Have you ever run across Pinterest? I have, which may go some way to explain the nervous twitch and the spontaneous tears. Sometimes I divide my life into “the time BP” (Before Pinterest) and “the time AP” (After Pinterest).

I became a member of the Pinterest community a couple of years ago. I only joined because my wife (Gina the Gorgeous) had recently become a member and I received orders to sign up so that I could follow her, thereby allowing her to bask in the satisfaction of having a follower (now I’m one in a multitude and she has to beat them off with a stick).

The problem is that, once you have joined, you run across all sorts of things that make you say, “Oooh, Shiny!” Even worse, the system keeps on tempting you by saying things like, “I bet you’d be interested in these…” and it’s usually right.

Before long, you find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time adding images that catch your eye to your own “buckets,” only to find that yet another hour has passed without your noticing it, but I fear we are in danger of wandering off into the weeds. The reason I’m waffling on about all of this here is that I just ran across a rather thought-provoking image.

At first, I chuckled and chortled (not at the same time, you understand), but then the laughter died on my lips as I began to recall all the times Gina has asked me to pick up some obscure items from the supermarket… the countless hours I’ve spent slogging up and down the aisles searching the shelves in increasing desperation and despondency… the pitying looks on the employees faces as they listen to my tale of woe and then back away promising to “ask a manager” (we both know they aren’t coming back).

Can it be that the reason no one seems to have heard of the items on my list is that these products never actually existed in the first place? Hmmm…