Noodles: This land is your land, this land is my land...

This is a story about saving the environment.

Or is it?

I’ll let you decide.

A while back, I moved to a house with a sizeable yard. And since there were no parents in the vicinity, I had to mow the lawn myself. That’s what I like to call a “Real Problem” (for all you poverty-stricken, hovel-dwelling, lawn-less, unprivileged folks who don’t understand what trouble is.)

First of all, I knew I wanted to practice kindness to the planet and all the life contained therein by using an old-fashioned manual mower. “It’s so simple!” I exclaimed as I removed it from its heavy packaging and assembled it in my densely overgrown backyard. “Why burn holes in the ozone when there are manual machines like lawn mowers and bikes? I’ll never drive anywhere again and I will only eat three forms of grasses, most of which I can forage within three feet of my door!”

I was ready to do my part in saving the world.

Until I actually had to mow my lawn.

Even then, I tried to maintain a positive attitude.

For a few seconds, that is. Then I had a little change of heart.

And I got a gas mower.

I loved my mower. I tucked it in every night and kissed it good morning. It cut my mowing time in seventy-seventh. I would say it cut my mowing time in half, but that would be a lie. It now took only forty-five minutes to mow, versus 3,479. That’s 2.41597 days. (Please don’t check my math here.)

But something was still wrong. Mowing the lawn was still...hard. Too hard.

I traded in my gas mower.

AND I LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER! (AND I ACCIDENTLY BUMPED THE CAPS LOCK KEY! SO NOW I’M SHOUTING! KILL THE DOLPHINS!)

Comments

Noodles: It’s autumn, all of you.

Hi world. It’s me, your favorite super sheltered, extremely Scandinavian, strangely endearing pile of soggy, tomato-drenched crinkly noodles! Otherwise known as Baby Swedish Lasagna under an Inadequate Tent. The reason I bring up my origins is this: I grew up without hearing anyone say “y’all”. I believe the contraction never crossed my path outside of a book until middle school, when it became trendy among my equally sheltered, pale-skinned friends. I started saying it often, with little understanding of its pronunciation, spelling, or proper usage. At some point, perhaps in a fit of cultural sensitivity, maybe after the madness of middle school had seeped out of my neurons, I stopped using it. Except in emails. Yes, my friends, I am an email y’aller. It just works for the already-awkward group conversations. There’s honestly no equivalent in northern dialect. Check it out. “You guys.” Offensive to feminists. “You girls.” Offensive...

Sauce: Peeved - A Ditty.

Hello world, welcome to the dumbest thing I’ve ever written. It helps if you sing it with gusto. (Hint: UIKEYINPUTDOWNARROWgive “favorite” and “chocolate” three syllables.) Dun dun dun... ...If you’d rather eat spaghetti With butter, And if petting armadillos makes your bitty heart flutter, If you wear twenty-three inch plugs And you snack on creepy bugs, And you turn off the radio before Your very favorite song ends, If you dance to rapping only And you never just be lonely, Then I think we cannot ever quite be friends. If you like to play the tuba And get thrills at going scuba Diving with a pack of grumbly-tumbly sharks, If you stick Q-tips up your nose And knit socks for all your toes And deface all the bathrooms in the parks, If you get joy from picking peanuts Out from every tin of mixed nuts And don’t laugh at jokes that center on Depends, If you run away from cats And feed cho...

Noodles: There are just some things you can’t ask your doctor.

So you turn instead to Google and let your questions be seen by all the world, including snoops like me. I happened to look up a strange sensation I’ve been experiencing lately (yes, I do it too, and yes, I’m probably on the brink of death) that involves a crawling sensation on the back of my scalp. Since it’s not tick season, I assume it’s a tiny person attempting to scale my head in order to have a look around. Unfortunately, I wear a lot of hats this time of year so even if they make it to the top, they aren’t likely to see much. But that’s not the point. If you ask Google to give you any information involving tingling sensations and your own head, it will immediately throw at you a list of questions asked by similar unfortunate individuals, along with the all-knowing answers provided by an unspecified internet friend. Some of them make you shake your head in pity, such as this sad, lonely soul, who asks, “Can I test myself for a brain tumor?” The answer is undecided...

The Password’s Lasagna.

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