HEARD ON THE BUS // “I don’t trust the moon. It’s always following me.” — bus, Madrid ✦ “No, February has 30 days on leap years. That’s why they’re called that.” — office kitchen ✦ “I’m not superstitious. I’m just careful around ladders, mirrors, cats, and Tuesdays.” — family dinner ✦ “The Wi-Fi is slow because it’s raining on the internet.” — train, somewhere ✦ SUBMIT YOURS — THE DONKEY IS LISTENING

Shittypedia

THE ALMANAC OF HUMAN FOLLY
Chapter III

Committee Approved

Official absurdity, with minutes taken and annexes attached.

ENTRY № 0031
Committee Approved

Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88: The Curvature of Cucumbers

For twenty-one years, the European Union maintained official standards on how bent a cucumber may legally be.1 “Class I” cucumbers were permitted a gradient of no more than 10 millimetres of bend per 10 centimetres of length. This was written down, translated into every official language, printed, and enforced across a continent.2

The regulation was repealed in 2009, freeing the crooked cucumbers at last.3 We include this entry with genuine affection: somewhere, a committee debated cucumber geometry with complete seriousness, minutes were taken, and everyone involved was doing their best.4 That is the most human thing we know.

  1. Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88. The bendiness clause is Annex I. There were annexes.
  2. To be scrupulously fair: retailers wanted standard sizes for packing crates. Every absurdity has a reasonable parent.
  3. Twenty-six vegetable regulations fell that day. The cucumber’s was the one the newspapers eulogized.
  4. The committee is all of us, given a table and an agenda.
Smirk “I have eaten many cucumbers. Not once did I measure first.” — The Donkey
DONKEY-O-METER
ENTRY № 0033
Committee Approved

“Warning: May Contain Nuts” — Found on a Bag of Nuts

Somewhere in the great machinery of consumer protection, it was decided — by process, by precedent, by a chain of entirely defensible individual decisions — that a package of peanuts should warn the purchaser that it may contain nuts.1 Related masterpieces of the genre include an iron warning “do not iron clothes on body,”2 a sleep aid cautioning it “may cause drowsiness,” and a chainsaw manual advising against stopping the blade with one’s hands.

Each label is a fossil: proof that at some point, somewhere, a human being attempted the thing.3 The label is not the joke. The label is the memorial.

  1. The nut warns of itself. Philosophers call this self-reference; lawyers call it Tuesday.
  2. Time saved: 20 minutes. This footnote does not endorse the technique.
  3. Warning labels are humanity’s only truly honest autobiography.
Ear twitch “No donkey has ever needed a warning label. We simply refuse. It's a system that works.” — The Donkey
DONKEY-O-METER

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