Oh, yeah! I remember the spider egg thing, now that you mention it. Kids!

On the topic of chewing gum, for some reason when I was around 10 years old, a whole slew of new gums came out. I remember Freshen Up, Bubble Yum, and Bubblicious all being new at about that time. A piece of one of those was like some kind of prison barter token to schoolkids at recess. Once in about 7th grade one of…

Yeah, the extra keypresses and confusion if you don’t follow all the steps are what ruin the grocery chain’s system. I normally use my phone with a home screen shortcut straight to Walmart Pay, so the receipt shows up immediately in the app. Luckily my local store doesn’t check receipts currently, but it’s there in…

I agree, Walmart’s are by far the best. I very rarely have any kind of problem there. Even checking out produce is normally not an issue. The only times I’ve had something go wrong at a Walmart checkout in the past couple of years, it’s been a barcode that isn’t in the system for some reason. Now, the self checkouts…

I rarely honk at other drivers, and then only when I need to get their attention. I pretty often honk at deer. I want them to be extremely afraid of cars, and to pass it on genetically to their offspring until they evolve into fearful burrowing creatures who never appear above ground, instead of standing in the middle…

My local Applebee’s seems to have pretty bad food. I went there for the first time in a while last week with my father-in-law. That’s where he wanted to go. I had the Bourbon Street Chicken, and that piece of grilled chicken was somehow...crunchy?...on the inside. It seemed fully cooked, but it had a really unpleasant…

Burger King does the same thing. It’s annoying.

Living in the Midwest for more than 2/3 of my life, I think every large potluck I’ve ever been to has had Watergate salad!

Krunchers are the superior kettle-type chip on that list. And I am unanimous in that. They’re getting harder to find around here lately. :(

Hmm. Only one of my three local coffee shops is on there. And it’s the worst one. :(

I prefer my angel hair without a “sauce” at all. Give it to me with some olive oil, tomato, basil, and a lot of garlic, and I’m happy. A bit of red pepper flake or something to add some heat is good, too.

I’m even worse--I have a bunch of pictures of my odometer at “cool” numbers! :D

French fries are great in shawarma. I always think of that as “Dubai-style” shawarma.

Weirdly, it was only a couple of months ago that I said to my wife, “Did you know that Henry Kissinger and Norman Lear are still alive?” I think I’d read something that day about Lear, plus I’d heard a reference to Kissinger in an old TV show. So I guess I jinxed them!

Gen X, the forgotten generation. We didn’t even get a name. “X”

Sweet! Mount Vernon’s not all that far from me. My parents’ families were both from that area. The Kroger in Mount Vernon is probably the best grocery store available to me within a 40-mile radius. If I want lamb or something else uncommon, they’ll often have it when nowhere else does.

Yeah, I think it pretty much tastes the way I remember it used to when I was a kid in the 70's. It went through a really dry patty period for about 20 years, but is now much better and flavorful, well-seasoned, has the fresh onions, etc. I enjoy having one sometimes.

We had our own local chip manufacturer in my hometown in Southern IL, Kas, which alas! closed when I was in high school. It smelled so good in that part of town. Their Ozark BBQ chips were great. In the late 80's I lived just off Lindbergh between Creve Coeur and Maryland Heights, then in TX until 2005. I’m back in IL…

Ha! I just watched the movie Driven last week (good movie). There was a scene with Carson calling DeLorean and cussing him out about his unreliable car.