I Think I May Have Been Sold A Broken 'No Soliciting' Sign
Maybe, 'No Soliciting' doesn't mean what it used to
It's a Tuesday, which means it's time for the column that many therapists would describe as a "Cry for help," The Gripe Report!
Let's get rolling with a little something that has been bugging me the last few weeks, and it has to do with a little sign I put in front of my house that appears to not be working the way it was intended.
I moved into a new neighborhood a few months ago, and as I was walking the dog, I noticed some people had "No Soliciting" signs, and every time I saw one, I thought to myself, "Hey, we need to get ourselves one of those things."
Have a gripe? Send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com
I can’t stand solicitors. I knew they were just trying to make a living, but I can’t imagine that the sales method of annoying people while they’re trying to work or make dinner has ever worked well.
One day, we got a knock at the door. It was a guy and a girl trying to sell us something for our gutters.
I shut the door and went back to my very important work, and asked my fiancée to please order a No Soliciting sign, which arrived two days later (shout out Jeff Bezos), and I proudly stuck it in the ground like Groundskeeper Willie putting up a "CAUTION: WELL" sign.
Well, I think ours was about as effective as that well sign was.
I was under the impression that our days of people coming to our door to sell us gutter treatments, encyclopedias (is that still a thing), or converting us to Mormonism were behind us.
Then just two days later…
*Knock*Knock*
It was some dude wanting to treat our house for pests. I said we were all good here, and he was like, "Well, let me show you what I’m going to do, I’m just going to spray the–"
"Not interested," I said, frustrated by my foolproof sign not working.
Then, as if that weren’t enough, this turned into a Shakespearean tragedy when, like two days later, we found some ants in the pantry and had to call an exterminator anyway.
Coincidence?!
Yeah, of course it was. You think exterminators are planting ant colonies in people’s houses?
To make matters worse, we got another visit from another exterminator who was making the rounds through the neighborhood, which had me wondering if my sign was hard to read, or if "No Soliciting" just doesn’t compute for solicitors.
Here is a photo of my "NO SOLICITING" sign that appears to be defective. (Credit: Matt Reigle)
Maddening. It has been a couple of days, and we haven’t had any solicitors, so maybe it just takes a couple of weeks for those signs to break in, but what a frustrating couple of weeks.
I don't know if there's something wrong with the sign or what. Might need to pop the hood and tinker around with it this weekend.
Anyway, there’s no smooth segue, so let’s move on to some foods that are annoying to eat.
Foods That Are A Pain In The Ass To Eat
I was recently thinking of foods that I enjoy, but I hate the process of eating, so I’ve compiled a list.
Delicious looking, but I can assure you, one bit, and you'll be wearing most of that. (Getty Images)
Tostadas
This might be the biggest culprit on the planet. If you’re unfamiliar, a tostada is a crispy tortilla, but instead of being folded like a taco, it’s completely flat like a frisbee made of maize.
But the problem is that toppings are then piled on top of it, and then you’re supposed to eat it, and that’s when all hell breaks loose.
I don’t know how long these things have been around, but I promise you, no one has ever eaten one without having it all shatter and spill all over the place after the first bite.
I mean, Mexico struck gold with the taco and the burrito, which are nice and portable and keep all their contents contained, while the tostada is a loose cannon that’s just out here trying to dump refried beans and lettuce all over your lap.
I don’t think this will be fixed anytime soon, but I do think it needs to be moved down the Mexican food depth chart. The way I see it, the list goes thusly:
- Taco
- Burrito
- Enchilada
- Fajitas (which we will get to in a bit)
- Quesadilla
- Tostada
- Chimchanga
- Tamale
- Torta
Tostadas being above Chimchangas is a travesty, so let’s see some more chimichangas and fewer tostadas, please.
I don't think it's too much to ask that if you're going to pay like $80/pound for something in a restaurant, you shouldn't finish the meal with bloody hands. (Getty Images)
Anything In A Shell
This is a broad category, but I think it applies to pretty much any kind of nut or shellfish. It is usually a lot of work for not much of a return.
Like, think how much goes into getting two peanuts out of a shell. Not that much, but still way more than should be required for two peanuts. That’s why people say "working for peanuts" when someone isn’t getting paid much.
But even worse than high-effort, low-return is when it can be dangerous. Like, are oysters worth the possibility of chopping off your thumb in a freak shucking accident?
The same goes for King crab legs. I love them, but it’s like someone took delicious crab meat and stuck it under a bed of cacti and was like, "Alright, reach in and grab it. Also, that’ll be like $80 a pound."
I know you get tools to do this, but you still end up having to wrestle some legs with your bare hands, and that's when accidents happen.
Corn dogs are wildly inconvenient, by masqerading as super convenient. It's evil… but also delicious. (Getty Images)
Corn Dogs
This is controversial, but hear me out.
We’ve been led to believe by the Big Food-On-A-Stick industry that anything on a stick is convenient.
Wrong (and if something happens to me, it’s probably because I spoke up on this issue).
The first couple of bites of a corn dog are great, but once you hit the popsicle stick, that’s when the experience goes south for this hombre.
You get to a point where you have to consider the geometry of your mouth to get the last morsels of wiener off of that little stick of balsa wood (which, by the way, flavors the corn dog).
How is this convenient? I always end up poking the inside of my cheek, scratching the roof of my mouth, or biting down on the stick.
I haven’t ruled out the fact that I’m just an idiot, but I’m going to continue blaming the corn dogs.
Walking tacos have a similar issue, just without a stick. They seem convenient — "Hey, a taco in a bag!" — until you remember that Fritos bags aren't made of Kevlar, and you wind up with second-degree burns on your palm.
Rainier cherries and they other cherry brethren are delicious, but unfortunately you've got to get yourself a vessel for pit spittin'. (Getty Images)
Cherries
Just this morning, I bought a bag of Rainier cherries, which are great, but another total pain in the ass food.
I don’t like that eating a bowl of cherries requires an additional bit of kit in the form of some other receptacle into which I can spit cherry pits.
That's more dishes in the sink, and I've got to sit there holding a bowl of spent pits I spat out.
Sure, I can just stand over the trash to eat them, because that's where everyone wants to eat a snack: hovering over the remnants of past meals and snacks.
We have seedless grapes. How have scientists — who just cracked the old people funk matrix — not given us pitless cherries?
Or do we have them, and I am just not privy to this technology?
Fajitas arrive on the scene with a lot of fanfare and then take up several acres of table space. (Getty Images)
Fajitas
I don’t want it to seem like I’m bashing Mexican food. I’m a big fan, but some work needs to be done.
Fajitas are delicious, but everything about the experience when ordering and eating them blows.
First, if you’re an introvert, don’t order fajitas. They come out of the kitchen with more flamboyant pizzazz than a Pride Parade, and everyone turns and watches them make their journey through the airport Applebee’s to your table.
But that’s not all. Behind the sizzling tray of chicken and/or steak comes the accouterment. Plates of cheese, lettuce, and peppers. Rice and beans. Bowls of salsa, guac, and sour cream. One of those weird mini hat boxes filled with tortillas.
At this point, if someone is dining with you, they have to move to the next table because there’s no more space on the table. After all, you’ve set up Fajitas Mission Control.
Then, while everyone else is enjoying their food, you’re sitting there doing a little arts and crafts project, assembling each fajita.
Why can’t they do that in the kitchen, by the way? They do it with tacos. I hate restaurants that charge you to do the work and then are like, "Hey, isn’t this fun?"
No, you charged me $20 to make and burn my own pancakes. I could’ve done that at home for free!
…
That's it for this week, folks!
Come back next week, and if you've got a gripe, be sure to send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com