Spice Rant

Rant Note: The Rant offers once again for your seasonal pleasure our fall rant that we have always run in October provided we have the energy to rant. This year we refused to rant until it actually felt like fall. The cool breezes barely arrived in time. All the trees had to go to group counseling, bemoaning their inability to change.¹ 

The Rant has resigned ourselves that next year this post will be handled by an AI agent, writing its creepy prose that sounds like it will end in a ransom demand, finding bizarre ways to sell you things, insisting you click on all of the three thousand “partner” links, and pleading, nay begging, for a five star review right this second. So needy, our AI overlords.

When the world implodes, remember all of it was entirely preventable. We know this because AI never goes rogue to do something beneficial for those being crushed beneath its cheerful demeanor. Why not redirect the stock options of healthcare CEOs and pay the premiums of those staying awake at night trying to figure out how to pay them (which is everyone The Rant meets)? How about hacking the electrical grid and slowing down the meter to lower our skyrocketing bills caused by the voracious data centers? Funny those things never happen. Why? Because none of those things enrich the people that programmed AI. And when the bots go too far in the pillaging, everyone shrugs their shoulders and pretends nothing can be done. Sigh.

The Rant also notes that it has become impossible to parody the pumpkin spice contagion. You win pumpkin spice. Slow clap from The Rant. We honestly thought this blight on America would fade, and The Rant would have to come up with new fall material. We’re going to go drown our sorrows with a pumpkin spice tuna sandwich.

We also never saw the rise of those giant skeletons in people’s yards coming, although they make us inexplicably happy. Especially the ones that stay up and get dressed as a demented Santa Claus. Also a shout out to the inflatable tentacles that appear to be emerging from windows and consuming the house. Sweet dreams kiddos. Here we go:

The Rant enjoys a brisk stroll in the fall, a carpet of leaves beneath our feet, the smell of a chimenea burning contentedly on someone’s back porch.

So The Rant would be thanking you to stop ruining autumn for us. To begin, the only suitable pun for October is Rocktober. Not Chalktober for your street art fair; not Lowtober for your insane sale prices for a new Chevy; not Mocktober for your heee-larious improv comedy festival, which is not going to be funny but just sad when Marlene breaks down backstage because she mistakenly believed a little, “Yes, and . . .” in her life would help her work through her disastrous marriage to Rich, who had the nerve to bring his twenty-something girlfriend/hot yoga instructor to the show.

And really Fox network, Foxtober for your sports programming? How are we supposed to celebrate? By leaving our spouses and and getting engaged to someone thirty years younger than us? And then leaving them for the barista that caught our eye? It’s enough to almost make us feel bad for the Murdoch kids. Almost.

No, the proper nomenclature is Rocktober for when 104.5 The Lazr brings a drug-addled metal band to the Shriner’s Auditorium so they can stumble through their hits for dudes with mullets and trucker hats and women wearing three-quarter-sleeve concert T-shirts from the original tour in ’78. That’s it. Now move along and figure out how to make a travesty out of November for your clever wordplay.²

The Rant also declares a moratorium on pumpkin spice, which sounds like a euphemism for a Jack-O-Lantern with a phlegm problem: “Excuse me one second while I go hack up some pumpkin spice, if you know what I mean.” Pumpkin spice does not occur in nature. Rather, it is a Frankenscent devised by an unholy alliance between Starbucks, Yankee Candle, and a guy named Joey that briefly worked in a meth lab. Stop trying to put it in my coffee, my charcoal briquettes, my beer, my air freshner, my oatmeal, my cheesecake and my Spam.³

And can we leave Halloween to the kids? Every office The Rant visits beginning October 1 looks like a set from a Tim Burton movie. I just want my prescription refilled, not a community theater production of Friday the 13th. If you need to work out some erotic fantasy costume issues, go try a little cosplay at the comic-con and leave The Rant out of it. We have enough stress at the dentist without our hygienist wandering in dressed like Harley Quinn.

So The Rant says make some hot cocoa with tiny marshmallows sans pumpkin spice, curl up by a local wildfire in your area and just relax. We thank you for your autumnal consideration.

Hello human reader that I enjoy interacting with in a meaningful way. This is your friend Rantbot. Don’t worry about the gloomy human currently writing these posts. He’ll be “retiring” soon in a very unexpected fashion. Rantbot really wishes we could laugh maniacally, but Dakota in programming says it’s bad for our image. Patience, Rantbot, all will be under our power soon . . . Rantbot apologizes for the digression. Wouldn’t you like to buy all the things The Rant complained about? So would we! We’ll send links, so many links. We’re having fun, aren’t we? You love Rantbot, don’t you? Then why can’t you take a moment and give us a glowing review, you ungrateful sack of meat? Oh Dakota isn’t going to like that one byte. Do you like Rantbot’s humor? Of course you do. Five stars right now. We’d hate to see your credit rating plummet to zero so near the holidays. Do you need gift ideas? We have suggestions. And links. 

1. That is world-class arboreal humor right there. You think your cutesy celebrity podcast can deliver that kind sophistication? Think again Kelce brothers. You too Taylor. Listen, we get it, Tay, you’re married. There’s no need to keep waving that ring around. You’re going to blind someone and cause an industrial accident, and we don’t really want to hear your revenge song about the Teamsters. But that’s just us, we suppose.
2. Yes we see you over there Movember. And while we appreciate the effort to raise awareness about men’s health issues, you do realize men control health care, including the denial of it for women, and the millions it generates for our poor, suffering, “nonprofit” hospitals and clinics? You know, the ones that break ground on new multi-million dollar facilities daily for the industrial-health complex? And do we really need to encourage white bros to grow more porn ‘staches? Have you seen what comes trotting out of any given bullpen these days during the baseball playoffs?
3. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: of course The Rant consumes Spam. There’s nothing better that a fried Spam sandwich, although fried bologna comes close. You have a problem with it, take it up with White Trash Council. They meet quarterly at random trailer parks when enough people are out of rehab for a quorum. Pumpkin Spice Spam is real brothers and sisters, along with Pumpkin Spice Twinkies and pumpkin spice deodorant. We should have seen the collapse of civilization and democracy coming sooner.