19 posts tagged “who would win”

Disney Princess vs. Disney Villianimal edition

Belle vs. Scar
All the Disney princesses need some special talent or trait that sets them apart. Otherwise, you'd just have a string of identical, homogenous princesses lining the streets of Orlando singing to bluebirds and staring at tourists from their dead eyes. It would be horrible. Belle's special talent is that she's literate. So. She's only a princess by marriage, so she doesn't have any kind of, I don't know, princess magic or something to get her out of a jam. When she gets locked up by the villain, she needs to be rescued by a talking teacup. So what's she doing in the African savannah, roaming among the lions? Hard to say, but considering the overall appearance of her first boyfriend, I might have some idea.

You know Scar is evil from the get-go. He has a scar, he's named Scar, he sounds like Jeremy Irons, and he's an excellent delegater. Sure, maybe Chip the Teacup could hold him off while Belle went to get help from the talking clock, but who's going to stop the hyenas? Or the water buffalo? Scar's got deep pockets, friends. And he's a scrapper, too. Have you ever seen a lion overtake a gazelle? Or a zebra? Imagine it with a ball gown and you get the idea.
Winner: Scar

Sleeping Beauty vs. that crocodile that hates captain hook
Princess Aurora sleeps through much of her own movie. She attests yet again to the power of prophecy. Everyone knew she was going to prick her finger on a needle on her sixteenth birthday. It was common knowledge, like the sun will rise in the east, or the Vikings will fall apart at the end of the season, or the next Jonas brothers album will be about their struggle dealing with rickets. Just common sense stuff. All the fairies needed to do was keep her away from needles for one day. Just keep her hands away from needles, really. They would have been more successful caretakers if they had cut off Princess Aurora's hands and tried to sew them on later. So Aurora slept through most of the fighting in her movie. But, she does have the power of prettiness and the power of singiness granted by incompetent fairies. So that's got to count for something, right?

Captain Hook is afraid of one thing, and one thing only: the crocodile who ate his hand. But dude, he should probably check again. The crocodile eats Captain Hook, like, three times in the movie, and he just crawls out again. That one time, he was in the crocodile's tail. I don't even know how that's physiologically possible. Clearly, this is a crocodile that can't hold his people. If you can't digest them, you're not much of a threat, plain and simple. Plus, if he's stalking a sleeping princess, and he's eternally accompanied by an alarm clock. Tough luck, croc.
Winner: Sleeping Beauty

Cinderella vs. Monstro the Whale
I don't know if the princesses have a leader, but if they did, it would probably be Cinderella. She's the quintessential princess. Cinderella do what a princess do. She doesn't just hire a fairy, she has a fairy godmother. She doesn't marry any prince, she marries Prince Charming. She doesn't just sing to animals, she sings to animals wearing clothing. She knows what the hell she is doing. She picks footwear material that appeals to Charming's foot fetish, she uses the world's most spacious vegetable as her coach, she parties late, but not too late. You watch out for Cinderella, man. She will cut you.

In Pinocchio, Monstro the whale cannot be defeated. He can only be outrun. That's what makes him scary. However, he's not as scary as an island that turns boys into donkeys just for playing pool. That's terrifying. Also, he's not as scary as a puppet who wants to be a real life, but instead he's just a walking, talking puppet. That's horrifying. And a cricket wearing a hat? I'm having nightmares here. I can imagine that Cinderella would not put up with Monstro's esophogeal shantytown for very long and get Monstro bibbity-bobbity-booed into a cruise ship right quick. 
Winner: Cinderella

Ariel vs. Shere Khan
Ariel has all the powers of a person except legs and all the powers of a fish except talking. I don't understand it, either. Ariel is another force to be reckoned with: she's no slave to fashion, what with the clamshell bra, she sings a lot for someone with no voice, and she's got crabs. Well, one crab. Still, I don't think she could beat Madison from Splash in a fight (In Who Would Win in a Fight: Mermaid Rumble), so she may have some trouble here.

I don't remember much about Shere Khan. Was he a tiger or a panther? Or the snake? All I know is that the baboon was the king of the swingers and that the boy was named after the cute creatures in Gremlins. However, heed my words and heed them well: If Shere Khan were to get into a fight with the crocodile from Peter Pan for some reason, the winner would be... Shere Khan. Because I saw an internet thing with a shark fighting a lion and the lion totally won, and I imagine this would be pretty much the same thing.
Winner: Shere Khan

Br'er Bear vs. the rat in Lady and the Tramp
Dammit, Br'er Bear, you're not a Disney princess. Quit trying to be something you're not!

The rat got brought down in a few seconds by a spoiled mutt. Plus, what was it going to do to the baby? Eat her zwieback? Not much of a contender. But at least it doesn't try to sneak on to the protagonist float during the Electrical Parade.
Winner: The rat

Ursine-alysis Edition

Winnie the Pooh vs. Smokey the Bear
Winnie the Pooh is technically a Pooh rather than a bear, as far as I can tell, but no one ever calls him Winnie and no one ever explains what a Pooh is other than, you know, a Pooh, so he's a bear. Pooh is often criticized for losing his edge after being reappropriated by Disney. Word is that Winnie the Pooh is a toothless sap clearly aimed at children while the original Edward Bear of A. A. Milne's works was an edgier, darker manifestation of man's endless thirst for hunny. This criticism has set my imagination off and running so much that I can only assume that I'd be disappointed by reading The House at Pooh Corner. I'd want to see Christopher Robin staring over the decimated remains of the Thousand Acre Wood, searching for the vicious creature that left it a smoldering wasteland. He presses his remaining ear to the ground and strains in the silence until he hears it. The Pooh has caught a hum. Soon, he spies its hulking form through the acrid smoke, grunting and chewing on the remains of some unfortunate victim of his massacre. "Insolent fools," Robin says to himself. "Someone must have called him Winnie. Silly old bear."

I remember a campaign a few years ago to get people to stop calling him Smokey the Bear and just call him Smokey Bear. After all, it's not Easter the Bunny, went the reasoning. But Smokey Bear makes it sound like he's got a delicious chipotle center. Or that he likes smoking. Smokey made me uncomfortable because he was always putting the onus of preventing forest fires on me. Dude, I don't live anywhere near a forest. Can't you possibly find someone else? Still I see it less as Smokey being needy and more being pushy. Smokey's got a mean streak. If you're up against a cartoon spokesbear, pray you don't draw his name.

Winner: Smokey

Bear Stearns vs. Ursa Major
If we were ancient Greeks, Aesop would have been all over Bear Stearns. It would have been about a bear who spent too much time in the Hedges of Hubris and underestimates the value of sharing. Then, when it can no longer rely on the hedges for safety, the value completely disappears from its shares, and it begins to drown while all the liquid around it disappears. Soon it's bailed out by a talking Bush and sent out on a Chase for ten bucks and never returned but to this day, investors live in fear of the return of a bear market. The moral would have been something about wearing hats at inappropriate times. These days, it's tough to imagine Bear Stearns winning much of anything but maybe they have a High Grade Structured Credit Stratgy Enhanced Leverage Master Fund up their sleeves or something. That could help.

I understand that you've got to work with the stars you're given so not every constellation is going to look like a Greek god or a fish or whatever, but I just don't get the Ursas. They're bears. You know, that one animal with the long tail. Bears. And it's practically universal. According to Wikipedia, the cluster of stars with the long unbear-y tail was recognized as a bear by Greeks, Jews, Iroquois, and Burmese and as a super-fast long-tailed hedgebear by the Ancient Calrissians. Ursa Major gets credit by having its own Marvel comic series, apparently about a man born with the proportional strength and speed of a really big dipper.

Winner: Ursa Major

Tenderheart Bear vs. Bear Grylls
Tenderheart Bear says, "Prepare to stare!" before unleashing his ultimate weapon: love beams that shoot from his tummy.

Bear Grylls has the manliest name ever, making Lance Armstrong look like Pansy Tinklebottom. Bear! Grylls! Also, he is a professional defeater of nature.

Winner: Bear Grylls. All that remains of Tenderheart Bear is a few wisps of stuffing and a greasy spot of joy.

Winter's Tale Bear vs. Gladly, The Cross-Eyed Bear
Shakespeare is a fricking genius. A Winter's Tale has everything. Antigonus, a hitman hired by a crazy guy to kill his wife's baby, which for some reason he thinks isn't his. He goes to kill the kid, and suddenly feels stirrings of pity for the infant. With most playwrights, that's the play right there. With Shakespeare, Antigonus has second thoughts and then gets totally eaten by a bear. Fricking. Genius.

Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear is the result of someone going to church on personal sacrifice Sunday and thinking that it's goofy-looking animal Sunday. That's awesome. I want to see a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer meets Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear Christmas special. The world needs more cross-eyed bears, and especially cross-eyed bears named Gladly. Of course, the depth perception problem thing hurts in a fight.

Winner: Winter's Tale Bear

Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot vs. Yogi Bear
The Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot is in Challenge: Bear not only because of the acronym, but because the robot is fitted with a metallic bear head, to bring comfort to wounded soldiers it rescues. That's a nice thought, but I think if I were wounded on the battlefield and had to rely on a robot to maneuver through rubble to pick up my body and drag me to safety, I'd be more comforted if it's head was a bottle of Jim Beam. I don't know if during combat they refer to this robot as BEAR or Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot or The Extractor or what, but any of those choices strike me as really powerfully cool.

Yogi Bear, I think, is the first villain that kids ever cheer for. He steals picnic baskets, his nemesis is a friendly park ranger, and he wears a collar/tie combo without shirt or pants. His claim to fame is that he's smarter than the average bear. Well, if I recall correctly, Lex Luthor is also smarter than the average bear. And Judas Iscariot. Also smarter than a bear. Think about it.

Winner: Battlefield Extraction Awesomeness Revenger

Nemesis pie edition

Superman vs. Kryptonite Pie
The first comic book hero had to be someone like Superman. Here's a guy who is incredibly strong, has nearly unlimited powers, and has no qualms about beating mean people up. That is exactly the kind of idea you want to have if you want to sell one comic book. "Hey, kid, I got a book with pictures of some guy beating the crap out of some other guy!" "Gee mister, that sounds just swell!" Nowadays, the idea is to get kids hooked so they buy comic books every month, so you've got to make it exciting for the superhero. That's not Superman's style though. Being a superhero is not exciting for Superman. He beats the crap out of people then retreats to the fortress of solitude to listen to some Decemberists and blog for a while. He's faster than you, he's stronger than you, you can't kill himby any conventional means, he can melt solid steel by looking at it, and he flies. But he was the first one to do all that, plus he beats the crap out of people in picture-books, so Superman is still kicking today.

For Superman writers, Kryptonite must have been a breath of fresh air. Here's one tiny thing that makes Superman temporarily vulnerable, so that just this once it's not a foregone conclusion that Supes will sweep in and beat the crap out of everyone and go home. Wow, Superman is temporarily weaker, and he needs to overcome an actual challenge.!Hey, that was fun! Now let's make Kryptonite the most abundant material on earth. Also, let's make Kryptonite do any fool thing we want it to. Green for when we want him to lose his powers, gold for when we want to threaten his life, blue for when we want to threaten his sanity, red for when the writers are on drugs, white for before labor day, pink for breast cancer awareness, and so on. If Superman were faced with a Kryptonite laden pie would he win in a fight? Hells yes. He can freeze the pie with his superbreath. Or melt it from sixty feet away with laser-vision. Or wrap it in his cellophane cape and send it to the Phantom Zone. But even if he does eat the kryptonite pie, I'm guessing he'll get by just fine. He probably eats a pound of kryptonite every year just in normal day to day life. A little extra crust isn't going to bother him any.

Winner: Superman

Baldr vs. Mistletoe Pie

Baldr, the Norse god of momma's boys and comparative hairlessness was pretty much invincible because his mom asked everything in the universe to promise to be nice to him and not hurt him. Thanks, Ma. Now even though he can't possibly be tackled, he's still picked last for the football team, because he's kind of a wuss. Old Lady Baldr was pretty persuasive though, since she got some tough characters to take the Nice Guy Pledge. Even Thor? Yes. Even grizzly bears? Yes. Even influenza? Yes. Everything. Well, except for mistletoe, but I'm sure that won't be a problem.

Could Baldr polish off a mistletoe pie? No. And here's why. When your mom makes everyone in the entire universe to promise not to hurt you except for a pleasant yuletide snog-bush, you pretty much have to die by said snog-bush ASAP. Everyone's rooting for the mistletoe. We don't care how it does you in. Poisoned by a berry? Pierced by a sharp leaf? Suffocate on a kiss? Fine, fine. As long as you're viciously killed by an inanimate object, we're all good. And if Mom asks everyone in the universe for a do-over and everyone except, say, parsnips agrees, well, now we're rooting for the parsnip.

Winner: Mistletoe Pie

Dracula vs. Anti-vampire pie

Vampires are frightening, powerful dark creatures, whose exploits have thrilled people for centuries. They drink blood! They transform into bats! They live in castles! They're like Superman, if Superman was deranged and plasma powered instead of solar powered (I believe that's one of the effects of purple kryptonite). Of course, instead of kryptonite, vampires one weakness is sunlight. And garlic. And prayer. And mirrors. And holy water. And running water. And wooden stakes. And fire. So as long as you're someplace that doesn't have any of those things, Dracula is a, enh, moderate threat. Why they've been thrilling people for centuries, I can't really say. Maybe it's the Romanian accent.

Whether or not Dracula can beat pie depends on what's going into the pie. If it's garlic, I think Dracula wins. I always got the feeling that vampires just don't care for garlic. Drac would probably just eat around the garlic bits. I mean, who wouldn't? But if it was a pie made of sunlight, I think he's pretty much boned. Wooden stakes, he gets gas. Holy water his fangs fall out. He probably wouldn't eat the fire pie. Yeah, no, I think Dracula probably wouldn't stop to eat the pie anyway, even if it was blood pie, you know? I don't see Dracula falling prey to pie. Maybe a torte.

Winner: Dracula

Achilles vs. Heel pie

Hey how about the Iliad? Probably would be pretty lame if it weren't for Achilles. Achilles, while no Hercules, was still pretty great, all being a hero in the Trojan war. For example, Achilles totally wailed on Cycnus. Cycnus who was completely invulnerable except for his head. Achilles beat him by attacking his head. And then he knocked around Troilus who was to become totally invincible on his 20th birthday. Achilles kicked his butt when the dude was still 19. Then he bumped off Hector, who was impervious to all damage except foreshadowing. These were all a cinch for Achilles, who was completely unbeatable with just a little weak spot on his heel. Also, clearly you don't understand foreshadowing in order to kill with it.

Could Achilles polish off a pie filled with heels? Wait. What? Guys, I don't think that he'd have any problem eating heels. It's just his own heel that's weak. I mean... look, a pie made out of heels completely misses the point. He'd need to have a pie attack him on the heel or something. I don't know, I don't think you really understand the challenge here. A pie filled with heels? What?

Winner: Achilles

The Green Lantern vs. Yellow Pie

The Green Lantern wears a deus ex machina on his finger. He can make his magic ring into just about anything. A tornado, a rhinoceros, a cannon, a helicopter, a peanut, an army of crocodiles, a frying pan, a bowl of mistletoe and garlic soup, a set of encyclopedias, fortress of solitude, Troilus, pie, anything. Also, it makes him fly. I don't understand.

The Green Lantern's weakness is Yellow. Like, any yellow. You don't even need it to be a special shade of yellow pie. You could pick Lemon Meringue. Or Banana Cream. Both are deadly to the Green Lantern. Even if he uses his magic ring power to try to stop the power of the pie, anytime that Lemon Meringue pie, plain old ordinary Lemon Meringue Pie, is a threat to you, you suck.

Winner: Yellow Pie

Peter and the Wolf vs. Summer Olympic Events

The duck vs. Swimming
The duck
"What kind of bird are you," asks the bird, "that you can't fly?" The duck answers, "A penguin." Because ducks can fly. That's what has kept food on the tables of postage-stamp artists for decades. If a duck were to be chased by a wolf, it could fly away. Or it could swim to the deep part of the pond where it just was, so that the wolf would have to eat the cat instead. But not this duck. He chooses instead to play the role of kibbles n' feathers. Not the best choice, you stupid duck. Of course, the wolf in his haste choked the duck down so fast that he was swallowed alive! I don't know how this was supposed to cheer people up. Either the duck is forced to keep flapping his wings in the wolf's belly until he dies of exhaustion or the stomach acids dissolve his body until it can be excreted. Pleasant dreams, kids! That's a lot of wasted potential, right there. The duck is kind of the Boba Fett of Peter and the Wolf.

Swimming
Being the fastest swimmer in the world is pretty cool, especially when it's hot out, but you can't really show off unless you have a pool right there next to you at all times, and people will start to roll their eyes when you keep bringing Slip n' Slides to parties. Plus, let's face it, when you're a swimmer, you're pretty much aspiring to be as good as Aquaman. Aquaman. Clearly, if an Olympic event wants to win in a fight against a Peter and the Wolf character, it's going to have to be better than the duck. The question here is "If I wanted to eat a duck, would this Olympic event help me?" In the case of swimming the answer is a resounding "Yes". I have no doubts that Michael Phelps captures and eats dozens of ducks during his practice sessions, French horns playing ominously in the background.

Winner: Swimming

Peter vs. Weightlifting
Peter
Not a lot of people make the connection that Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky could very well have based the character of Peter off of himself, in a parable where the Wolf represents failure, sneaking up on a young musician, the Duck represents the comforts of youth, devoured by the musicians impending defeat, and the Bird and Cat represent the two constant allies that give Peter the strength to face the Wolf: music and prostitutes. Respectively. Of course, the reason most people don't make this connection is that Peter and the Wolf was written by Sergei Prokofiev. In any case, Peter has the one quality that every able-bodied young man desires for himself, but fervently wishes no one else will ever have: his own theme song. And it's pretty good.

Weightlifting
Could being the world's best weightlifter help you to catch and eat a duck? Well, I suppose if the duck was hiding under a Buick. Or if the duck was physically intimidated by enormous muscles. They all look like He-Man or one of his many friends from Eternia excluding Teela, Orko, and Ram-Man. All the rest of them had those identical huge muscles. Total Olympic weightlifter material. The thing I can't believe is that we're in 2008 and we're still using such ridiculous names when we talk about Olympic weightlifting. You're watching a welterweight lift a dumbbell. The two events are called the snatch and the clean and jerk. There is a lot of childish, childish humor to be milked from these terms, except you're dealing with weightlifters. That means if upon hearing that according to Olympic Snatch Techniques, snatch master Blagoy Blagoev of Bulgaria has 15 world records in snatch you so much as crack a smile, Blagoy will personally rip your legs off.

Winner: Weightlifting

Grandfather vs. The Pommel horse
Grandfather
Grandfather asks an important question in Peter and the Wolf: "What if Peter hadn't caught the wolf? What then?" As if Peter's brilliant plan of asking a bird to fly close to the wolf's mouth while he used a clothesline to tie a knot around the wolf's tail wasn't air tight. It's a reasonable question, and the answer he's given is, "Shut up, Grandpa!" They do include him in the great wolf-capturing parade where he grumbles toward the back, but I think that's akin to seeing a chipmunk sitting on second base during a major league game. You never think, "I bet that chipmunk is getting six figures a year for being a part of this great team." You think, "That poor critter has no idea where he is. Poor, deluded chipmunk/grandfather." On the other hand, Gramps is played by the bassoon. I like bassoons.

Pommel horse
Not a great event for equestrians who don't understand homophones. How exactly did this get to be an Olympic sport? Here's my guess: Some Olympic hopeful team is practicing at the Y. Some dude doesn't clear the vault and trips over it. He is rightly shamed by the rest of the team. In order to save face he claims that he's invented a great new sport. "You put your legs over the vault and spin around a bunch," he explains. "That's my cool new sport." Then he adds a couple of cartwheels. "You also have to do some cartwheels in my new sport." He tries to show off by dismounting with a flourish, adding, "My awesome new sport also lets you do cool flips when you're done," but during a backflip, he gets his arm caught in the basketball hoop. And that's how the Still Rings became an Olympic sport.

Winner: Grandfather

The Wolf vs. Fencing
Wolf
What have we learned about wolves? They are easily captured by morons, they spend hours trying to knock over houses by blowing on them, they sometimes dress as old women, and they are represented here by the French horn, the hoity-toitiest of all the horns. The only horn that is also a Christmas decoration when you tie a ribbon on it. This, my friends, this is why children don't listen to their parents and get into drugs and graffiti and not appreciating the value of a hard day's work and toilet paper my lawn. Our culturally-sensitive modern society is just too damn politically correct to let a couple kids get eaten by wolves every one in a while. Not like when I grew up, by gum. I was eaten by wolves twice, sometimes three times a week, and that's how I learned not to wear my baseball cap backwards!

Fencing
I'm so glad that the ancient Greeks decided to include sword fights in the Olympics. I bet it was Aristotle's idea. And I bet Sophocles thought of the cool masks that make the sword fighters look like robots. And probably Homer came up with the little beep whenever someone gets poked with the sword. And then Apollo Creed was all like, "And we should call it Fencing, because it's like when we all used to sword fight with pieces of a fence." And I'm not sure who came up with calling the swords epees, which was probably a step in the wrong direction, but it's OK, because at some point, some fencer will totally run their opponent through, and they'll be all, "Dude, there's an epee in you."

Winner: Fencing

The cat vs. Synchronized Swimming
Cat
A young man wants to leave the safety of the kitchen and explore the dangerous forest so he brings his cat? Any cat I know would have eaten the bird, vomited its feet on Peter's shoes, then go back inside and sleep for six hours. This is his companion? When he hikes through Death Valley does he bring his walrus? Lame.

Synchronized Swimming
People say this sport is included because it's really hard to do. Well, it's really hard for me to remember to turn the oven off after I make cookies but you don't see me vying for some kind of medal, do you?

Winner: Cat

Short-form Poetry rumble! Emphasis on short.

Sonnet vs Limerick
A sonnet has a lot of tricky rules, and not just in the meter and the rhyme. The subject, tone, and muse are also tools that sonnet writers need to keep in line. Plus, usually a sonnet has a twist that's stuck somewhere between lines eight and nine, so now you've got to go from being pissed to acting as if everything is fine. And yet a sonnet's not like that at all; it's simple as the weekly shopping list you write down as you head out to the mall. With fourteen lines, you've mostly got the gist. It also helps to end it with a pun. If you don't feel "write", then you know you're done.

A limerick for better or worse is a joke poem, stuffed in five verses. You must squeeze a lot in the lines that you've got, and then load it with bull$#!% and curses.

Winner: Sonnet

Haiku vs. Blank verse

A word Polaroid free from rules except for some syllable counting. If you need more beats, you could write a second one, if you like cheating.

Blank verse is basically prose and don't try to tell me that it isn't you can pretty much write any damn thing on a piece of paper and bang you've got blank verse and suddenly you're an amazing poet even though you didn't think once about meter or rhyme or metaphor or any of the other things that real poets do no all you did was take out the punctuation and suddenly you're the next e e cummings and then when people start to catch on that you're slumming your way through your poem you just add a few wacky nonsequiturs for people to try to read some deeper meaning into and then sit back and laugh at all the poor saps you've hoodwinked like the lion hoodwinks the gazelle under starry skies when first the blood flowed from claw to heart and back again zippy skippy woo woo

Winner: Haiku

Double Dactyl vs. Villanelle
Dactylly Schmacktylly. This kind of poetry calls for some gibberish, meter and rhyme. Then put a big word like septuagenarian there at the ending. Whee! What a good time.

A villanelle repeats itself a lot so try to make the first verse really great or you will get annoyed at what you've got. The repetition makes it hard to plot, so there's a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. A villanelle repeats itself a lot. If you rushed in you might find that you're caught. Just don't let it become a poem you hate or you will get annoyed at what you've got. There's nothing here. Just look at what I've wrought: it's like unending gruel left on my plate. A villanelle repeats itself a lot. A really gripping poet I am not. I pray that you do not repeat my fate or you will get annoyed with what you've got. Please do not forget what you've been taught. Just keep in mind these urgent words I state "A villanelle repeats itself a lot" or you will get annoyed with what you've got.

Winner: Double Dactyl
(To be continued)

The Three Somethings division

Three Little Pigs vs. Three Bears

Three Little Pigs
The story of three enterprising young swine who are relentlessly stalked by a pork-hungry talking wolf probably scars more young children than any other fairy tale. While Little Red Riding Hood's Grandmother is no longer eaten (or at least no longer digested), no one is making the argument that the Big Bad Wolf is blowing down houses in order to put some pigs in a closet, except possibly R. Kelly. These pigs are going to be eaten. Even in the comfort of their own kindling laden home. When I was a child, it did not evade my thinking that our modern suburban home, when you got right down to it, is made up of so many sticks. And that wolf just does not give up. In the Richard Scarrey version (the one that haunted my fevered dreams), the wolf follows the last surviving pig to the fair, the market, the roast beef, everywhere. And after all of that, he decides he'll just go down the chimney. Just like Santa Claus. Is it any wonder that 40% of my generation sleep in front of their fireplaces with a loaded gun?

Three Bears
The three pigs got smarter as they progressed, going from a hay house that is vulnerable to wind, fire, earthquakes, floods, horses, allergies, magnifying glasses, and a halfhearted punching to a house that is vulnerable to all of the same things except swap beavers for horses and the home-security measure of the threat of splinters to bricks, impervious to all but a single-wolf fighter firing himself down the thermal exhaust port. The three bears, on the other hand, just get their respective grills more got up into. The patriarch of the ursine trio, he of the searing hot porridge and enormous easy chair, clearly has nothing to fear from his fair haired intruder. His spouse, who has already condemned herself to a life of cold porridge and sleeping alone on a concrete slab is probably not going to notice a the breaking and entering unless she sees a chance for sweet death to put an end to her miserable existence. Only young Baby Bear feels the brunt of Goldilocks wrath, what with having his porridge eaten and his tiny chair broken and a new bunkmate. But come on, let's face it, there are a lot of places this story could go at this point, with the strange girl sleeping in the bear's bed. The fact that it pretty much ends with him whining and her running away does nothing to diminish the thoughts of what a violent or disturbing fairy tale this could have been. Neither does the fact that the bears are the eaters, and pigs are the eaten.

Winner: Bears

Three Musketeers vs. Three Stooges

Three Musketeers
The great thing about the Three Musketeers is that there's really four of them, the three that get the book named after them and then the Super-musketeer D'Artagnan. Plus, Musketeers were born to win in a fight. That's their job. If only they actually knew something about operating a musket, they'd be unstoppable.

Three Stooges
The other thing about the three Musketeers, though, is that they're French, and brimming with self-confidence and bravado. Before they get to the "One for all" part, they'd probably have Moe's fingers in Porthos's eyes and Larry would have thrown a half-dozen pies at Aramis and Curly would be spinning around in circles yelling Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk while a mad badger comes out of nowhere to bite Athos in the butt and frankly, that kind of imagery is what makes Who Would Win in a Fight so special to me.

Winner: Stooges

Three Kings of Orient Are vs. Three Blind Mice

Three Kings
The three kings of Orient Are cool. First of all, they have great names. Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazaar are all pretty sweet sounding names. They're the kinds of names you'd want to yell just before drawing your sword and charging a group of ninjas. Try it: "MEEEEELLLLL-CHIOR!" (Also, let me know if you're fighting ninjas with swords so I can include you in the next who would win in a fight. If you win, I mean.) All right, Caspar got the short end of the stick due to the whole friendly ghost thing, but mark my words, once the memory of the most aggravating theme song you know has left our collective consciousness, everyone will be naming their kids Caspar or Casparina. Plus, Balthazaar is just  such a kick-ass name, it carries the other two. The three kings also came with pretty cool gifts, all of which would double as handy weapons in a fight. Gold: blunt object or sword covering. Myrrh: Oil of Death. Frankincense: The sweet, earthy scent of a creature made out of dead body parts and lightning. The three kings would win against almost anything. Except for, you know, a rubber cigar.

Three Blind mice
So who have I matched against these gift-wielding potentates from parts East? Mutilated mice. Not only are they lacking in the vision department, but they also got their tails hacked off, which mice use to hear, or smell, or something. Or maybe that's snakes. Anyway, what reason would I have to think that these lowly rodents would stand a chance against three mighty kings? In a word: I have no reason, I'm just a sadistic jerk. See how they run. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!

Winner: Kings

Three Rs (Readin', wRitin' and aRithmetic) vs. Three Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)

Readin', Ritin', and 'Rithmetic
Here's the thing. If you're going to be defining a word as an R just because it has an R near the front instead of actually at the front, you could justify a ton more subjects: Running, 'Restling, 'Rigonometry, 'Rchestra, 'Rt, the list goes on and on. It would have been easy to eliminate Reading with the hypothesis that you can't Rite unless you can Read. Plus, we're dealing with children here, so the concept of teaching understanding how to read followed by two misspelled subjects is probably lost on them. Who knows how many high school students go through their academic career thinking they never learned a thing about Rithmetic, having no idea that it's a made up antiquated word for what modern youths call plussing and minussing.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
At the front, you could justify a ton more subjects: Running, 'Restling, 'Rigonometry, 'Rchestra, 'Rt, the list goes on and on. It would have been easy to eliminate Reading with they hypothesis that you can't Rite unless you can Read word what antiquated for minussing youths call plussing and modern. Dude, these three R's don't work for blogging at all!

Winner: Neither wins, the Three Kings get the extra trophy

Is this a season especially bereft with misheard lyrics? 'Tis! Everyone knows the words to Christmas carols, which is why it's so funny that no one knows any of the words to Christmas carols. Now I am, of course, totally immune to singing incorrect Christmas music, because I have sung in choirs, and Christmas music is about 60% of any good choir's repertoire. However, part of being in a choir is having the proof that you've been mis-singing music shoved down your golden throat. I came to realize that not only did I not know the right lyrics, I didn't even know the right wrong lyrics. That is to say, most people make the same mistakes in Christmas music, but by comparison, my mistakes are completely off.

For example:

Good King Wenceslas

My version: Goat King wets his pants. Look out on the feast of Stephen

The correct incorrect version: Good King Wensy's car backed out on a piece of Stephen 

WWWIAF? Christmas music has been surprisingly neglectful of the incontinence of the Goat King, but honestly, I'm more intrigued about which piece of Stephen was smashed under Wensy's car. Where was the rest of him at the time? Who was this Stephen, who leaves body parts somewhere that a king, a good king, can run over them? Was it the start of an international incident? Frankly, that's just the makings of a better Christmas song. Winner: Them.

Frosty the Snowman

My version: Frosty the Snowman is a fairly tainted sleigh

The correct incorrect version: Frosty the Snowman is a ferret elf I say

WWWIAF? Both versions try to cram a little more Christmas into a song that mentions neither Jesus nor Santa. In my mind, this kindly animated snow sculpture is also a means of winter transportation. The common misconception is that ol' Frosty is moonlighting as a ferret that is also an elf. Does this ferret make toys? Work for Keebler? Have exceptionally pointy ears? I don't get it. A fairly tainted sleigh makes ton more sense. Winner: Me.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

My version: They know that Santa's on his way. He's loaded lots of poisoned goodies on his sleigh

The correct incorrect version: None. No one else gets this part wrong.

WWWIAF? Those poor tiny tots have no idea what they're getting themselves into. Not only will they leave the MRI all aglow, but they'll find it hard to sleep after a stocking-full of poison. Why did I think Santa was so malevolent? Probably because he never gave me Castle Grayskull. Anyone who could deny me He-Man's favorite hangout spot is probably someone who'd poison a kid. Clearly, I have problems. Winner: Them.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

My version: God dressed you, Mary Jentermann, let's not think you're this made

The correct incorrect version: Get dressed ye merry gentlemen, get huffing you this May

WWWIAF? Clearly, I was jealous of Mary Jentermann's sense of style and couldn't bring myself to admit that she could achieve such fashions without some kind of supernatural help. She was simply years ahead of her time, and the flowing golden robes seemed like something she would have gotten from the Man Upstairs. The common version of this song is a little more urgent. If there are several undressed gentlemen running around who don't plan to shove off for five months, I'd think that would bring more tidings of annoyance and/or terror than comfort and joy. But what do I know? Clearly not song lyrics. Winner: Them.

Conclusion: I know most of these songs now, so I can console myself about this loss. I won't let it get to me, and tonight I'll sleep in heavenly peas.

Games I played last weekend vs. Games I didn't play but very well could have, thank you very much

Saboteur vs. Quoridor
Saboteur is the first game I ever played for board game night, because it's one of those rare games that can accommodate 10 players. It's great. Everyone should play it. (And I'm not just saying that because I totally won even though I was stuck being the saboteur two out of three rounds.) But no one should let me explain it to them, because I'm horrible at it. I tried playing with my mom and sister last summer, and I did not explain it well. My sister drew a card and didn't know what it meant. I apologized, and explained that with that card, she could look under one of the three destination cards. On her next turn she played that card, "Ohhhh. Huh," she said, clearly confused. I apologized and explained that two of the cards were just plain coal, and only one of them had any gold under it. "Of course," she said, but it was obvious she was still confused. I apologized and explained that the goal was to get to the gold piece before we ran out of cards. Then she got it. Two turns later, I apologized and added the caveat that the Saboteur was trying to stop people from getting the gold. At that point, she and my mom developed a sudden interest in, well, in not playing saboteur anymore, but at least I won by forfeit! Although I think I added the points wrong.

Quoridor actually may not have been a legitimate game in keeping with last week's theme. The theme was "Games that involve a journey" but then I worried that we didn't have enough games that fit the theme, so I added "or containt the letter e." Upon further reflection, most of my games do not contain any e's either. I had to shelve Catan, Anagrammania, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, Cranium Cadoo, Upwords, and or course Quoridor, unless you make the argument that getting to the other side of the board is really making a journey. Next time I'm in charge of a theme, it will be "Games that you own." Anyway, the point in Quoridor is that you cross the board before your opponent(s), and you can choose to either move or stick a wall in front of their paths. I take away point from Quoridor for having an annoying misspelling for a name (of course, I take away points from Saboteur for having an annoying correct spelling for a name).

As far as a physical fight goes, I think a saboteur would beat a corridor. And a wizard named Saboteur would defeat a dragon named Quoridor. And a tackling dummy called "The Saboteur" would probably beat a quarterback named Peyton Quoridor.

Winner: Saboteur, although if I spell it "sabatuer" one more time I'm giving the victory to Quoridor.

Lord of the Rings vs. Order of the Stick
Lord of the Rings is exactly like that movie about the Lord of the Rings except that all of the characters are trudging inexorably toward despair while despair creeps ceaselessly toward them, and once things start to look grim for the hobbits, they just die, and there's a fifth hobbit named Fatty. And there's practically no mention of Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir, or Gollum. Also, instead of traveling through Middle Earth, they're going through Trenton, New Jersey in an enormous flying pickle. Lord of the Rings is really tense, and as we drew closer to Sauron, it looked inevitable that there would be casualties. The fact that we eked by without losing even Fatty was pretty remarkable. I think I would have liked this game a lot less if someone would have shuffled off their mortal coil, but the fact that we all made it through made it feel like a big victory. Not only was this a great, nerdy game, I'd be happy to jump headlong into the nerd pool and play it with the expansions.

Speaking of nerdy, the Order of the Stick is a board game based off of a web comic based off of Dungeons and Dragons. That's some bone-deep hard-core nerdiness right there. That's like the process in which nerds are received. And also, you can play this one game for seven hours. It's called the weekend killer. That's really what scared me off. If I didn't like it, that's a lot of time to throw away forever. If I did like it, well, then I'd be through the looking glass here, people. It was fun to look at the cards though, and enjoy that special nerdy pleasure of getting the webcomic based inside jokes.

In a fight, a well-balanced troupe of adventurers would probably beat five hobbits, but I get the feeling that a hobbit named Fatty could beat an archer named Haley Starshine, and that Belkar would defect almost immediately, like a sabatuer. Plus Sauron is more intimidating that Xykon.

Winner: Lord of the Rings

Lifeboats vs. Apples to Apples
Lifeboats helped me learn something about myself. I have terrible taste in lifeboats. The idea behind the game is that you choose a lifeboat (if the other passengers allow you to board) to get to the island before it sinks (the lifeboat, not the island, although maybe also the island). It was a fun concept, because each lifeboat becomes its own mini-democracy. Of course, that does you no good if the voters all hate you. Every time I chose a lifeboat, it would either spring a leak or the other lifeboat passengers would become so enraged at my presence that they'd dump me overboard. Maybe they weren't ready for my brave new ideas about island management (it involved a lot of kooky inventions made from coconuts). Maybe they didn't like the constant seasickness. Maybe I just had a reputation for dooming lifeboats. Whatever the reason, I sucked at Lifeboats. On the bright side, they were probably all going to die on the island anyway. Especially if they didn't have any coconuts.

You can play Apples to Apples with your friends or with your grandma and still have a great time. Of course, your friends are always going to vote against you and Grandma will probably not use the William Shatner card at exactly the right time, but Apples to Apples is a great game. You have a bunch of noun cards and you have to choose the one that is best described by the adjective card. Aaron could do well at this game.

In an actual shipwreck, I think you'd rather have a lifeboat than two apples. Also, if the lifeboats fought the apples, the lifeboats would probably transform into some kind of robot, and the apples would probably be associated with Strawberry Shortcake and her band of cheery non-pugilists.

Winner: Lifeboats, as long as I'm not on them.

Guillotine vs. Dora the Explorer Memory
I'd never played Guillotine before, but it's a great concept. It is the French revolution, scores of once noble people lined up to die by beheading and it's up to you to save them all. No, just kidding. It's up to you to get the credit when the unpopular ones die. You do this by juggling the line, sending various people up to the front or toward the back, then when the blade falls, you give a little fist pump and mouth "That was me. I did that!" and cheer as the little head goes rolling past your feet. I sucked at this game too, but that did not diminish my enjoyment of decapitating the French aristocracy one whit. Except the one named Piss Boy. Beheading someone who is either named or employed as Piss Boy is just adding insult to injury. I also enjoyed participating in the long-standing but unspoken debate about whether it's pronounced GILL-oteen or GEE-ateen. Long-standing but unspoken debates are something of a hobby of mine. Good times all around.

Dora the Explorer Memory is a lot more complicated than I remember Memory being. For one thing, it includes 400 cards. And about half of them are of Dora, just in different poses. In one she's riding a horse, in one she's catching an Explorer star, in one she's riding a unicorn, in another she's catching a slightly smaller explorer star. Also, in some of the cards, the backgrounds are pink, in other cards, they're rosa. In the end, it doesn't really matter for Aaron, because instead of playing memory, he'd really rather just play 400 pickup.

Who would win in a physical fight between 400 Dora the Explorers and an extra-sharp mob-controlled guillotine? Honestly, I don't want to know the answer to that question. Instead, we'll put it this way: who would win in a footrace?

Winner: Guillotine. Dora's gotta check the map, find the Explorer Stars, jump over the cocodrilos, it takes her a half hour just to get to the backyard.

Today is Blog Action Day!  Take action by posting about the environment in your own way.

Who Would Win in a Fight X. Noodle Shapes? The Environment?

Vermicelli vs. Endangered Species

Well, first of all, vermicelli is better than spaghetti because it's slightly less wormlike, and that's a good quality to have in a food. For a noodle, it's got a pleasant texture, and still lets you slurp it if you want to. On the other hand, vermicelli is Italian for "rodent prison", so that takes away some of the appeal. Apparently eighteenth century Italians used vermicelli to entangle mice and rats that overran their kitchens and restaurants. I don't know which enterprising young chef came up with the concept of cooking vermicelli and serving it to people instead of using it to capture disease-ridden rodents, but I sincerely hope that person was shot.

The problem with endangered species is that most endangered species are gross, like the Coffin Cave Mold Beetle or delicious like the Giant Panda. There's not a lot of incentive to save a vanishing animal when you either want to eat it or want to smash it with a sledgehammer and run away screaming. And frankly, if you're trying to imagine a world without Coffin Cave Mold Beetles, you're probably not devastated and crying into your Pandaburger. Still, saving animals is something deeply ingrained into us from a very young age, thank you very much Wonderpets and Go Diego Go, so just rename it the Chuck Norris Beetle and call Pandas Vermiursas (Italian for rodent bears) and rescue the damn species. Doesn't that feel better?

Winner: Endangered Species

Elbow Macaroni vs. The Ozone Layer

I like Elbow Macaroni. Both Elbow and Macaroni are fun words, and it's fun to put them together, like "weasel plucker" and "bumpkin rumba" and "fashion nugget". They also made Kraft a household name, and are a major staple of life for toddlers and college students, both of whom are more than content to eat bowls of the stuff in front of Spongebob Squarepants and then leave the bowls anywhere sitting around the house for weeks. Elbow Macaroni is also the only pasta shape other than the medium sized shell that can justifiably be used in a tuna salad, and that goes a long way for me.

Remember when the ozone layer was disappearing? Those were troubling times indeed. Set one foot in the Arctic Circle and it would combust like an over-microwaved marshmallow. Everyone was talking about ozone back in the early 90s, which was kind of funny, because it sounds like a word that Cosmo made up ("Thirteen things you must know about your man's ozone!") Thankfully, someone managed to take care of that at some point, because no one really talks about the ozone layer anymore. Of course, nowadays you're supposed to slather sunscreen on in February even if you stay indoors, so maybe the problem didn't go away. We might as well work to bring it back, because you can probably never have too many ozone layers. You can restore the ozone layer using common elements found in your home, like antichlorofluorocarbons and ozone.

Winner: Elbow Macaroni
 

Farfalle vs. Littering

Why bow ties? I understand that, at some point, pasta manufacturers realized that people will eat pasta shaped like anything -- spirals, Scooby-Doo, Spaghetti-O's, genitalia -- seriously, what's wrong with you people?  But bow ties? The universal symbol for nerd? If I wanted to eat men's neckwear with my meal, I would have preferred some kind of garlic ascot. I guess the farfalle shape does act as a pair of little scoops for your marinara sauce, but why stop at two? Why not make a double bow tie and call it a windmill (actually, I'm sure those greedy pasta manufacturers already have. Is there no shape to which they will not stoop?)? Most of the points for farfalle come from the fact that it kind of reminds me of fahrfuerdnugen. Ich liebe fahrfuerdnugen.

Litter is a slap in America's face. Give a hoot, don't pollute. Keep America clean. Don't be a litterbug. Use the can, man. Littering makes aging Native Americans cry. As a kid, I equated littering with a crime somewhere between armed robbery and indecent exposure, all of which I figured were punishable by at least thirty years in prison, and eventually, hell. Of course, as a slightly older kid, I loved to open the car window as we were driving and throw out pieces of candy wrapper and watch them flail on the wind like a woefully unprepared skydiver, often supplying little screaming sounds. I'm not sure how I resolved these beliefs. I still bristle at littering when I'm not the person doing it. Also: the first time I saw a sign that said $1000 fine for littering, I figured it meant that someone thought it would be just fine if you threw a few hundreds out the window.

Winner: Littering, and the preventing thereof

Lasagna vs. Global Warming

It is a family tradition for us to have a lasagna every New Year's Day. It is an ordeal. It has six cheeses, five meats, two sauces, and it takes three days to make. By the time the lasagna is done, my parents are ready for the year to be over already. I like lasagna. I kept reading Garfield for years after everyone else had given up on him because I felt a real lasagna kinship. That, and Garfield's name for his teddy bear was my father's nickname for boogers. But mostly for the lasagna. It's like layer upon layer of different Italian cuisine, and also, lots of extra cheese.

There are plenty of scientists who will tell you that global warming is a hoax, but then there are also plenty of scientists who will tell you that cavemen used to ride dinosaurs to the cave-store, and the pyramids were designed by ghostly martians, and Cella's chocolate covered cherries are not good for you, so screw them. All I know is that as soon as we get one warm day in April, everyone's all "Is this global warming? This is global warming, isn't it?" and then when it gets chilly again in May everyone's all "Well, so much for global warming. What a crock." It's more complicated than that, people. Is there empirical evidence that global warming is a legitimate phenomenon, with causes that can be controlled by human behavior? Well, yes, but not on this blog, and face it, that's really as much as you're willing to search right now, isn't it?

Winner: Lasagna

Manicotti vs. Preserving the wetlands

My dad calls manicotti "sewer pipes." And you thought vermicelli was unappetizing.

Did you know that watering your lawn does not count as preserving the wetlands? This tidbit brought to you by the Preserve the Wetlands in Actual Ways Instead of Just Watering Your Lawn Association.

Winner: Preserving the wetlands

Use your noodle! Don't pollutle!

I'm in the self-service fruit of the month club. It takes a little extra work than the kind you sign up for through Harry and David's or whatever, but it's cheaper, there's no contractual obligation, and you don't get stuck with a month's worth of something ridiculous, like limes.

Here's how it works: When you go to the grocery store, buy fruit. Try to change it up every month. That's it.

You don't have to be a fanatic about it. I tend not to run out on the first of the month with visions of plums dancing in my head; instead, I'll gradually shift over from one fruit to the next. If it's a particularly good fruit, like cherries, and they stay in season and don't skyrocket in price, unlike cherries, I'll go longer than a month if I can. Flexibility is a real selling point in the self-service fruit of the month club.

Some people measure their year by sports; to them, fall is when all the baseball teams I like stop playing and all the football teams I like start sucking right off the bat. Other people, especially elementary school teachers, measure their year by holidays. Aaron's doing this right now. He knows it's Mommy's birthday, then Halloween, then Thanks-for-giving, then Christmas, and then his birthday. (He's really excited about his birthday.) Unfortunately, in his head, these are all occurring in the next two weeks. I'm expecting a significant amount of righteous toddler indignation right around October 20 or so. These are fine methods, but they lack edibility.

I measure my year thusly:

January - Oranges. For whatever reason, the oranges in the grocery store look pale and lifeless until some point in January, usually January 9th and about 11:24 AM. Then they turn day-glo orange and expand to twice their normal diameters and that's good orange eatin'. Right now, the thought of eating an orange fills me with distaste, ennui, and a little sleepiness, but come January, and I'm ready to sign up for Navel Academy. Sorry.

February - Tangerines. While others are shopping for their valentines and chasing groundhogs and revering presidents and just generally wishing that February would be over already, I find myself thinking of crated fruit. I've gotten my first dried-out, mealy orange and I'm ready for something new. Preferably something I can peel with my fingernails. And not a banana. So I pick up a crate, wondering if we'll eat them all before they go bad. Then I pick up another crate, and then one more. And then they go bad.

March - Pears. It's time to move away from citrus, because starting in March, it's nothing but heartbreak. In fact, March is a dismal time of year for fruit. It's like the good fruits are observing Lent and giving up their own existence. Except Easter doesn't arrive until late May. Pears are pretty much the same any time of year, so I turn to them when my options are limited. So March comes in like "Hey! A pear!" and goes out like, "Huh. A pear."

April - Green Grapes. How could it be April already and still no cherries? How could it be April already and still snowing? How could it be April already and school is still going, there have been no work-free holidays since New Years, TV shows are all in reruns, and all is bleakness and despair? Guess I'll eat a few grapes. That didn't help.

May - Rainier Cherries. I have an annual ritual. Every year I notice that Rainier cherries are cheaper than Bing Cherries. I do a double take. I think, will I be eating mostly Rainier cherries instead of my old favorite, the Bing? I wonder how that might impact my life, my marriage, my career. Then, a week later, Rainier cherries get more expensive, Bing cherries get less expensive, and I forget about the whole thing. Every year.

June - Bing Cherries. Is there anything better than a bing cherry? For your sake, I hope you're shaking your head right now. Shake it! There are so many things to love about June. Or so I'm told, I'm too busy gorging myself on Bings to notice.

July - Peaches. Late July, the cherries disappear from the shelves, but rather than wear black all month and weep and rend my garments and gnash my teeth, I eat a bunch of peaches. Did you know that cherries and peaches belong to the same family as almonds and cyanide? It only makes sense that four delicious tastes would all have to be related. Hey kids! Don't really eat cyanide. It may be really ultra-delectable, but it's also pretty poisonous. Yes scrumptious cyanide is a mouth-watering and deadly food best left uneaten.

August - Nectarines. By late August, I've usually eaten a mealy peach, and that's downright heart-breaking. So I switch to nectarines. Surely this nearly-identical fruit won't suffer the same fate! Surely!

September - Honey Crisp Apples. A good Honey Crisp tastes like someone replaced your apple's juice with sparkling apple cider. It's the champagne of apples, except it's good. Like Bing cherries, Honey Crisps don't last very long in the grocery store, so enjoy them while you can. Here's a recipe I like with Honey Crisps. Take one Honey Crisp, and three Nutter Butter cookies. First, eat the Honey Crisp. Then eat the cookies. If you're still hungry, have another cookie. This is a great recipe for parties.

October - Granny Smith/Harrelson apples. By now, I've given up on the pretense of eating fresh fruit, and my fruit purchases are used for cooking into dessert. An October without apple crisp is like a cryptic crossword with out an anagram -- pointless.

November - Cella's. By now I've given up on the pretense of buying fruit at all, and I'm just eating desserts. Technically, Cella's have a cherry inside, but it's really less the kind of cherry they grow on trees and more the kind of cherry they create in a lab out of sugar and bits of angels. Sure, Christmas items have been on the shelves since late August, but the Cella's tend not to make their appearance until the day after Halloween, when Christmas is practically over.

December - Enormous Red Delicious Apples. If you want big red delicious apples, you can find them pretty much any time of year. If you want mutant apples so big that two or three of them overwhelm your crisper drawer, you have to wait until December. These juicy monstrosities have been a part of stocking-stuffing tradition in my family for years, so I always have to pick a couple up. Plus, the Christmas stocking I made for Aaron is large enough to hold most of a Buick, so these gigantic mega-apples help take up some of the space.

Oh, and in case you're wondering who would win in a fight, it's Cella's.