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Why are These Things a Thing?

By Andrew Olive


I have always hated useless things – things that you really don’t see a point in, but for some

unbeknownst reason, you see or think about on a near daily basis. It honestly takes up a much larger part of my thoughts than I'd like to admit, and that many negative thoughts cannot be healthy. In a therapeutic attempt to relieve myself of this burden, I am going to rant and provide solutions for things in my everyday life that are useless. Why are these things a thing?


Inflammable - Have you ever read a sign that said “highly flammable?” Probably, and you

probably understood that that meant it could easily catch on fire. So, why does the word

inflammable mean the same thing? It doesn’t make sense, and frankly, I think it could be a

serious safety hazard. Imagine honestly mistaking inflammable as meaning resistant to fires and it backfires on you. Come on.


This one’s easy. Change the meaning of the word. Virtually nobody would notice and the world would be a safer place.


The Letter X - The Letter X is the definition of a useless thing. In any circumstance, the letter X could be replaced with either cks or z. There’s no logical reason for it to have been made, so I have come up with a theory that this letter was made solely for the purpose of making things edgy and cool.


It's difficult to go about this without altering much of our known language. So I propose we boycott it. You probably haven’t noticed, but I only used the letter X in this piece in referencing it. I highly encourage you join the cause and STOP USING CKS.


Starburst Wrappers - Worst of the worst. I quite like Starbursts, and I'd even go as far as to call them one of my favorite candies. But the single reason they’re not number one (s/o gushers) is because of the wrapper. I’m pretty sure I stopped trying to completely take the paper off literal years ago. I always end up eating some of it. A lot of it.


Another simple solution – change the wrapper. Every other candy and chocolate on the shelves don’t have this problem, so what’s the issue? Change it to a clear plastic one, or opaque, or none at all it honestly doesn’t matter just make it right. They have real potential and it’s being wasted.


Appendi(cks) - There are roughly 8 billion people on planet Earth. Of those 8 billion people, every single one of them has one. Why? No reason. Each one weighs 6.43 grams and is

considered the single most useless organ in the human body. Maybe some thousand years ago it served a purpose, but not anymore.


Again, not much I can do about this. Maybe we breed out the appendi(cks) havers with an ultra-rare mutation, but that sounds... particularly bad.

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