sometimes philosophy feels like...

blatantly copied from McSweeney's (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/29checkout.html)

FELLOW GROCERY SHOPPERS
OF CHECKOUT LINE NO. 6

"I realize you are busy. I appreciate that the day's labors have left you weary, baggy-eyed, on edge. As I enter the 10th minute of spirited disagreement with the checkout girl, your exhaustion and hunger must be growing in a black double helix of frustration. But I think that your anger toward me will abate when you realize something about my present altercation—it's not about the money; it's about the principle of the thing.

My motives are pure.

Now, I will be the first to admit that a triumph in this dispute, over the price of jarred vegetables, would result in monetary gain—75 cents, to be exact. For me, though, these material benefits are irrelevant.

It is truth—not avarice—that moves my tongue. In fact, I will speed to donate some portion of my spoils to charity, provided I can find an organization devoted to truth and justice in supermarkets.

I believe I just heard one of you, Fellow Grocery Shoppers of Checkout Line No. 6, ask, "Who cares about the principle of the thing? Grey's Anatomy starts in 20 minutes!" A fair question, to be sure.

Let me ask a question in return: Hunger has blinded you to ethics, but what about logic? For, you see, I am fighting not just for what is fair but for what is correct. A "pickle," as I have now patiently explained a dozen times, can be any pickled vegetable matter, not just a cucumber. Perhaps if cashier Brianna would suspend her Chiclet-snapping and wrest her attention from that Us Weekly—which, by the way, did she pay for?—she would realize these truths of the universe.

I am right. Trader Joe is wrong.

The increased volume of your grumbling can only mean that I've won your support. Thank you, brothers and sisters, for joining me in this important fight. We'll stay here all night if we have to.