The Social Responsibilities Of Getting Baked

There is a bake sale here at work, which is something that happens in offices from time to time. I think it’s kind of a silly concept, but I do very much appreciate and understand people who donate their own homemade goods to a bake sale. Aside from the opportunity to indulge in baking stuff, whether that be a nice hobby for them or an opportunity to show off their artisan pastry decorating skills – it just makes sense. From a more economic perspective, there is justification to purchase those goods. There’s at least a labour component that goes into it – you’re paying for the work required to turn flour and eggs and whatever stuff is required for baking (I don’t know, chives…?) into cupcakes. Work that I am personally unable to conveniently repeat on my own. So that surcharge is acceptable to me, you’re paying for a component involving a level of skilled labour, that makes sense.

But paying for the labour component of you driving to No Frills to buy brownies or whatever doesn’t make as much sense – that is a feat that I can easily replicate on my own. And have done so many, many times previously. And yes, you’re paying for opportunity cost, but the inflated bake sale prices of store bought goods always seems like a waste. Isn’t there some way we can figure out how to maximize the money that goes into the bake sale with an implicit agreement between all parties that doesn’t involve a party like Loblaw’s coming out ahead?

But then taking that line of thinking to it’s logical conclusion…the whole point of a bake sale as a fund raising event for a charity or whatever seems wasteful as well. There is no way that extra time – during work hours – to setup a bake sale is efficient enough to justify the profit margins you yield on two dozen cupcakes with Halloween wrappers. Just monetize the work effort according to the hourly wage of “volunteers” that divert already allocated project hours to manning the bake sale table, put that in a cheque, and mail it out. No wasteful emails or calories.

Though the logical conclusion may actually be to cut out the charity entirely, and go right to the disadvantaged people it supports. So in this case…homeless people, or cancer, or people with cancer, whatever it is – maybe the best thing to do is just go out on the street and buy them iPads or whatever.

Now for some dumb links.

– So in 2012, some dude’s cat died and he had it stuffed in the form of a flying drone. He even introduced it to his old cat buddy too which seems kind of morbid but also funny.

– Holy cow have you heard of this movie, The Revenant? A revenge flick about a real life fur trapper that was left for dead after he was mauled by a bear? Which…you know, honestly sounds pretty forgivable. It’s a historical biopic, it’s got Leonardo DiCaprio, it’s got Tom Hardy, and will be directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu who was the Oscar winning director for Birdman. And in a hilarious twist, the bear will win the best actor Oscar over Leo. Just imagine it please, and remember when you eventually watch this movie and inevitably remark to yourself “Holy fuck, this bear is acting the shit out of this movie right now.”

– This is a Tweet from Cher asking for public support in writing a White House petition to lift the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s five year ban of UFC fighter Nick Diaz for his third marijuana-related offense.

Wow. I know Cher’s probably still a big time player in the Las Vegas power circles, but I mean…how is this not bizarrely amazing? There’s been a lot of irregularities surrounding the whole thing, but I would think this would be the most “irregular” thing associated with it all. The petition still needs about 33,000 signatures in 11 days before the White House will look at this and Cher has 2.8 million followers who will see this so…good for you Nick Diaz…?

Why the White House will give a shit about how the NSAC runs its business or what the overlap is between Cher’s followers and sympathetic fans of Nick Diaz…I mean these are questions for another time. There are more important questions to consider now. Like…I feel something inside me say I really don’t think those drugs were strong enough, now, do you believe in life after drugs?

It’s in your head now, it’s got you!

I don’t do drugs, though. Just weed.