Jean Teasdale's Look Back At 2010's Biggest Stories

2010 is just about over and most of us in the Consumerist cave are already half in the bag from the box of cheap wine Meg got for Christmas. So for this look back at the last 365 days, we’ve handed over the reins to Jean Teasdale, The Onion’s resident humor and human-interest columnist and first-time author, for her unique view on some of the year’s biggest stories.

The ongoing foreclosure fiasco:
“Hubby Rick and I have never owned a home or paid a mortgage. It’s great how our lack of ambition has saved our sweet patooties time and time again!”

Blockbuster goes bankrupt:
“Really?? Blockbuster bankrupt? Even after all those years of late fees I paid? I smell something fishy. Oh wait, that’s the Mrs. Paul’s frozen fish sticks I microwaved for dinner! (Just kidding! Actually, we’re having sloppy joes!)”

San Francisco bans McDonald’s Happy Meals:
“I never thought Happy Meals would become a source of sadness. Yet it came to pass.”

Continued mass unemployment:
“This situation reminds me of that old saying, ‘Thank God for the things you can control, and for the things you might not be able to control, or can’t tell whether you can control or not, leave those up to God to decide.’ Or something like that. I’m sure you know which saying I’m talking about.”

JetBlue flight attendant goes nuts on plane:
“I’ve never had a flight attendant go crazy on me, because I’ve never flown. But I did have a woman at Pamida snatch a pack of lip glosses right out of my hands. I guess the lip glosses were on a cart of items that shoppers had decided against buying and were being returned to the store shelves. I think she was upset that people weren’t putting things back on the shelves and just jettisoning them willy-nilly. To her, I represented all these bad, negligent people, even though I had nothing to do with it. I bet that’s what happened in the JetBlue situation.”

Extreme fast food:
“When the Double Down came out, Hubby Rick said he should sue because he was the one who invented chicken patties as sandwich bread. Yeah, right! Believe me, the hubby’s not that ingenious! (Time to ‘double down’ on the eye rolls!)”

Receipt checking at big box stores:
“I’m reluctant to criticize that, because I might be doing that for a living some day
and I don’t want to alienate a future boss.”

The iPad:
“When I first heard the words ‘iPad,’ I assumed it was a cool, futuristic-looking white mattress you plug your iPod into. Because they’ve been coming out with a lot of things like that lately, right? But apparently it’s like a laptop without an external keyboard. I’m not sure how I feel about that. So I’ll just wait until the keyboard version comes out.”

Toyota recalls:
“I don’t know much about this Toyota recall, because Hubby Rick and I have always bought American! (You’re welcome!) Well, we buy used American. Which means they often come without warranties, so over time we probably we end up paying more for repairs, damage, and lost hours than through enduring one or two auto recalls. Know what? I’m going to stop thinking about this.”

You can pick up Jean’s first literary endeavor, A Book of Jean’s Own!, at bookstores everywhere.

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