“I can’t get enough of this Himalayan Sea Salt” Jeremy Depew muttered ecstatically as he sprinkled the pink salt onto his  olive tapenade Thursday night. “It reminds me of the sound of rain on slate.” Depew thought for a minute. ” I like the Sicilian salt too, but you know what? It doesn’t go with Malbecs. That’s the problem with Sicilian salt.  There must be something about the way the waves lap gently against the Himalayan mountain that creates this…je ne sais quoi.”

“Let’s just say that post-nuclear holocaust, I’ll no longer be worried about the dozens of highly questionable likely carcinogens in Ding Dongs,” said stockpiler Dave Smith as he loaded boxes of newly acquired pastry snacks into his bomb shelter. “If there is ever a time when I’ll really be able to sit down and enjoy these Hostess Pudding Snacks, it is going to be when I walk out of my underground bomb shelter to find the smoldering remains of life on earth.”

“When I finished Fifty Shades and found out that Siri was the author, I have to admit that I was a little surprised,” said reader Tabitha Klinkenbyrd when she got the news. “Based on the writing, I was pretty sure my cat Spiffy was the one who wrote them. I taught him how to chase a ball of yarn around the living room last year, so writing this book seemed like a natural next step. Anyway, now that I know they were written by a device with no actual human brain that was designed as a personal assistant to young professional males, this whole series actually makes a lot more sense. I guess we have a lot to look forward to with the iPhone 7.”

As fires ravaged Colorado Springs for the fifth day, the city silently prayed to Jesus, begging for relief from the flames. The Springs promised to go cold turkey on its favorite gay soap-in-the-shower fantasy as well as the one with Tom Cruise playing sand volleyball.

“I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I found out there was nothing seriously wrong with my 35 year old son, other than the fact, obviously, that he’s really into rock climbing,” said one mother. “It gives him so much joy to stare silently at a single slab of rock for six or eight hours or ten hours imagining which microscopic cracks to cram his bleeding fingers into. As a parent, knowing he’s out dangling over a 100 foot ravine by a hand-tied knot has really saved me from the anxiety of wondering if  he’ll ever find a serious girlfriend, or start lighting things on fire.”    

“I usually book it up Flagstaff, but to be honest, my weight to power ratio is pretty high right now,” admitted cyclist Brad Miller in a recent conversation. “That’s going to change this season. You figure Flagstaff has a gradient of about 10%, which makes its gradient factor what? 3? So if you figure I average 10 miles per hour, that’s what – 16,000 meters per hour? Multiply my gradient factor by 100 and divide that into 16,000 and, oh let’s see, that’s about 160 watts per kilogram. Wait, that can’t be right. That means that if I weigh 180 pounds right now, that’s about 82 kilograms. That’s 160 watts divided by 82 kilograms equals 1.9. So if I lose 30 pounds by August, I’ll be at about 59 kg, which puts me up that hill at 2.7. That’s 20 miles/hour up Flagstaff, am I wrong? Holy Jesus, this isn’t making any sense, is it?”