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Have you ever fallen asleep in an English class? If you’re like me you have. If you’re really like me, you’ve fallen asleep with boysenberry jam all
over your face and your hand down your pants, mumbling
nonsense. The experience raised several questions for me. Namely, where did I get boysenberry jam? Why was it so delicious? And, perhaps most importantly, why had I fallen
asleep?

And then it hit me like a flash. Honestly, I didn’t even see the teacher pick up that dictionary and hurl it at me, but I’ll be damned
if it didn’t sting. On my way to the nurse’s office, through a mildly concussive haze, I realized whence my heretofore unexplainable somnolence (which is a shift-f7
word for nappytimes) had come. It was because the writers we were reading were all dull. Oh, sure, many of them had graduated high school and probably could define words like
“adverb” and “punctuation,” but I couldn’t relate to them at all. I realized what I had to do.

I ran to my local library. I pored over book after book for literally minutes before I realized that I had internet access at home. I ran back home
and fired up the computer. Four hours, thirteen porn sites, and one hilarious comment on Gaudio’s blog later, I was ready to
find out about the secret lives of great writers. It turns out that several of them shared a common interest in delicious pastry. To quote that deep-voiced guy who does the
Law and Order thingys, “These are their stories.”

Do You Know The Muffin Men?

Ernest Hemingway:

It was early. The day was bright. I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet and I wanted a goddamn muffin. On the way to the store I shot a dog, in
the left hind paw. I shot him, and then went to get my muffin. I ordered the muffin, and while I waited, I rifled through a magazine. Britney’s vagina again. Fuck. My
muffin came back a little burned, so I shot the storeowner. The muffin tasted alright.

F. Scott Fitzgerald:

I have never been the type of person who would arbitrarily order a muffin. However, there was something special about this day, some collection of
mist in the midsummer air that led to my special sensitivity to the siren’s song of the cooked pastry, so that I knew what it was I had to do.

When I got to the store, the late fall foliage was collecting on the ground like the varied shades on an artist’s palette. I ordered my
muffin concisely—to the point. Being both an honest person and not one to waste words, I told the gentlemanly shopkeep that I wanted my muffin toasted light as a single
butterfly descending on a branch, a branch made of money. What I got was not this. My muffin was perceptively cooked beyond its means, so I tossed it into a trash can, where it
would languish in a pile of old newspapers and self-regret, before I stepped out into the cold winter air.

Homer:

And I, wearing shirt stained of both jam and mustard,

And being desirous of nutritious pastry, boldly exclaimed

“Summon forth to me a muffin - one perhaps of blueberries

Or cranberries, or the chocolate chips that are the woman’s savor

Cooked lightly, that I might enjoy it, and be refreshed.”

And what I received was not lightly cooked, but rather heavily.

As the charred remains of Britney Spears’ career

which are splayed across magazine and television alike

reminding us, as Icarus did, that hubris is folly

and that one must always avail themself of both toga and undergarment

continue to smolder ruinously, so was my muffin improperly cooked

black as the heart of stern Poseidon.

Faulkner:

My mother is a
muffin.

Shakespeare:

Shagstaff: Fetch me a muffin, shopkeep.

Shopkeeper: Young men shouldn’t have their muffin fetched for them, in deceit of their vigor.

Shagstaff: What sayest thou knave? I need a muffin, toasted lightly.

Shopkeeper (preparing muffin): Ah, the conceit of youth! To think that any muffin require little more than a light toasting. You must want your
muffin prepared well.

Shagstaff: On my mother’s head, I will cause you harm if my will is not so.

Shopkeeper (handing muffin): I hope she is still married, for her maidenhead was lost long ago, in a forgotten alley. And if you are so prodigal
with the skulls of your parents, you shall have your will soon enough.

Shagstaff: This muffin is burnt.

Shopkeeper: Talkest thou of Britney Spears?

Ralph Ellision:

I left my house today, a house whose only witness is the 1,369 Christmas lights I forgot to take down. I was in search of a muffin. Making my way
to the store, I tripped over a copy of The Souls of Black Folks, while Mims’ new song “This Is Why I’m Hot” blared from a car window. My car was also being ticketed
by a white traffic cop, so I threw a copy of Richard Wright’s Black Boy at him. Not metaphorically. Literally.

Upon arriving at the store, I ordered my muffin as dark as possible without being burnt. When I finally received it, it was too light, but I
didn’t complain. Each bite choked me a little. Because of the lightness.

It turned out that the Internet wasn’t just for old fogies anymore! I found these delightful little takes on that most classic of themes,
muffinsumption.

The Onion

Area Muffin Slightly Overcooked

Area blueberry muffin came back having been slightly overcooked, sources reported last Tuesday. Onlookers said the renegade muffin defied both its
cookers and logic when it became slightly blackened before the “muffin” setting on the toaster had finished its cooking. Said witness Evan Roberts, “There must
have been some foul play involved – a muffin just doesn’t overcook out of the blue.” After a pause, he continued, “berry.” Investigators have yet
to determine the cause of the overcooking and are anxiously pursuing leads.

The Atkins Muffin Ingredients: 1 cup cubed steak, 1 muffin, ½ cup mixed vegetables, 1 cup olive oil

1. Cook steak.
2. Eat steak.
3. Throw out everything
   else.

Facebook:

The Facebook muffin changed their status to blueberry.

The Facebook muffin added “being eaten out” to their favorite activities.

Kelly Marshall is attending Tanning Party!

The Facebook muffin is overcooked.

The Facebook muffin is now listed as single.

The Facebook muffin is “weeping with quiet despair at the idea that they are no longer desirable.”

New York Times

Liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin,
liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense burnt muffin, liberal hippy nonsense
burnt muffin. –AP

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