The Crooked and the Straight

Why does Borders sell a chocolate fondue set? Complete with chocolate and a fondue pot? Oh, sure, it includes a "how to make chocolate fondue" book as well, but come on--are we as a society so pressed for time that, once we've decided that we want to take the time to make chocolate fondue, that we can't be bothered to actually visit multiple stores in order to gather all the necessary materials?

I thought bundling a harmonica with a "how to play the harmonica" book was bad enough. When the day comes that I can go to Borders and buy a book on "how to plan the perfect wedding" that includes a fiancee, this trend will have gone too far.

Well, okay, maybe by then it will have gone just far enough.

And what is so hard about making air fresheners for cars that the ones you buy never smell like they're supposed to? I tried the "new car smell" one, but it made my car smell like a methamphetamine lab. So I figured that "pine scent" would be a nice alternative, but that one gave off an odor that made me think that a pine forest had anthropomorphised into a human-like form and urinated all over my car's interior. Finally, I settled on "vanilla" figuring that there was no way anybody could fuck up the scent of vanilla. Well, I was wrong. My car now smells vaguely like someone got drunk on Stoli Vanli and hurled on my back seat. I'd try to clean it all up with some Febreeze, but I'm afraid it would just make things smell like bloated corpse or something. I give up.