Today’s douchebag is Rachael Ray. Right off the bat it irritates me that she has to put that extra ‘a’ in her first name. But I guess I should take that up with her mother since she named her. So Rachel with an extra A claims to have these 30 minute meals. She claims that each of these meals can be executed from start to finish in 30 minutes or less. She has a show on the Food Network where she demonstrates this.  Shocking as it might be, I love watching cooking shows. Shocking because my domestic abilities are severely lacking, and it was obvious from a very young age. In 6th grade, I had a home economics class and 2 of our projects were to sew sweatpants and make a meal using rice. My sweatpants ended up only having 1 leg and I asked the teacher if I could just order in Chinese takeout rather than stand over the stove.  Crap, now I’m craving moo shoo chicken from Shun Lee in NYC and I’m pretty sure they don’t deliver to Orlando.

So back to Rachael Ray and her 30 minute meals. I decided to try one of these meals out one night, and here’s what I quickly realized. On the show she’ll be like, “So now we just need to peel and cut these potatoes, chop the parsley, and slice the onion.”  Just as she starts peeling the first potato, she says, “I’ll finish all this and see ya back here in a few.”  This is when she cuts to commercial. So then about 3-4 minutes go by, and when she comes back from commercial, miraculously all her potatoes are peeled and cut, her parsley is chopped, and her onions are sliced. And if you look at her face, not a tear in her eye. I’ve cut onions a few times. After I look like just watched the movie Beaches while PMS, and if I had camera-ready makeup on, my mascara would be running so much I’d look like a zombie chef. I have a sneaking suspicion there was a non-paid intern running around looking like he or she watched Beaches, or since the intern is probably half my age and never heard of ‘Beaches,’ let’s go with ‘The Notebook.’ Who’s she kidding, most of her stuff is peeled, washed, and chopped for her.  And even if she did do some of it herself, she’s a professional, I’m not, clearly it would take me much longer. It would be like asking Lindsay Lohan to spell. It’s just not in her skill set.

I have no problem with Rachael teaching us how to make these meals, and appreciate her attempt to make them quick and easy, but don’t promise 30 minutes and make me feel inadequate when it takes me 44 minutes.  Call the show “30 minute or so meals.”  Or “30 minute-ish meals”.  She also invented something called the “spoonula” which is half spoon, half spatula that she often uses. Let’s face it, it’s a total red-headed stepchild  to the “spork” which is just plain awesome. For all these reasons, Rachael Ray, you are the douchebag of the day.

As I previously mentioned, I’m from New York but moved to Orlando a few years ago. There are so many things to love about NY, the Broadway shows, the museums, the shopping, the bagels. In my opinion, there is nothing in this world better than a hot, fresh, deliciously dough-ey everything bagel with cream cheese, tomato, and lox on a lazy Sunday morning. The only thing that might be better is hearing my daughter giggle uncontrollably.  But honestly, if we’re talking literally right out of the oven, the bagel trumps the giggle. So I’m driving in Orlando, and I come across a shop called Einstein bagels.  Jews usually know their bagels so I decide to give it a shot.

It’s not Sunday so I decided to go simple. I ordered a sesame bagel with cream cheese. A few minutes later the woman handed me my bagel, I sat down at a table and dig in. I took one bite and was immediately horrified.

They have the nerve to call this a bagel!  It’s like the worst knock-off of a bagel I’ve ever tasted. Worse than the knock-off Louis Vuitton bags they sell for 10 bucks on the city street!  I’m telling you, this was no bagel, it had the consistency of a roll.  At least call it what it is. Like the Cronut, it’s part croissant, part donut. If this thing is a roll, disguised as a bagel, they should call it a ragel, or a boll!  At least cronuts are good, this “ragel” was a disgrace. It’s an outrage. And as a born and bred New Yorker, a Jewish New Yorker, I think I speak on behalf of my people by saying, frankly we’re offended. There’s a certain amount of integrity that comes along with calling something a bagel. What I ate was bread with a hole in it.

So Mr (and/or Mrs) Einstein, your shameless distortion makes you the douchebag(s) of the day. And I would urge you to change the name of your establishment. Einstein Bolls may not have the same ring to it, but at least it’s accurate. No more lies.

Today’s douchebag is not an entire person, just a portion of a person. You’ll understand once I delve into the story.

When I first moved to Florida we were renting a house and day 1 we pull up, granted I’m already totally freaked out about moving to a city that houses ‘the happiest place on earth,’ because frankly too much happiness gives me hives.  But there we were, getting our stuff out of the car and suddenly a woman, a very attractive woman, jogs over to us. Now, let me further explain that not only was she overall very attractive, she was wearing tiny spandex shorts and a sports bra. And her body, specifically her 6 pack abs was nothing less than perfection. Now this woman fits right in at the happiest place on earth, her abs alone give her 6 things to be happy about.

Well, turns out she was our new neighbor. PERFECT.  So every time I saw her jogging with her six pack, it reminded me that not only did I have a ‘no pack,’ at the time, I couldn’t even show off my abs if I wanted to. After I had my daughter, for a while I had a bad back and had to wear a hideous support belt. Picture a girdle from 1946 worn by an older woman who ate way too much cheese. So now picture me and my back girdle standing next to Patty Perfection and her six pack abs. Tragic. It turns out she was very nice, and the next day she brought us over these delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies. So Patty Perfection was also Martha Stewart minus the jail time. Yay. Secretly I wanted to make her eat the entire tray of cookies plus 10 more in hopes that her 6 pack would diminish to maybe a 4 pack. At least that would give me 2 things to be happy about here at the ‘happiest place on earth.”  Maybe I should get a job playing Snow White or Cinderella. Those bitches are always so happy. I want whatever they’re smoking.

Anyway, like I said, my neighbor was actually very nice, so just her abs are today’s douchebag of the day. They still taunt me. All 6 of them.

Today’s douchebag, or potentially douchebags, are the people that make the rice cakes I buy at Whole Foods. The name of the brand is escaping me, but my anger isn’t. I’ve recently gone gluten free for health reasons. And I can assure you it’s not because Gwyneth Paltrow told me to on her website, Goop. She also recently told people that if they’re in LA, they should go to this place where they can steam clean their vagina. Sorry Gwyneth, if I’m getting something steam cleaned it’s going to be an area rug, not my vagina.  I know she and her ex-husband Chris Martin said they ‘consciously uncoupled,’ but my guess is that he consciously ran the fuck away from that crazy bitch.

But back to the rice cakes. The reason I’m so annoyed (besides the fact that most things annoy me) is that this is the 3rd time this happened. I go to open the rice cakes which have become a staple in my gluten free diet.  I know some people say after a few weeks of cutting out gluten they don’t even miss it.  I’m not one of those people.  If a basket of hot, fresh bread comes to the table at a restaurant, I still want to stick my face in it and motorboat the hell out of those warm rolls.  Anyway, I go to open the rice cakes, and much to my dismay, the plastic seal around the cakes was already broken.  I’m a child of the 80’s, and I remember all too well a Halloween or 2 where the fear of God was instilled in me. My mom must have said about a million times, ‘only eat the candy that’s properly wrapped!!’  There was this scare going around that there were razors in some of the candy. It was so frightening, even more frightening than my neighbor who every year dressed up as a slutty nun. Let’s just say the size of her habit, was better suited for a hobbit. I managed to live through “razor-gate,” but every time I buy a food item that looks like it could’ve been tampered with, I fear the end is near.

The only thing saving me from thinking I might get poisoned is that the rice cakes have another plastic wrap over the broken plastic seal. Granted the outside plastic is just tied up, and any lunatic could easily open it and tie it back up, but I choose to ignore that fact. The bottom line is, people risk their lives all the time.  Some climb the highest mountains, others jump out of planes, some race cars up to 200 mph. Me…I eat partially opened packages of rice cakes.  This gluten free thing has really brought out my dangerous side. Before you know it I might even start trying those free samples they leave out at Whole Foods for any serial killer to tamper with.

Rice cake people, you and your pitiful packaging are the douchebags of the day.