This probably isn’t a revelation to anybody else, but I was a bit surprised this week when I realized the extent of my own weirdness.

I maintain a file of ideas and thought-snippets for my blog.  When something strikes me as odd or funny or disturbing, I pop it into the file.  Most of the 60 or so entries are only a sentence or two, and in the spirit of year-end cleanup I decided it was time to develop some of them into blog posts.

What’s more, I realized this post would fall on New Year’s Day.

“Well,” thought I, “What a fine opportunity to wrap up the year with a retrospective of some of the oddments I’ve discovered.”

Little did I know what a can of worms I was opening.  Here are a few of the items that amused me this year:

I discovered that it’s impossible to brush my teeth without making my nose wiggle.  And now that I’ve noticed it, it’s impossible to ignore.  I try, but I can’t look away.  Then I end up giggling and spluttering toothpaste everywhere.

I discovered that studies have been performed to determine how often people fart in a day.  That in itself tickled my funnybone, but when I found out that the testing apparatus included mylar underpants to trap and measure the emissions, I cracked up.  There’s just something hilarious about mylar underpants with a hose attached…

Also on that topic, I discovered that there is actually such a thing as fart-absorbing underwear with a built-in carbon filter.  It’s purported to control odour effectively, but there’s no word on how well it muffles the sound effects.  I guess you just have to blame the barking spiders for those.

And then there’s Poopourri, which, frankly, is right at the top of my “disturbing” list for many reasons, all of which are illustrated by this commercial.  Yes, this is actually a real product, and apparently it’s supposed to work.  I just… I got nothin’.

If you’ve managed to recover from that, here’s another goody I’ve been meaning to share with you, my poor suffering victims faithful readers:  In a small town named Torrington about an hour northeast of Calgary, there is a Gopher Hole Museum.  This museum consists entirely of dioramas containing dead, stuffed gophers dressed up and posed in various activities of human life.  Don’t believe me?  Check it out:  http://gopherholemuseum.ca/dioramas/  And yes, I went to see it, because it just had to be done.

Last but by no means least on the roster of weirdness, I discovered that it is apparently profitable to hoard food items long past the point where they are safe to consume or even possible to contemplate without gagging.  Yes, some guy sold a 20-year-old bottle of McDonald’s McJordan BBQ sauce for $10,000:  http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/10/17/an-anonymous-buyer-spent-10000-on-20-year-old-mcjordan-barbeque-sauce/

More to the point; some wack-job bought a 20-year-old bottle of McDonald’s McJordan BBQ sauce for $10,000.  One word:  Eeuwwww.

I guess I’d better go excavate under the couch cushions and see if I can find some fossilized potato-chip crumbs.  They’ve gotta be worth something.  Or maybe a half-squished piece of two-year-old popcorn that looks like the face of some religious icon…

Come on, ‘fess up!  Somewhere in the back of your cupboard, you’re hoarding a box of Kraft dinner from 1972 that’s worth at least a grand.  Right?  …Right…?

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I’m on the road this morning, so I’ll be back to reply to comments a little later in the day.  Talk to you soon!