May 21, 2012

Welcome to Weird

Marshmallows

Hard to Explain, Impossible to Ignore

Thirty milligrams sodium, twenty-three grams carbohydrates, less than one gram protein. The marshmallow. Don’t look for it at your local health club. Don’t include it as part of a diet. And don’t eat more than a few at once, you’ll just end up with a stomach ache.

The ingredients of a marshmallow are fairly simple. Corn syrup, sugar, dextrose, corn starch, water, gelatin, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, artificial and natural flavor, and blue 1. Most of those are self-explanatory. Corn syrup for flavor, sugar because that’s what the marshmallow is, corn starch for shelf-life, water to puff the thing out, gelatin to hold it together. Nobody knows what the compounds are for, and nobody really cares. Because, come on, why would you care what you’re putting in your mouth?

The ingredient I have a question about is the blue 1. Food coloring. Blue food coloring. Now maybe I’m wrong about this, but marshmallows are white, aren’t they? And white is achieved by a lack of color. So what color did those little puffs of sugar have to start out to require the addition of blue to neutralize it?

Anyway, I could rant about marshmallows forever. You may not agree, and you don’t have to; I think the things are weird.

But this site isn’t about marshmallows, despite the ramblings above. This site is about stories. Stories that are, like marshmallows, strange, mind boggling, but somehow appealing to the public at large. Hard to explain, impossible to ignore.

So take some time, look at the different stories, and send me some of your own. Because this site won’t survive without you baring your soul, embarrassing your loved ones, and making fun of the stupidity all around you. That’s what this site is all about.

Submit your stories following the instructions here.