this evening, i decided that i wanted to make smoothies, seeing as the health kick i’m currently on just could not continue without a fruit-and-ice concoction to loosen my bowels and leave strawberry seeds in my teeth. and, considering my current method of chopping fruit into small bits consists of hacking at them with steak knives and whacking them with the flat of a cleaver, vis a vis Martin Yan, i needed the osterizing power of 16 speeds and 450 watts. so i picked up a blender whilst i was at wal*mart, the redneck mecca.
but the real reason i was at wallyworld in the first place was that, in order to legally enjoy a fishing trip with my brother, consisting of sitting in a small, rocking boat, drowning worms and killing brain cells, i needed a state fishing license. strange as it sounds, at 8pm on a saturday night, the place to go for a fishing license, not to mention all the other sundries one could ever need, would be wal*mart.
and i was not the only one at wal*mart tonight. about half the mouth-breathers in the county showed up to wander around, with all the young ‘uns in tow, in total disbelief of a store so large as to have posted maps, and so anachronistic as to sell shotguns and bullets, but not beer. i swear it was like a scene out of ‘night of the living dead’ – aside from the screaming children and celine dion music on the p.a. system.
so i finally found the aisle with blenders, mixers, and toaster-ovens, after winding my way through at least half a dozen aisles filled with nothing but women’s underwear – and not the frilly, attractive kind one might find oneself staring at, enjoying the private knowledge of sneaking a look at the secret underthings. no, it seemed this collection was formulated specifically to effectively disable the sex drive of anyone in the vacinity, let alone the wearer. then i was inexplicably lost in sporting goods for a while, which was fortuitous, as i did need to stop off and get a fishing license.
after finally stumbling onto kitchenwares, i was stunned at the array of blenders available at the local wal*mart. just how many speeds does one need? 10? 12? 16? and what of engine wattage? i finally picked out an osterizer 12 speed blender with a 48 ounce container and 450 watts of ice-crunching, fruit-juicing power power power. this thing is tough – it has more wattage than my stereo. the lights dim when i’m using it. i tried it out on various speeds with a single ice cube before going full-speed ahead with a smoothie. the ice cube danced, spun, and eventually was rendered into its component molecules by the frappe cycle.
there were blenders there, though, with all glass containers – which i was too afraid i would break and never be able to find quite the right replacement part – or which had only two speeds, but still cost twice as much as the others with 8 times as many. to be honest, i can’t hardly tell, other than the amount of noise emanating from the shaking silverware drawer and the visible vibration of all the items on my counter, the difference between speeds. i only really use the low speed to get things going, and the highest speed to do all the work, so i could probably do with one of the two-speed models.
but there’s nothing quite like having all the options, bells and whistles and all that rot.
so, with my new fishing license tucked into my wallet, and my new osterizer under one arm, i headed to the supermarket to get some fruit to test this bugger out.
how exactly does one pick out a pineapple, anyway?