4/12/21

“That Got Me To Thinkin’…?” “Five Beefs” Chapter 43
By Bruce Williams

(Editor’s Note: I was going to Title this “5 Beefs” forcing Bruce to “Six Beefs” but then thought why unleash the beast even more.)

Let’s just get into it, shall we?—we’ve got a lot to cover…

Beef One

Tritisms.  You know those overused summations employed by your on-line friends (I’m guilty here as well)…all the different ways you can say, “Are you with me?”

There’s…

Just sayin’

Current situation (usually with a cocktail and lawn chair legs)

Asking for a friend (so coy)

‘Nuff said

C’mon y’all

At the end of the day…

Let that sink in 

The new normal

None of my friends will like and share…

All cringeworthy, especially when paired with memes we’ve all already seen a hundred times before.  Just creating some baseline awareness here.

Beef Two

Subway.  This chain restaurant has now been caught twice using questionable meats…first it was their chicken that was tested by Trent Laboratories and found to only contain 50% actual chicken DNA and the rest some sort of rubbery filler, then their tuna (which is already cheap, by the way) was found to contain not only no tuna, but no fish either.  No pollack, no surimi—no fish.

Then there’s that Jared pervert they paraded around every strip mall and store opening for years while he played pocket pool in his rumpled khakis.  I don’t care how good their bread smells when I pass by—no more five dollar foot longs for this former fool.

Beef Three

Preachers and Sneakers.  There’s an Instagram account that documents pastors, ministers, etc. sporting thousand dollar tennis shoes, ten thousand dollar watches, designer leather coats and various other gaudy bling that the average layman probably wouldn’t recognize as costing a fortune. The chronicler then posts the web page showing the retail item and its ostentatious price.  I was mesmerized looking at the profligated wealth on display, particularly because of its general tastelessness and purposeful selfishness.  The grotesqueries as I traveled down this illuminating rabbit hole kept me enraptured for a whole thirty minutes, and left me feeling as comforted by humanity’s base nature as a sparkling Joel Osteen smile.

Beef Four

To the makers of Blue Lagoon.  I realize this movie came out way back in 1980, but it was the first Rated R movie I ever got to see (I was 13 and we were Pentecostal), and my mom took me to a matinee because she thought a movie about a couple of teens growing up stranded on an island together would be mild afternoon entertainment.  Well it wasn’t.  Little did she (we) realize that those teens were cousins and would be involved in a steamy, incestuous coming-of-age relationship that I got to horrifyingly watch unfold (again, with my mother) as we both squirmed uncomfortably in our seats.  If I was in therapy, this might be Exhibit A.

Beef Five

Toupees.  Now these are too-easy targets (much like their kindred cousin the comb-over), but really…c’mon.  Who are these for?  No one is being fooled here—

there’s always that separation between the brillowy back of the salt-and-pepper rug and the oily white underscruff.  I would think this vanity option is dying off—I can imagine a toupee salesman somewhere taking repeated Winston smoking breaks as he waits for the Lincoln Continentals to pull up into the shop’s parking lot.  “Mr. Schmidt—so nice to see you again!”  “Just a touch up this time, Kenny.”  I was going to do some investigative reporting on this topic, but in researching locales I found out that there are mostly wiggeries (not toupee shops) in the Puget Sound region.  True rug shops must be located more in spots like Palm Desert, Boca Raton and Scottsdale…where their clientele are more thickly (pun intended) concentrated.

Thanks for letting me air these egregious complaints.  If you were regularly riding shotgun in my truck, these would be the types of topics you’d be subjected to (feel free to pity the longsuffering Michelle here).  I’ll try to keep working on my tolerance.  Until next week!

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