Don't Pee for Me, Argentina

Okay, they're taking away your pensions, your pay raises, your overtime, your job security, your benefits...if you even still have a job, that is. But now they want to take away your bathroom breaks. Check this out:

Reuters, August 1, 2003, 10:18am

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Supermarket cashiers in Argentina are being forced to wear nappies to keep them from taking toilet breaks at work, a union says.

Female cashiers in western Mendoza province must wear adult diapers in case "cold, nerves, pressure or stress" provoke incontinence, union official Jorge Cordova told local news agency Diarios y Noticias on Thursday.

Cordova refused to name the supermarket but he did say the chain is backed by foreign capital, said Sandra Varela, Mendoza's labour sub-secretary.

"The truth is, it's difficult to imagine a line of 20 adult cashiers wearing diapers for eight hours," said Varela, who is investigating the matter.

"In seventeen years as a labour lawyer, I've never heard anything like this before," she added.

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My Life, Brought to Me by Snapple

At the end of a fine meal of Chinese takeout eaten as usual in bed, my wife and I turned to our fortune cookies. Here is what we both got:



Yes, my fortune now has corporate sponsorship. This annoys me in so many ways. First and foremost, I'd like to be able to eat a goddamn cookie without being subjected to an advertisement. Second, it's not even a real fortune...it's a gag. Jokes come on bubble gum wrappers, not in fortune cookies. I need my fortune cookie fortune, I rely on them, I live my life by them. Third, the thing isn't even printed properly, with the last righthand letters cut off. Doesn't Snapple care about quality control? Finally, we both got the same 'fortune', which I can't seem to remember ever happening before in all the decades I've been sharing Chinese food with people. I can only conclude that the Snapple people are utterly barren of creativity and were able to think up only a very small number of these unfunny pseudo-fortunes.

You know, I actually think Snapple makes some pretty tasty ice teas, though I don't like their fruit drinks. But they've pissed me off now, so I won't be buying any more of their products. They've lost my money; let them live on lo mein.