Page-View Poison

Happy New Year! I've decided to kick off 2010 with a fabulous new weekly column on AC called "Page-View Poison." My hope is that "Page-View Poison" is an ironic title for what turns out to be a wildly successful series of articles. Are you with me? Here we go...

The Gripes of Roth: Toys to Avoid

Michael Segers is the genius (I'm not being sarcastic!) who suggested "The Gripes of Roth" when I was searching for a name for my blog. Well, someone else on Blogger was already using that name-someone named "Roth" who never wrote a darn thing-and I've given up on blogging for now. But I still love to gripe, so listen up!

Every Christmas, we unwrap a few duds. You know, gifts that are totally crappy. I'm sorry to say that I gave my kids some duds this Christmas. Do NOT buy the following toys:

SpongeBob SquarePants Explorer Flashlight: It looks cool, but it broke when my husband unscrewed it to add batteries. My daughter was really looking forward to playing with it, too. What a piece of junk! A much better gift for SpongeBob fans is the "SpongeBob's Greatest Hits" CD.

Nerf Secret Strike AS-1 Blaster: I thought my son would like this small dart gun. He opened the package, read the instructions, pumped it the recommended seven times, pushed the trigger, and...pffft...nothing. It doesn't work. It doesn't even attempt to shoot the dart. I tried it out, my husband tried it out. No luck. Total waste of money.

Creative Writing Exercise (Fiction is the ultimate "page-view poison" on AC!)

I'm going to write a short story, but, first, I want your input. In the comments section below, tell me the characters' names and physical traits. Are there any outrageous situations you'd like to see portrayed in my story? Any particular lines of dialogue? I'll try to include all the suggestions I receive. This will be fun!

Maybe you'd like to play along and write a story of your own, using all the same prompts. Why not? Let me know if you do write a story so I can include a link to it in my next edition of "Page-View Poison."

How's Audrey Doing?

Audrey was discharged from the hospital on New Year's Eve. She's been extremely tired the last couple of days. She just finished putting together a Sesame Street puzzle, all by herself. Now she's playing with her brother's SpongeBob LEGO figures. She will probably have her next chemo treatment this Wednesday. (To read more in-depth updates, visit Audrey's CarePage.)

What's Worse?

It's late. You don't want to wake your sleeping spouse by turning on the bathroom light, so you decide to brush your teeth in the dark. You grab the tube of toothpaste and squeeze it onto your toothbrush (you hope it's your toothbrush, anyway). As you start brushing your teeth, you realize that the tube of "toothpaste" is actually:

A) Preparation H
B) K-Y Jelly

There's no right or wrong answer. Which one do you think is worse?

Featured "Poisonous Article" of the Week

Send me links to your most poisonous AC articles (articles with 30 or less page views) so I can feature them here and hopefully direct some pity page-views your way!

Here's one particularly poisonous haiku from my own AC collection: "Then." It's a cheesy biographical haiku with only 20 page views total. Enjoy!

Have a fantastic week! If this article really is page-view poison--a major stink bomb--I'll just pretend it never happened.

Sources:

Personal experience (although I assure you I've never accidentally brushed my teeth with Preparation H or K-Y Jelly. I came very close, though...)

Amazon.com, Walmart.com

Inspired by Abby Greenhill's "This, That, and the Other" articles