You know me. I'm always picking up garbage so I can smell it for foreign substances. I carry around a marker to leave secret signals on bus stop benches and light poles. I'm always trying to track down scraps of evidence to prove an unlikely conspiracy. My secondary purpose in life is raising the threshold of public enlightenment by using commonplace flotsam as interlocking puzzle pieces in my bizarre collage of colliding juxtapositions.

So I march onwards with my reverse bifurcation of the mundane, creating dichotomies where no relation previously entwined the newly enjoined vicitms of my staple gun. Let's make a strange connection. Join me.

All for revelation. I do this to help people.

First off, drug advertisements. You've seen, heard, or read commercials for hundreds of different drugs over the past five years. Some of them never even stated their purpose. As a result, people everywhere are flocking to physicians to ask if Trimentholitis is right for them. Hypodermic needles aren't just for heroin junkies anymore. Now you can freebase Minoxodil by injecting it under your eyelid and a forest of hair will sprout instantly somewhere on your lumpy body. Use it enough and you might get lucky and grow a few atop your head.

For the longest time, federal law required pharmecutical ads to inform you that side effects may include rectal bleeding, projectile vomiting, skin peeling, eyeball shrivelling, leprosy, and halitosis. Unfortunately people weren't begging for unnecessary prescriptions at a fast enough clip to satisfy the stockowners.

More hypnotized zombies were needed to increase consumption and boost profits. What could the FDA do to help our drug manufacturers sell more idiot pills to bovine America? Change the ad restrictions! Now I never hear about side effects including hysteria, intestinal blockage, leaky liver, exploding spleen, or dry mouth. Instead the commercials conclude with "See our ad in Ladies Home Journal."

I heard one this morning that said "See our ad in Wal-Mart magazine!" Holy shit. Now I have to buy my drugs in bulk discount? I guess that's cool if they come with an automated delivery system that will shoot the capsules up my ass while I sleep. I'll just sleep with my ass prone in the air. When my prescription happy pill is launched I'll stop snoring from my ass and start snoring from my mouth. I'll need another pill for that.

Secondly. The new Fruit and Walnut Salad at McDonald's. I believe this is the first menu item to be suggested for both breakfast and dinner. You can order it anytime. Not only is this tray of perky garbage supposedly healthy, but it purports to deliver a buzz to the eater.

Personally, I enjoy catching a buzz from drinking and drugging. Not from my dinner. (unless we're talking turkey here) This new entree crosses that line. Not only will the fruit walnut tray cause euphoria, but it will also impair my judgement. The ad I heard on the radio this morning portrayed a woman telling her stylist to surprise her with a new haircut. The other be-curlered matrons shreiked in shock and dismay. What could she be thinking? Is she drunk? Crazy? Gossip abounds.

At this point I'm going to take a few liberties with the gossip dialogue. This is important because it allows me to portray what I think the ad wanted to say but couldn't due to FCC decency restrictions.

"I'll bet Beatrice skipped church this morning to go to McDonalds!"

"Goodness yes! I think she nibbles those walnuts in a restroom stall while she jams her vibrator through her pantyhose and whiffs Krylon. All at the same time by golly!"

"That would take three hands! She must save the paint for dessert."

"What a horrible mother. I hope Sheila gives her a terrible new hairdo."

"Me too. That bitch deserves it."

(When they all leave each of them separately sneaks to McDonalds' for their own guilt and salad orgies)

The critical point here is this: these chemical slathered crones are showing us that eating a fruit and walnut salad is a guilty pleasure like chocolate, ice cream, or masturbating in department store try-on rooms.

I reject this. I say Mcdonald's is the guilty party here, not the consumer. I say Ronald McDonald is a deranged clown, a drug dealer standing under the arches, hollering to the passers by:

"Catch the nut buzz my chillens! This shit will straight fuck you up, Joe! Limited time only, mothafucka!"

I reiterate: McDonalds' is the bad guy here, not you the consumer, not their character Beatrice. Bea is an unsuspecting victim, a hapless consumer drawn in by the promise of low carbs, natural fructose, vitamin C, and beverages improved by Splenda.

When the confusing mixture of subliminal messages succeed and the customer's self-esteem fractures, they can move in for kill. Instead of fruit, they'll sell you McNuggets while you're in the dumps and looking to indulge yourself. Then you'll feel the need to eat healthy, and the vicous circle will begin anew.

That is, unless you can find the willpower to break the cycle of drive-through addiction.

Don't worry! GlaxoSmithKline is developing a pill that will give you the willpower to resist the McSalads. A diet pill, an appetite reducer. You'll need another pill from Baxter to counter the side effects of clammy skin and bleeding tear-ducts from the first pill, but at least you'll be able to resist the siren call of McChickens and Big Macs.

Eventually McDonald's will get wise and fight back, and they'll start their own pharmecutical branch to put addictive additives in their food. That way nobody will be able to resist.

Wait a minute. The buzz in the fruit and walnut salads! They're already drugging people! There's a war for possession of the consumer bloodstream underway here. We're just rats with money.

Make sure you have good insurance. 8:21 AM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm