HELLO. GOOD MORNING.

I've officially moved all of my content to my new domain. YAYYY!! Tell all your friends, etc.

I also wish I didn't have the attention span/motivation of a small child who has had pixie sticks for the first time and is expected to concentrate on cutting in a straight line. I have about five posts in my queue that I started and never finished, and there's tons more that I'd like dive into. So you should start following me and yell at me constantly about what a fail I am for not being able to complete a simple task.

I will share one small story, though.

There's an episode of "Frasier" (because I'm not sure if you've gotten the spoiler alert yet, but I non-ironically love and still watch it) where Frasier's entire day is thrown off because his morning "routine" gets ruined. The last time I watched that episode, I looked at myself in shame, as I was in the midst of my own routine, part of which involves watching an old sitcom that I've seen so many times I don't really have to pay attention or think very hard to get the gist of; qualities that are very important to me in pre-2pm activities because my brain is incapable of high functioning or extraneous activities before then.

Throughout the years, my routine has changed to adapt to new school/work/life schedules and situations, but for as long as I can remember, I have always gone about a particular way of doing things until I do it for so long, if something changes I begin to panic and set myself up to have an increasingly terrible day where by the end of the night my hair is lit on fire. I'm sure there's people out there that will label this trait with some quirky personality defect, but I'm okay with it.

From elementary school until I moved out of my parents' place in college, part of my morning ritual was reading the paper. Of course, at a young age my primary reading material was comic strips and toy store advertisements, until I got old enough to also secretly read Dear Abby (even though when my mom would catch me I would deny it), movie reviews, and boring "adult" stuff. But for a good fifteen years, one of the biggest caveats of my morning was to get some lulz.

Sunday morning comics were especially fun because they were full color and EXTREME BONUS COSTCO sized. Additionally, they had enough space to include a few features not part of the weekday segment. One of my favorites was Slylock Fox. It is an obvious homage to Sherlock Holmes, with Max Mouse as Watson, and a cast of beavers, skunks, rabbits, and other anthropomorphic animals constantly causing havoc and being victimized. After establishing a crime has been committed, readers are asked to help Slylock solve the mystery. I'd always feel really ripped off it was something stupid like helping him out of a maze or unscrambling some words, because this was supposed to be a real brain teaser, not a god damned puzzle you'd find on the back of a children's menu at Denny's. But for the most part, they stuck with the challenge of reading the story and looking at the picture and occasionally using logic to solve a mystery. Anyone over the age of seven could fairly quickly figure out the answer, but there was one in particular that will forever haunt me.

I can't remember the details of the background story, but the foundation of the plot was that someone was accused of participating in illegal activity, but said animal claimed that he was at the barber shop and therefore could not have committed this atrocious crime. This suspect has a long shady past with Slylock, so obviously he knew he was being bullshitted and it was up to the reader to help Slylock figure out what the fuck happened.

For the life of me, I couldn't solve the fucking puzzle.

I thought about it much longer than when I contemplated big decisions like what college I'd apply to or whether or not I'd spend my life savings on a limited edition record even though I didn't even have a record player at the time. I also stared down at the cartoon panel until I was glaring, which lead to bitch facing, which led to squinting, which lead to a headache, which lead to more glaring. WHY WEREN'T MY ANGRY FACES HELPING ME SEE WHAT WAS REALLY GOING ON?!

I never had to resort to cheating, but this was getting ridiculous. I finally couldn't take it anymore and I read the upside down fine print answer.

Because it was Monday, and barber shops are closed on Monday. Therefore, Shady McAsshole couldn't have been getting a haircut when shit went down. Motherfucker lied and totally did it. ARREST HIM!!!!



WHAT THE FUCK.

I now know that barbershops being closed on Monday was pretty common protocol as a result to the union at the time of publishing (actually I didn't know that, but at least now I'm old enough to befriend Google) , but how in the actual fuck is some eight year old kid in his jam jams while eating a Pop Tart and slurping on a Capri Sun supposed to come up with this logic before 7am?

Or as a young society were we supposed to know this? Was I so stupid that I couldn't even solve a simple problem meant for children almost half my age?

I felt dirty.

I felt cheated.

My morning routine was ruined.

And that is why I will never step into a barber shop or trust a fox for the rest of my life.


This ended up being pretty long, but I thought I'd bring awareness to an important issue that has carried on into my adulthood, so you are completely informed of potential trickery and mindfucking before you crack open the paper tomorrow morning. Public service announcements are what I do best.