They Make Banana Slicers.

I'm not kidding. I almost feel like I don't need to say anymore.

But you know me. I shall say more.

A simple Google search on banana slicers, which I did not know existed until a good friend pointed them out to me, yielded not just one but many different types and styles to choose from. Because, you know, your hand and a BUTTER KNIFE just won't do. I have cut a banana into cereal WITH A SPOON so I didn't have to dirty another utensil, for frick's sake. WHO BUYS THESE THINGS??? I can't even imagine.

If you are spending otherwise perfectly good money on a plastic product like this, you need to be removed from the gene pool. Now. You need to stop using air. You need to not use otherwise perfectly good water that the rest of us need, for you to wash this thing. I suppose you wash out something that you only used to measure out water, too. You have your kids use paper or plastic or Styrofoam plates for dinner some days because you don't want them messing up other real plates. I'm just guessing, here. By all means, let me know if I'm wrong. You use lots and lots of single-use plastic bottled water - at home - which is the last place anyone needs it. You leave the water running while you do dishes and brush your teeth. You use a Kleenex to wipe your nose just once then throw it away even though there is plenty more Kleenex to use. You flush bugs. You think those disposable hand towels might be pretty nifty, because life is germy.

Actually, I'm not really sure what you are really like, if you are the kind of person who buys this sort of useless plastic crap thing. I think I'm pretty sure I don't really need to know you.

Please, just don't have kids.

Google Mixed Feelings

It's a nice enough commercial. Got all the things we like/hope for/dream of, I suppose. Nice house. Happy pretty smiling blonde little girl, all curious and alert and intelligent and well-behaved. Lots of toys. Mother lovingly reading to said child. Did I say lots of toys? They read, not from a book, but from the new Google tablet. In between short passages from Curious George, the child is seen running around, happy and free and well-behaved, playing with things that relate to the story, and of course talking to Grandma on the tablet.

I love Google. Use it all the time. G-mail, Google Chrome, Google Search, Maps, heck my phone has a Google platform. This is not against Google. It's not even against tablets. Heck, I wish I had one. Big time. I have Big Time Tablet Envy. Instead, and I'm struggling to put these feelings into words, I just find the whole commercial to be a very sad statement on reality. I'll try to explain....

I like seeing kids with books. Real books. Yes, tablets in schools make sense. But at home on the couch? Bedtime? Something comforting about BOOKS. Books passed down. Books your Dad read to you and now you read to your kid. Is your kid going to read to THEIR kid from the table you used? SNORT! Hardly. Not in ANY scenario. And then there are libraries. A kid of any economic background can enjoy books so long as there are libraries. There are a lot more kids whose families CAN'T afford tablets than can, I would say. I know we had a good life with enough of most everything, but we would have been hard-pressed to have tablets. And my dad was a teacher. Irony.

And about that perfect house with perfect toys and the perfect back yard. Talk about showing what the typical household in America is NOT right now. Maybe I'm just tired of the "Hey look at this don't you want this if you just buy THIS product you too can have this" messages in this consumer buy-buy-buy society. It's a symptom.. or actually is it the problem? It's a MYTH.

You know, like in the BOOKS?

I don't wish to stop progress. I just wish that it would be tempered with good sense. I wish that we weren't ignoring important issues in our quest to consume everything we see. What are we leaving behind?

WHO are we leaving behind?

By the way, when you Google mixed feelings, you get:

*mixed feelings (about someone or something)
uncertainty about someone or something.

Just FYI.