During a quick run to the deli for coffee and kitty litter, I spotted a sign at the dollar store: "HAPPY EASTER." That means it's Peep season. Even better, that means it's "guess the brand name of the cut-rate Peep knockoff the dollar store will actually carry" season. "Popes"? "Meeps"? "Chirpz"?

What I forgot, as I do every year, is that in order to get to Easter-candy-and-stale-extruded-marshmallow season, we all have to survive the mercifully brief but still thoroughly repulsive St.-Pat's-novelty season. I didn't forget for long, alas, because right by the register at the deli is a primitive altar of green Sno Balls, on which I promptly sacrificed my excitement about speckled-egg malt balls. …Oh, I beg your pardon: the Hostess Corporation would like us to call the green Sno Balls "Lucky Puffs." Apparently, each different color of holiday-themed Sno Ball has a special name: Scary Cakes (the orange Halloween ones); Glo Balls, which glow in the dark, which the regulation cerise Sno Ball kind of already does, but okay; and springtime's lavender Sno Ball, the Hopper, whose name I assume derives from the Easter bunny, but it's much more enjoyable if you use the Wire definition.

It's not as bad as the Shamrock Shake, but the two products share that watery-pale institutional green that implies all sorts of negatives, like Thorazine or nausea, or a valance/tunic worn by Dorothy Zbornak. I don't dispute St. Patrick's Day's right to offer a complement of superfluous themed snacks; I just wish the theme's color weren't so reminiscent of illness and frump.

While we wait for the Round of 64 voting to finish, I thought I'd see which breed of fake fruit you find the most disgusting. Everyone has a different fake-fruit nemesis, often derived from a Keckler's-sister-esque run-in with a particular candy as a child (or a Night of the Living DeKuyper incident as a sophomore); mine is fake cherry, which I hiz-ZATE, but I bet faux-nana wins. Well, "wins."

What's your most blerf-inducing fake-fruit "taste"? And what do you think everyone else will pick? Whether it's in candy, gum, Snapple, cough drops, or soda, now's your chance to indict a "froot."

Reading Obsolete gave me a few twinges for things I took for granted as a ten-year-old that a ten-year-old today would have to have explained to her: plaster casts; pop quizzes printed on a mimeo or ditto (the purple ink smelled so official!); cursive writing; lickable stamps, not just postage but Green Stamps too. We evolved past these things for good reason, mostly, but it's a little sad that, in a generation, we'll have forgotten them. So it's nice that we'll have the book, as the culture gets farther and farther from any firsthand experience with boom boxes and non-microwaved popcorn. The use of the word "encyclopedia" is facetious now, but will have the ring of truth in 25 years' time.

The concept is fab, but the execution is problematic at times; author Anna Jane Grossman tries too hard with the jokey, faux-anthropological tone. The "Girdles" entry is a good example:

Elasticized undergarments that made the wearer look sexy, eliminating the need to diet, exercise, or marry a surgeon. Those who relied heavily on girdles during the day also relied on very dark rooms at night.

It's the kind of "humor" that's shoehorned in during a second edit, and the material doesn't need it. Grossman has a lighter touch elsewhere, and when she's playing it straight with the occasional dry aside or quotation from an expert (the "Focus Groups" entry does that very well), the prose is perfectly engaging — but it's as though she couldn't decide whether she wanted to examine these obsoletoids in depth, or coast on the gimmick. As gimmicks go, the table of contents is a damn good one, but the book is far better when it explains in depth what a given object was, or did, and why it fell from grace ("High-Diving Boards"), instead of passing the buck with a weak punchline ("Singles Bars").

It's a great idea for a book, it's timely, and it will remain timely; Grossman could do an annotated edition every couple of years and not run out of material. I hope she does come out with an updated version or a sequel, and I hope she reins in the clunky jokes, which don't add much, and adds more supplementary research, which does.

I'll give it this without reservation: it's a great gift book. Secret Santas, take note.

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1 Rice Krispies vs. 9 Shredded Wheat. Each of these unadorned Classics had a relatively easy path to the Round of 32, but despite the mid-to-low seeding of the Shred, it's a tough match to call — Rice Krispies don't feature as robust a flavor, but they also don't rip up the mouth quite as much, and it's hard to argue with the signature snap, crackle, and pop (though the characters based on those sounds can shut up aaaaaany time now).Shredded Wheat's taste is fuller, and while that's not a good thing in everyone's opinion, the Shred works better with fruit and other toppings than the Krispie.I don't love either cereal, because they're what I got stick with as a kid instead of the sugary stuff, but I think the association with the eponymous treat carries the day for Rice Krispies.

12 Cocoa Krispies vs. 4 Lucky Charms. Cocoa Krispies's surprising defeat of Corn Flakes in the last round leads to an unexpectedly sugary early match-up in the Classics draw, and CK's luck probably runs out here.It had a hard enough time beating a workmanlike flake in the Round of 64; against colored marshmallows, it has no shot.The leprechaun, without breaking a sweat.

6 Frosted Mini-Wheats vs. 3 Cheerios. I can't vote for plain Cheerios.As I've mentioned elsewhere, the smell of them — chewed, drooled on, hucked at my head from the highchair and then left to molder where they'd rolled under the stove — is insupportable.Mini-Wheats have enough sugar on them to make the packing-materials-esque texture palatable, while still letting me feel smugly healthy about eating them.This is folly, no doubt, but it beats the humid stench of partially digested oat.(…You're welcome!)Mini-Wheats for a narrow victory.

7 Life vs. 2 Frosted Flakes. Life is a very good cereal with a very famous campaign.Frosted Flakes is an even better cereal with an equally famous pitchman.I prefer Double F myself, and I predict the voters will take Tony over Mikey.

*****

1 Honey Bunches of Oats vs. 8 Blueberry Morning. Hmm.I think HBoO pulls this one out, but blueberry doesn't seem like a fruit or flavoring that anyone really can't stand.Cherry, banana, raisin, some people really hate those, but blueberries inspire a lot of love without any corresponding loathing in the other direction; Blueberry Morning has a dumb focus-groupy name, but is delicious, so it's not impossible that it wins here.But it's unlikely.Bunches for the win.

5 granola vs. 4 Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. I like Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, but I don't love them; the flavoring is a bit faint for my taste.Do I like them better than granola, though?Depends on the 'nola.If it's sweet and has a lot of nuts in it (insert joke about family here), I'll take that over the ACCs, but I don't know what y'all will do.

11 Kashi vs. 3 Special K with Strawberries. I didn't think Kashi would get through the last round; I doubt it survives this one, not against a well-liked contender like Special K with Strawberries.Kashi does have a lot of varieties, though, and passionate fans of various flavors could put together a victory over the K.Could, but probably won't.

10 Cranberry Almond Crunch vs. 2 Raisin Bran. Raisin Bran is the only palatable raisin format for many raisin-haters.I, however, am not mollified.As many voters pointed out in the comments for the last round, the bran flakes in Raisin Bran have a zero-to-mush time of about 0.03 seconds.Furthermore, Raisin Bran contains raisins, and speaking only for myself, there is no sugar coating thick enough to fool me into thinking otherwise.HATE.That's just me, though; we seeded it second for a reason, and Cranberry Almond Crunch, while yummy, is too niche to survive against this powerhouse.

– Sarah D. Bunting

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Keeping that in mind, then, allow me to take you on a guided tour of my day. My day began at midnight; at midnight, I had already had two margaritas — and not just any margaritas, mind you, but the margaritas at El Parador, margaritas that taste delicious and yet pack such a deceptive wallop that drinking three of them once inspired my father to skip down the sidewalk while singing "Follow The Yellow Brick Road," and given that my father under normal circumstances is about as likely to don a sequined Russian ice dancer's outfit and watch a Joan Crawford marathon on AMC as he is to indulge in any gait more whimsical than "trudging," i.e. "not bloody," not to mention that the man can usually polish off a Coors party ball and still give no sign of having imbibed anything stronger than birch beer, I hope you will accept my father's brief and extremely troubling dementia as evidence that the word "strong" does not begin to describe these margaritas — and had just cracked open the third of the four and a half beers I would drink over the course of the evening. And speaking of those beers, I would like to interrupt the essay just briefly to tell a certain TWoP recapper that I certainly appreciate the generous instinct which prompted her to bring me a six-pack of delicious Post Road Pumpkin Ale when she visited New York City last weekend, but I must register a complaint, namely that said gift totally failed to come with a warning about how the yumminess of the ale might cause the more imprudent consumer to guzzle it without heed to the consequences because it's all spicy and scrumptious and cinnamon-y and tastes like a loaf of pumpkin bread in liquid form and will cause the aforementioned imprudent consumer to engage in a spirited debate with an equally intoxicated Cross Jr. about the long-term ramifications of Reaganomics, the existence of ghosts, and why cats have such good senses of balance, later forcing the corner deli to deal with my…er, "the consumer's" slurred requests for a provolone sandwich on a hero roll tomato mustard mayonnaise where's the Cheetos at? Damn you, Stephanie. DAMN YOU.

Fast forward a few hours. My apartment faces the west, and yet somehow the morning sun finds a way to awaken me by reflecting off of the buildings opposite mine, streaming into my apartment, and breaking the seal on my hangover-encrusted eyelids. It is 8:23 AM. It is very very very very very bright. My head has evidently gotten run over by a commuter train…or used as a bowling ball…or kicked, repeatedly, by God, which I probably deserve. I feel rather ill. Gingerly, I make my way into the bathroom with my water glass and down four Advil, then prepare a lemon-flavored Alka-Seltzer and pray that it won't come straight back up. Back to bed I go, whimpering and shivering, glad that I don't have to go anywhere today.

I dream. I dream about O-Town's Ashley Angel. No, not like that — unfortunately, because in the dream, we can't find a parking space at Target and he's crying hysterically and wearing one of those shirts from the late eighties that reacted to body temperature, so if you put your hand on the shirt, a handprint would show up, and it's all very upsetting, and we circle around and around and around the parking lot and then the car starts hitching and shuddering and making an expensive-sounding clack clack clack hoo-up hoo-up hoo-up splorch hoo-up hoo-up splorch noise and Ashley's all "Lou Pearlman's going to deduct the car repairs from my salary what if Shelli finds out I went to Target with another girl boo hoo hoooooo" in his dork-ass shirt and I've just about made up my mind to slap him hard to get him focused but then I wake up and discover that the car didn't make the clack hoo-up splorch noises after all. Hobey did. While throwing up. Twice. Oh, here's time number three. That's…exactly what I didn't need to hear this morning. Or see. Or think about. Thank goodness Little Joe isn't eating the…ew. Never mind. He's eating Hobey's vomit. Terrific. I'll just swing my legs over the side of the bed and go get the paper towels from the kitchen. Now, that's odd; I don't remember spilling my Alka-Seltzer earlier, but now my foot's all wet, so I must have…oh. Four times. Hobey threw up four times. Lovely. Okay, what's the fastest way to deal with the barf on my foot without actually having to look at either the barf or my foot? Ahhh. I'll just stick my foot in the toilet here…can't quiiiiite reach the flusher…ah. Fffsshooom…glurg glurg glurg. Problem solved. Oh, hello, bathmat.

That issue resolved, I move on to the next one — how to cover up the vomit with the paper towels while not making actual eye contact with the vomit and while also staying downwind (and yes, Virginia, in an apartment as drafty as mine, you can have a "downwind" indoors, and for once it's a good thing, since smells don't get much more unappetizing than recycled Fancy Feast Trout Buffet). It's not an easy task, but I've had a lot of practice, and I manage it eventually. Then I have to weigh down each paper-towel station with a shoe to prevent Little Joe from snacking on what's underneath. Then I have to light sixteen sticks of green tea incense. Then I have to go back to bed for an hour or two to let my stomach settle back down a bit, and to mull over the fact that the universe really seems to want me to throw up today.

Noon-ish. I surface from sleep to find, before I've even opened my eyes, that one of the cats has taken a dump noxious enough to melt tempered steel. I light more incense and wave it frantically about, the neck of my t-shirt yanked up over my nose, then plant it in the incense burner and shut every door I possibly can between me and the lethal poo. I feel better, hangover-wise, and toxic cat crap fumes notwithstanding, I have things to do today, so I mainline caffeine and check my to-do list. Ohhh dear. "Clean fridge." There's really no avoiding it, either; I've already put it off three times, so it's time to face the music. (Literally. The organisms living in one particularly ancient jar of Prego Three Cheese Marinara have developed the ability to play musical instruments. One of them has a first-look deal with Arista. Congratulations, spore!) I light another stick of incense, wedge into the door of the toaster oven, and fling open the refrigerator door, and I manage to escort several deeply disgusting items to their grave in the garbage can without feeling upchucky at all, including a quart of milk, only two days past the sell-by date and yet already spreadable in consistency; a blob of butter with a cat hair in it, and it is in it, in the center of it, which I don't understand and don't want to; The Incredible Prego Band; and a single, sad brown egg from which emits the faint but distinctive sound of clucking. A little scrubbing, a fresh box of baking soda, and I can check the fridge off of my list. And then I remember. I haven't finished. I still must face…the crisper.

See, here's the thing about the crisper. I can't see into the crisper when it's closed. See where this is going? No. Okay, well, because I can't see into the crisper, I tend to forget that there's stuff in the crisper at all. So the stuff in the crisper stays…in the crisper. For weeks. (I don't eat a lot of vegetables, in case I hadn't made that clear.)

So I stand there for a few minutes, steeling myself. The cats, thinking lunch is imminent, come in and sit by my feet. "It's not time for you to eat, Barfy O'Barfigan and Eatsbarf von Disgustingsnack. Get out." The cats do not get out. "Suit yourselves." I whip open the drawer, and the vigor with which I do so splashes me with droplets of liquefied broccoli. The cats pull faces of eloquent revulsion and flee the kitchen, tails low to the ground. Carefully, the rancid broccoli juice burning holes in the skin of my face, I remove the crisper from the fridge, carry it over to the garbage can, and hold it upside down, expecting the most nauseating portion of the clean-up to end forthwith. But no. Nothing happens. A few acidic green drops fall into the trash, sizzling as they go. The rest of the vegetables in the crisper — a handful of spongily prehistoric carrots and a zucchini mossy with mold — cling resolutely to the drawer. Only after three spirited rounds does my spatula finally score the TKO. I fill the crisper with very hot soapy water and leave it there for a couple of hours.

Evening. Time to face the drawer again. I get it cleaned up and wiped down and back into the fridge, but now it seems that the sink is clogged — probably by a teeny tiny electric guitar belonging to a late member of The Incredible Prego Band. I dump a bunch of drain cleaner into the sink, wait, and run the water as instructed. The sink says, "Buuuurrrraaaaapppuuhhhh." An air bubble makes its way up the drain, pops, and fills the kitchen with the scent of an omelet made from the remains of Jimmy Hoffa. I almost gag, but hold it together. Another air bubble surfaces; this one contains onion bits, shreds of potato skin, a peanut fragment, an object resembling a fingernail (not a fingernail cutting — an entire fingernail), and a grease-coated snarl of human hair studded with pearls of prehistoric cottage cheese. Well, that's it. I gag. I gag several times. I don't throw up, but I come very very close.

Obviously, a higher power decided that I should throw up today. It threw everything it had at me — a hangover, cat chunder, unionized condiments, the fact that an unknown person evidently waited until I went out for cigarettes one day and then stuffed a corpse down the drain of my kitchen sink — but I didn't break. I don't know what it would take, but if the fates want me on my knees in front of the toilet, they'll have to do better than that.

February 18, 2002