The Gripe Report: Fortune Cookies, Overused Words, And The Sad State Of Capri Sun

Hello, hello! What a week it has been, so let's cap it off right with a fresh edition of The Gripe Report!

I don't want to mess around, I've got a pair of personal gripes that we're going to get to this week, so let's just dive right on in.

As always be sure to send in your gripes to mattreigleoutkick@gmail.com, but let's get this complaint party started with.

Don't expect any fortunes or pearls of wisdom out of these things anymore. Now they just give you homework to do. (Getty Images)

Fortune Cookies

Recently, my girlfriend and I decided that we were in the mood for a little Chinese food. 

Chinese food is one of those cuisines that, once you set your sights on it, nothing else will do. Once General Tso’s is in my head, it won’t leave until I’m downing some General Tso’s.

By the way, if that guy was even half as good of a military tactician as he is a chef, I'd hate to have gone toe-to-toe with him and his saucy troops in battle.

We’ve got a go-to place these days, which is great because it can take a while to narrow down your go-to Chinese spot, and once you find it, you're locked in for years.

Chinese restaurants are like barbers or banks. Once you find a good one in your area, you’ll stick with it until it goes out of business, you move, or you croak. 

Anyway, we got our food and we finished it off by busting open some fortune cookies.

I’m not superstitious, and I’m not going to let a slip of paper in a crappy cookie dictate my future, but I do enjoy them.

Or I did.

My girlfriend cracked hers open, cleared her throat to heighten the tension, and read, "Keep a journal."

Keep a journal? That’s not a fortune; that’s homework!

What happened to the old brand fortunes that used to come in fortune cookies? The ones that had lucky numbers and a pearl of wisdom from Confucius. Something to the effect of, "The smug yak catches no fish with an upside-down umbrella." 

I never had any idea what that meant, but I’d still say, "The man sure has a way with words; that Confucius… he was a man, right?"

Anything but "keep a journal."

So, if fortune cookies have thrown in the towel on delivering fortunes, can we just put an end to them all together? 

They’re not good cookies. I put up with them for the fortunes. If the fortunes suck too now, then why are we still doing fortune cookies?

I think Chinese restaurants can skip dessert completely. I can't think of one Chinese dessert that would crack the starting lineup on any dessert menu. 

Also, usually when I'm done cramming krab rangoons and MSG-coated fare into my stupid face, my first thought is, "Holy hell, I need to lay down," not, "Hey, I just ate my weight in lo mein; what’s for dessert?"

Maybe they can just throw a couple of Tums in the bag to go with the handfuls of leftover soy sauce and duck sauce that I keep for some reason but never use.

Sometimes it seems like people leaf through a dictionary, pick a word, and use it to death whether they know what it means or not. (Getty Images)

Overused Words

We heard from Jim in Michigan last week when he griped about improper disposal of disposable flossers, but he sent in two gripes in one message. By the way, we need a name for when someone sends three gripes in one message. I’m partial to Gripe Trick or Matt Trick (I think that one is really good) but I’m open to suggestions.

Anyway, Jim’s second gripe of his two-gripe performance has to do with people who use words completely the wrong way:

Does someone pick out a word out of a dictionary randomly and use it until it's in mainstream conversation?  Years ago, Icon and Iconic were used so much that now anything can be either an icon or iconic.  It's devalued the word so much that nothing is either an Icon or Iconic.

One of the more recent examples of this is Curate.  When I grew up, only museums and art galleries curated anything.  Now, even fruit gift boxes are carefully curated.  Overuse of these words is going to devalue them to the point they'll be meaningless.

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I’ve picked up on this too, and "curate" is a great example. I’ve heard of people curating Jelly of the Month club boxes at this point.

I get that language evolves, but Jim is dead on in that we (by which I mean society) latch onto a word and absolutely run it into the ground.

A good, current example of this is the word "demure." People are using some variation of the words "very demure .. very mindful .." everywhere. It’s so popular that the person who said it on TikTok has somehow made enough money off of it that they can pay to finish their gender transition.

I would’ve used that money to buy a new guitar, car, or house; but to each their own…

Anyway, "demure" wasn’t a common part of my vocabulary, but I was fairly certain the overwhelming majority of people using it had no clue what it meant either. It means "reserved, modest, and shy (typically used of a woman)" but you see chicks post this on photos of them at crowded bars.

Unless it’s being used ironically, I think they’ve got it wrong.

The big problem is no one admits they don’t know what something means anymore, so they just say things without knowing what it means. It’s what AOC does with the word "fascism." 

If we’re being honest, she does it with most words.

Take a step back, and make sure you’re using a word correctly so you don’t sound like a drooling dope.

Capri Sun in a bottle is nothing but some juice beverage. In a pouch, it's the most exhilarating part of childhood for many. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Capri Sun Bottles

I was wandering around the grocery store the other day, and they had a display of like 30-pack cases of Capri Sun. I loved those when I was a kid and I had one of those moments where I thought to myself, "Wait a second, I’m an adult. I can buy myself a case of Capri Sun and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me."

But I didn’t do it, and now I’m pissed because the beloved, Space Age-looking pouch that the lunchbox staple beverage has come in since the dawn of time, looks to be going the way of the dodo.

Yup, you’re about to hear an adult man get upset about juice pouches…

OutKick's own Michael "Gunz" Gunzelman covered it yesterday, but the state of Capri Sun is very upsetting to a child of the late '90s and early aughts like myself, ergo, it must be addressed again.

I love the pouch, but it’s the combination of the pouch and the weird yellow-orange straw with one end that’s sharpened to the point where it causes a prison riot that really does it for me.

There's a rush knowing that if you get the angle of the straw wrong when you're trying to bust open a Capri Sun, there's a decent chance you'll stab right through it like you're spearfishing some mahi-mahi.

It's exhilarating. Back in elementary school, it was like the Russian roulette of the lunch table. You'd either end up with a nice frosty Pacific Cooler in pouring down your gullet or all over your hands and light-up Skechers.

There was no in-between. It made us feel more alive than running with scissors.

I'm upset that future generations of tee-ball players, youth soccer stars, and Lunchables eaters will not get this experience.

This is without a doubt the worst thing to happen to school lunches since Michelle Obama.

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That's it for this week, we'll reconvene next week — same time, same place — for another edition of The Gripe Report. In the meantime, be sure to send in your gripes!: mattreigleoutkick@gmail.com