A Bit About Me

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Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

26 February 2013

Just Horsing Around


(Two guesses where the "meatballs" come from.)


I started writing a blog about how I'm depressed and "oh, woe is me" and so forth and then I stumbled upon this news tidbit about Swedish furniture company, Ikea, getting caught selling horse meat in some meatballs.

This isn't an isolated event as quite a few places in Britain have been cited for their beef and pork being tainted with horse meat as well.

The first thing that came to my mind was, "What? Ikea sells food??"

Not only was I gobsmacked by the fact Ikea sells food...but I wondered how they packaged it. Was it all in individual little plastic bags when you bought, say, lasagne, and you'd have to assemble it yourself? Were you halfway through it when you noticed it was missing two noodles? Was there a toll-free number you could call for them to send you replacement noodles? How long does it take for them to ship out your noodles anyway? I'm figuring by the time you got your noodles you'd probably have to throw out the other stuff...and then you'd be left with only two noodles.

But seriously, do they do this "food thing" on an international scale? I never saw Ikea next to the Stouffer's or Hungry Man dinners. I think I would have noticed that. Do they even sell their food to other nations?

I looked, and according to some article, those horsey meatballs were sent to 12 other European countries. That's a bunch of irate people all talking different languages seeking justification as to how and why this could happen from a brand they probably trusted...and, perhaps it went something like this at Ikea's corporate office...

"We have just one thing to say about it, people -- just deal with it. It was only found in one batch and it's the same quality horse meat we've always used."

"Look, when you buy a product from a place that can't figure out how to get all your credenza parts into one box, you're going to have to realize we're really never going to figure out how someone managed to sneak horse meat into our production line."

"We have run several separate analyses on our products and found that horse meat is actually 20 percent better for you than the substandard sawdust we'd been using for the past 15 years."

"Look on the bright side...beef and pork have both been proven to cause arterial blockage...whereas no studies have been made on horse meat."

"Tainted meat...heh heh heh. We only did this so we could count up how many late nite comedians around the world used the word 'taint' in their monologues."

"Again, on the bright side...no one's ever died of 'mad horse' disease."

"All you neighsayers out there have been racing to track down someone to point a finger at. Right from the start...you were all quick to come out of the gate claiming some foal play,. Well, it'll behoove you to prove any wrong doing on anyone's part in our company. In the first place, you can't show we had any knowledge of this...and, in the end, you can bet we'll finish on top. We aren't going to issue some blanket statement on this other than you guys are definitely beating a dead horse over this whole issue."



Okay, that last one was a stretch.

Okay, I'll stop now. It wasn't that funny anyway...and puns were never a strong point of mine.

At least I didn't mention Sarah Jessica Parker...you have to give me some credit for restraint.




This was Day 26 of our 28 day quest into "We Work for Cheese's" maniacal writing contest. Today's prompt was "Deal With It"...and I tried. Now go and read everyone else's take on it..go on. You can do it. Hay, don't make me threaten you with another horse-related pun.



Sorry...I had to get one last one in there.





18 comments:

  1. I so love this "post". Well done. You know I've been eating horse meat for several years. How many? * stomps one foot on ground 3 times* Um, 3 years.

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    1. I so hate it when someone comes along and outfunnies my stupid blog. Well done. I actually laughed at that. :)

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    2. NoName will do that to you. Deal with it.

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  2. Damn you, Dufus! The ones I didn't use. I am sure there are at least three more...but I'll let you do them.

    I was trying to work in a Wilbur reference...and I was going to do "stallion" but I wasn't sure if it would be taken as "stalling" or not.

    Have you ever entered the Bulwer-Lytton contest? They have a whole category of bad puns. Hint hint.

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  3. Also, just for the hell of it...my favourite pun of all time. I don't think any...any...can top this one:

    Charles Dickens walks into a bar and orders a Martini.

    The bartender asks him "olive or twist"?

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  4. Oh my god, Mariann, you're almost as punny as dufus!! :D Actually, the whole horse meat thing is a huge scandal here in Europe. They first found it in ready-made lasagna (not Ikea's though), and since then it's been found all over the place, even in Ikea, which, believe it or not, always has a restaurant where they sell meatballs to hungry shoppers. Personally, I don't really care what kind of meat it is I'm eating, be it horse or beef, but I guess the issue is mislabelling the products.. Anyway, very funny post, Mariann. ;)

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    1. I thought it had to do with the fact that the horse meat has not been inspected...because you aren't allowed to eat horsemeat?

      I'm with you, tho. I would at least try it - they ate it during the war...people survived. (Bad choice of words...but you know what I mean. They had no beef, chicken, lamb, pork...but they had horse - so that's what butchers would sell. My mother told me all those horse-stories of living in Belgium when she was a young woman.) You ate what you had to in order to survive. And I would suspect it's not terrible tasting.

      And, thank you, btw. :) I'll get around to reading everyone's posts a little later tonite.

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  5. Um…. why would ANYONE buy meatballs at Ikea? No thanks!

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  6. I would hope they are in grocery stores and not out next to the furniture - but you never know. The last time I went into an Ikea store we lived in Washington, DC. It's been over twenty years. Things easily could have changed.

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  7. Did you attend the Dufus school of blogging, per chance? :D

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  8. Ok, it's official. To add to the list of your other health issues, you now have Dufusitits! Nicely done, Mariann. I love the part about missing a couple of noodles. :-)

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  9. Hey Mariann! I knew IKEA sold food. I also knew I never wanted to eat there. I go there for awesome stuff, not jack-of-all-trades sustenance. And horsemeat? Meh. They sell it in France, and always have. We're just squeamish about it. Indigo x

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  10. Ow, ow, ow, you made me laugh so hard it hurt!

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  11. I actually think I might have eaten horse meat.... they found it being served at Jack in the Box when I was a kid.... neighhhh!

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  12. I have no problem eating horse. A horse is a cow, is an elk, is a pig. It's all meat, people.

    Great post, Mariann. My favorite of yours so far in this thing.

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  13. I think it's weird that people have such a hangup about eating horse. Just like MikeWJ said, if you're willing to eat other animals like cow and pig, what's so wrong with a horse?

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