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by Lore Sjöberg
Hot Wheels
Let me admit here that I was never really into cars as a kid. Sure,
I could recognize anything David Hasselhoff drove
as a cool car, but by and large my thought was, "I can't drive one myself,
why bother." I was, however, into superheroes, and that's where
Hot Wheels came in. Some of them, you see, had the little doors
that open. Pop both of those pups open, and you've got yourself
Supercar, the car that can fly! Of course, nowadays I get the image
of a car soaring through the air with a little digitized voice
repeating "Your door is ajar" over and over again. B
Hot Cinnamon Candy
One of the great wailing tragedies of the candy industry is
that "red," for some twisted reason, has come to denote both
"cherry" and "cinnamon." Which means that when you grab a
bunch of unidentified red candy, you're taking life into your own
hands. Each candy unit is like a cheap choose-your-own-adventure
paperback of taste. Will you get the pinnacle of human achievement
that is artificial cherry flavor, or will you be thrown into
the unpleasant lake of cinnamon? And wouldn't it be great
if "Candyland" featured "The Unpleasant Lake of Cinnamon"? C-
Hot Sauce
I can't get over this stuff. It makes everything taste better, and yet
it makes everything taste like hot sauce. Even better, lot of little
chi-chi hot sauce boutiques carry varieties with names like "Acid Rain
Hot Sauce," "Scorned Woman Hot Sauce," "Jump Up and Kiss Me Hot Sauce,"
and "Jump Up and Pour Acid Down Your Throat at Breakfast, You Macho
Idiot, See if I Care Hot Sauce." B+
Hot Air Balloons
A really remarkable an efficient mode of transport, if you happen to
want to go in the direction the wind's blowing. I once witnessed
Albuquerque, New Mexico's "Hot Air Balloon Festival," an
event much beloved by people who make scenic calendars, and it gave
me one of the most profound insights of my life. As the balloons
filled and lifted delicately into the clear azure morning sky, one
after the other, until the sky was filled with their bright colors,
I thought "It looks like a photo taken right as someone
dumped out the biggest box of Trix in the universe. Huh." C
Hot Dogs
Why is it that everyone who has created some sort of
meat substitute out of carageenan and cardboard decides to market
it in the form of hot dogs? Do vegetarians crave Ball Park Franks over
all other forbidden foods? Is it that you can roll something
into a tube, dye it vaguely red, and call it a hot dog? Or, as I
suspect, is it so that you can give it a cute product name?
(i.e. "Kelp-based meat substitute" becomes "Sea Dogs.") At any rate, hot
dogs come under the wide category of "food I will eat, enjoy, and
regret because it makes my mouth feel greasy for a week despite
repeated acts of hygiene." B-
Hot Tubs
These are wildly overrated. I mean, okay, alone or with a close friend
whom you want to see naked, this can be nice, like a hot bath. But I'm
in California, where we jump into hot tubs in social situations where
people in more sane states would just play Pictionary. Under these
circumstances, hot tubs can be uncomfortably like public transportation,
except you're wet, naked, and you don't go anywhere. C-
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