raised cut of meat from a skilled farmer? You gotta pay more. You buy a steak at the dollar store? Well … you get dollar store steak. (It’s meat glue BTW … look it up!)

But here’s the problem … far too many times you’re paying the higher price, and you’re still getting the dollar store steak treatment. This is especially true when people spend tons of money on super fancy kitchen appliances. I’ve seen it time and time again … “Hey my dishwasher costs $3,000!” And then their $3,000 dishwasher is always broken, there’s only one 87 year old guy in town who even knows how to fix it, and all the parts need to come from Germany, take 6 weeks to get here, and all cost $1,000 apiece.

This summer I’ve stayed in two different vacation homes, and each of them had super fancy refrigerators that both acted like dollar store steaks. The one that blows my mind over and over again is that people spend $10,000 on these stupid refrigerators and then not a single one has a halfway decent icemaker. To me … that’s like top three on the list of things a refrigerator needs to do … 1. Keep stuff cold, 2. Keep stuff frozen, and 3. Make ice.

So if I spend more on this refrigerator, I should get more of those three things, right? Nope!

Sure … I can have a laser sensor that tells me the door has been open for longer than 30 seconds (which, by the way, I use a thing called “eyeballs” to normally figure that out), but then I can’t get more than three glasses of ice before the whole thing is empty.

But don’t worry … we’ll make four more ice cubes some time in the next half hour. What is the deal with that by the way? We have all these amazing advancements in technology, and we’re still OK with an ice maker taking 24-48 hours just make a bucket of ice? I should have full ice in 30 minutes max … end of story.

Oh and let’s not forget the biggest fraud in the ice maker world … the “quick ice” button. Quick ice … humpf! When have you EVER pushed that button and felt like it’s done anything at all. And if it did … THEN WHY WOULDN’T THAT BE THE NORMAL ICE MAKING FUNCTION IN THE FIRST PLACE???? Is there anyone that requests “slow ice?”

“Yes … I like to prepare my ice low and slow … one degree at a time … that way you can taste each molecule as it’s individually frozen.”

Quick ice … I have no doubt that button is just like the “close door” button on an elevator and it don’t do squat other than to make us dummies think we’re gonna get ice any faster.

And just to be clear … if you are somebody who’s thinking right now, “None of this means anything to me because I never have ice in my freezer anyway” … Well allow me to just say “YOU ARE THE DEVIL AND THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU!”

Seriously … go to the doctor.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

You’re Welcome

Dear Diary …

Let me start by saying … “You’re welcome.” You didn’t even know that you got a gift from me the other day, but you did. Right before (and right after) we had all these days of four billion degree heat, we had two days with some unexpected rain storms that no doubt saved many a lawn from it’s crusty brown fate of the heat of summer.

And you have me to thank for that … because I watered MY lawn each of those days.

Yep … check the forecast and saw the impending doom of hot and dry sadness and knew that my only chance to save my grass was to give it a long water. A loooooong … expensive … water.

And not ten minutes after I finished … the skies suddenly darkened. The wind began to whip up … almost like a horror movie when all the bad stuff is about to happen. And then the heavens opened up and dumped a big pile of rain all over the place. And almost as if Mother Nature was trying to rub it in … it happened a few more times.

So … you’re welcome.

I made that happen. Because if I didn’t water? Oh forget it. Dry … barren … earth. Bank on it. Those storms ONLY happened because I watered (and probably one other random person decided to get their car washed). We sacrificed so the rest of you could have water. So … you’re welcome!

OK … moving on Diary … speaking of the heat … boy that was a big sweaty pile of awful, wasn’t it? I hate this weather for many different reasons. First and foremost … cuz it’s HOT. And just dumb. Don’t wanna move, can’t sleep cuz nobody’s AC keeps up, and it’s just sweaty and gross.

Also … it gives every annoying person on social media the platform to say … “See … Global Warming!” And while that may or may not be the case … the real point is that YOU have no idea. You ain’t taken a science class in 15 years … AND … you got a B-minus in that one anyway. So don’t act like you have any expertise beyond the one article you skimmed a couple weeks ago that had the word “warming” in the headline. Trust me … I don’t know any better in one direction or the other, but I also know that I DON’T know.

And finally … hot weather brings out my least favorite thing of them all … pictures of people’s thermometers. “Hey look … your butt crack already feels as swampy as a steaming pot of beef stew … but I’m gonna show you a picture of the temperature right now in case you forgot!”

Oh thank you! I would’ve had NO idea how hot it was had you not shown me that (even though I just watched a squirrel melt in the yard).

Is that the best you can do? Can’t you be more creative than that?

You wanna talk about how it is? Fine. But it’s time to up your game and do it in a more entertaining way.

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye

The Most Annoying Question in the World

Dear Diary …

I guess I should probably appreciate the fact that my children think I’m all-knowing and all-powerful. But … I don’t. And really … they don’t think I’m all-knowing and all-powerful. Most of the time they think I’m some moron that has no idea what he’s talking about.

“Hey kids … don’t run in the kitchen. You can slip and fall and hit your head.”

“No we won’t!”

WHAM! “Ohhhh …. My head!”

Yup … all those times I try to help them, they don’t listen to a single thing I say. But when it comes to knowing the location of every other human on the planet, they apparently think I’m the Great Zackini … The Great All-Seer of All People!

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about …

I can be in the kitchen by myself getting dinner ready and my son will walk in …

“Where’s Mommy?”

Now how am I supposed to know that? Do you see Mommy anywhere in this kitchen? This is the only place I am currently located, so if she ain’t here, then I have no idea.

Yesterday I was outside. The second I walked in the door …

“Where’s Mommy?”

I don’t know … All I can tell you is she’s not in the driveway!

Last week I was in a vacation house with 7 kids in it and that’s all I heard.

“Hey do you know where blah blah blah is?”

No! No I do not! (And yes, I refer to them all as “blah blah blah” because honestly it’s just too many kids to even bother remembering all their names. Especially the ones that aren’t even mine. Ugh!)

OK … moving on Diary … this one goes out to all of you that insist on making the rest of our lives more difficult because of your inconvenient declarations of your own moral compass. Hey … it’s fine if you want to be one of these difficult people who refuses to adopt to new norms and technologies, but then you’re not allowed to put the burden on the rest of us.

“I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t need it. I just rely on my family and friends.”

You see what I’m talking about there? Sure it’s easier for YOU, but now the rest of us have be your personal assistants to hunt you down.

My mother refuses to use online bill pay. And that’s fine in her every day life because she’s the only one dealing with sitting there for hours on end writing checks and licking envelopes like it’s 1977. But then she goes out of town for a month … and now who do you think is responsible for driving over to her house, opening all her mail, and filling out all of her bills? That’s right … Zack the Personal Assistant.

I’m not even good at remembering to open my own mail … and now you’re gonna expect me to be responsible for yours? Just get online bill pay!

“I don’t want to. I don’t want my information out there on the internet.”

News flash: Your information is already “out there” whether you like it or not.

And furthermore … there are 50 billion other people already using online bill pay, so what makes you think you’re SO important that hackers are just sitting there … waiting for you specifically to join online bill pay?

[[[SIREN]]]

Red alert! Red alert! Zack’s Mom is on the internet … it’s finally the moment we’ve all been waiting for … let’s go get her “information” now that’s “out there!!!”

Yeah that ain’t happening. They don’t care. I’m sorry, but if you want to be one of these people that refuses to text, or email, or online bill pay, or have a Facebook page or whatever … that’s fine. But you also don’t get to burden the rest of us … you go live in the hills where nobody can get a cell signal anyway and live off the fat of the land on your own!

Till next time Diary … I say … Goodbye.