The Junk Drawer

The bunnies requested blindfolds, but were sadly denied.

Sorry, bunnies. I don’t like looking at me either.

Addendum: For full-frontal nerdage, see Poindexter in a Dress.

One of the places I went to as a kid on a class trip was Ringing Rocks Park in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. The park features a huge boulder field made up of rocks that, when tapped lightly with a hammer, will emit a pleasant ring.

It doesn’t seem that geologists have determined exactly what makes the rocks ring, but kids don’t care. They just want to take a hammer to them and play rock music!

Here’s a short sample of how it sounds. Cool, huh?

Back in November, I wrote about a cake I bought from a new bakery in town. I threw it out because it was too dry and the icing looked better than it tasted. I promised I’d give them a second chance and post back about it.

They blew it. Again.

Yesterday after a 45-minute walk with my sister, I thought I’d reward my effort and ruin whatever benefits I gained from exercising by making a return visit to The Dry, Gross Cake Bakery.

Everything looked scrumptious in the case and I ordered three items (pictured above): A Napoleon, a Southwest pizza thing (don’t remember what it was called), and a half-dozen donuts.

The Scorecard:

1. The Napoleon: Not horrible. The cream and flaky pastry part were serviceable, but the icing was overly-sweet and gummy. It may or may not have been fondant, which is a bakery staple for wedding cakes that looks really pretty, but sometimes tastes like crap. Grade: C+

2. The Southwest pizza thing: Bad all around. The bread was rubbery and tasteless. What I remember of the topping was diced tomato, corn and some unidentifiable meat. I thought it had cheese, but no such luck. Had the topping been 100% bacon, I could have salvaged it. Instead, it went in the trash. Grade: D.

3. The donuts. Ah, the donuts. How can a bakery screw up a donut? Donuts are Pastry 101! I should have known something was wrong when the cashier handed me the bag containing a half dozen of the lovelies. They were so heavy, I almost lost my balance. In my opinion, glazed donuts are supposed to be light and airy. Artery-clogging, yes. Deliciously sweet and fattening, yes. Brick-heavy, no.

Here’s a closer look. See that nice sheen? That’s perhaps how a glazed donut should look. Except for one thing. That’s not the glazed side. It’s upside down. Go ahead and click to enlarge, just put your sunglasses on first.

That shininess is caused by deep-fryer fat globules that are soaked all the way through. I wanted a donut, not a blob of lard. It tasted oily, burnt and slightly rancid. And crunchy. Donuts aren’t supposed to be crunchy, right? Grade: A Big Fat Lardy F!

Now look at the bag they came in. The grease reached flood stage about two inches from the bottom of the bag. It’s soaked through solid up to the first crease. If I thought all the grease got sucked out of the donuts, I might actually consider eating the rest. It seems such a waste to throw them out, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Here’s a question: It’s obvious I’m never going back to this bakery, but should I let the owners know how dissatisfied I am with their products?

They should know how un-yummy their stuff is, so they could at least fix the donuts. I refuse to believe I’m the only one who finds crunchy, oily donuts unappetizing. I wanted to love the bakery because they’re close to home and I need a new place for all my forbidden food needs.

I don’t want to post the name of the bakery, since I’m not a professional food reviewer (although I should be). If you know me and want to know where it is, give me a buzz. The rest of you don’t have to worry about stumbling into this greasy dive trying to pass as a bakery.

Among the qualities I wish I was blessed with is the ability to tell jokes. Can’t do it. I’d have to read from a card to get it right, and somehow I think cue cards detract from the hilarity, don’t you think?

“A duck, a nun and a priest walk into a bar…” Wait, wait! “It was a dog, a nun and a priest.”  Oh, poo! That’s not it! Let me check my cards. Yeah, real smooth.

I’m a little better at practical jokes. I once kidnapped a Chia Pet Turtle from an office I used to work in, took pictures of it — blindfolded — and then sent pictures back to my officemates with a ransom note that I had a friend mail from out-of-state while she was visiting family. The note was made from letters I cut out from magazines and newspapers and was signed “The CLA” (Chia Liberation Army). Ahhh, good times.

The last joke I tried to play was on my husband, Dave. My niece gave me a stuffed black cat that looked like our kitty Shadow.  Attempting to scare up some fun, I put it in Dave’s car, attached to the steering wheel. He usually leaves for work fairly bleary-eyed, and I thought it might be fun to give him a heart attack. It didn’t. He thought I was lame, but gave me an “A” for effort.

A few days went by and I thought I’d try to scare him again by sticking the cat in the dinnerware cupboard. He went in for a plate that night, gave me a weak shoulder shrug and blessed my little heart for trying.

I gave up my quest to scare him with the cat, forgot all about it, then came home to find this when I went to heat something for dinner.

Don’t do this to someone you love because they just might die on you.

When I opened the door and found the cat in the microwave, I let out the kind of scream that comes from deep within. A scream that surprises you because you never knew you could make that sound. A scream that is followed by a punch to the husband.

My heart did not stop beating fast for about five minutes. There were no laughs. I was mad at Dave for a day. Yeah, I love a good practical joke. Except when it’s played on me.

Anyone pull off a Class A stunt and not get punched for it? I need some recommendations because I haven’t gotten back at Dave yet.

One of my favorite bloggers, Kev over at Special Kind of Stupid, is paying me back for tagging him with a meme in November. He’s assigned me the “To Do List” meme, a list of five things I have to do unrelated to work. Here goes nothin’.

1. Send two friends their birthday cards I bought two weeks ago. One is sitting in front of me as I type, the other is on my desk at work. I see the cards every day and every day I tell myself to mail them already. Yet, every day they sit there not wishing anyone a happy birthday. So JD and Alice, I’m thinking of your long gone birthdays and hoping you had good ones. I do realize I’m possibly the worst friend in the world. Please forgive me. Still, I wouldn’t expect the cards any time soon.

2. Clean the litter boxes in the basement. Ever since our arthritic cat Stinky started having trouble taking steps to get there, we decided to move one of three litter boxes to the second floor where she spends most of her time. It seems like all three cats are using it, but you never know. The boxes in the basement may now look like two huge archeological digs and we’re going to need a backhoe to clear it out. I wonder if those kids we hired to shovel our driveway do poo detail.

3. Backup my hard drive in the home office. Yeah, I know. I’m a computing consultant. I should backup regularly, but I haven’t done it in months. Yesterday a client came to my office nearly in tears because his hard drive crashed and he needs tax data recovered. It might cost him a fortune to save it, assuming it’s possible. My advice to everyone is “You don’t put on your seat belt expecting to get in a car accident, but you do it anyway, just in case.” Same with your data. I half-jokingly told my distraught client to pray to St. Isidore. For the uninitiated, he’s the patron saint of computers and the Internet. Who said you couldn’t learn anything here?

4. Clean up the remnants of the pumpkin on my back porch. Yes, part of my autumn display is still there. From October. I’ll spare you what it looks like after having spent six months exposed to the elements. I did at least get rid of 90% of it, but the 10% that’s left would give you the dry heaves if you saw it. But if you’re into science experiments, I’ll be running the Guess the Mold, Win a Prize contest in April. Stay tuned!

5. Write my final blog post. I have a will for myself, but I don’t have a will, so to speak, for my blog. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, how would you guys know where I went? I know it sounds morbid, but I’d like to write a post that will be published in the event of my death. I would hate to have people asking where I am in the comments section and my husband having to deal with that. You’ll know if it happens. The post title will read simply “I’m Dead. The Junk Drawer is Now Empty.” It’ll be hilarious.