andy says submit!
ON THIS DATE IN HYPOTHETICAL HISTORY
BY ERIC SILVER
 

Strawberries Are Discovered, 1297

People have been seeing these red heart-shaped fruits every time they walk through the forest, but they don’t eat them because they are red. Red is nature’s warning sign for poison, as they well know. Still, the fruit smells so sweet, and they’ve seen animals eating it, though they don’t see where they’re crawling off to vomit or die. Finally, one brave soul decides it is better to be dead than to wonder what these fruits taste like. He eats one. He waits for the poison to take effect and prepares a place on the forest floor to peacefully expire. He doesn’t die, and starts serving it to his friends at cocktail parties. Civilization has just taken its first step towards science and modernity, not to mention some truly formidable desserts. 

Donald Sutherland Enters His Golden Years, Then Completely Ceases To Age, 1990

Various theories all concur on a Faustian contract for Donald’s soul, with a rider put in to successfully revive son Kiefer’s career.

All Hygienic Products Are Made, 1898

They were always hot, but then you got closer and talked to them. They smiled and you saw the last few meals they ate like it was a collage. And the smell. Yes, it works with animals, but there are no words for the funk that they exuded. Suddenly they smell like flowers and herbs. At first you become sexually confused and wonder if you are more attracted to flora than fauna. Thankfully your first few times experimenting with this lifestyle are completely unfulfilling.

The Staple Remover Is Invented, 1923

Sure, sure, the stapler is such a great idea. Yeah, it keeps all those important papers together. And then you make a mistake. Aside from the sheer pain of ripping off half of your nail or from being impaled on the ends, it’s just plain embarrassing to find yourself so helpless over a small piece of metal worth an even smaller piece of a penny. 

Pop-up Ads Appear Everywhere, 1997

It used to be limited only to adult sites, and that only affected the perverts, which served them right. They became a sort of moral deterrent. Then one day you are looking at the Justin Timberlake Ultimate Fan Homepage and some totally unrelated ad appears, telling you to save on some kind of house insurance. I mean, it’s not even insurance against Justin rocking your house down!  It was a sad day for everyone, except the people at $ave Now, who seem to have conquered the world.

Sliced Bread Is Invented, 1928

It’s an overused cliché, but people still don’t truly understand this boon to mankind. The irony is that sliced bread is the best thing, and that’s where the buck stops. Let’s take my mother, for example. She’s currently doing her Weight Watchers thing, and more power to her. If you offer her a bagel (sliced, obviously), she will proceed to “scoop” the top and bottom, thereby ridding herself of all those unnecessary carbs and calories. Now, let’s imagine her living in the BSBE (Before Sliced Bread Era), and sitting down to a tuna sandwich (4 points, according to WW). She then proceeds to take the top part of her sandwich, a loaf of bread, and rip into it, until a thin layer of grain is left to cover the tuna and lettuce. She then does the same to the bottom loaf. I sit and watch her doing this, exclaiming that she is throwing away the best part of the bread, so I eat the leftovers, which is nearly two full loaves of bread. This unanticipated rise in my consumption of carbohydrates, not to mention the buttered, toasted loaf I am served when I order eggs at the diner, leads to my physique becoming somewhat similar to a loaf of bread. I am not alone, however, because the greater part of the bread-eating world, with the exception of those clued-in to Weight Watchers’ scooping methods, is as large as I am. We all eventually die out from obesity and heart failure, while the noodle and rice-eating population takes over. Now, is anything really the best thing since sliced bread?  I think not. Except maybe penicillin. 

Gangster Rappers Discover That “Ladies” Rhymes With “Mercedes,” 1994

The rap world is changed forever. The nearest notable precursor to this moment is Easy Ed’s 1989 use of the unwelcome lyrics: “Hey there, Rob/want to ride in my Saab?” 

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