This is My Fake News Story for 2016

Suppliers face country-wide pallet shortage as Pinterest users increase demand.

The Nazareth Pallet Company has released a report recently that states the U.S. will face a serious shortfall in pallet production by the end of 2017. A spokesman for the company, who asked to remain anonymous on the grounds that he “does not want people knocking down his door for pallets,” has said the shortage stems from several factors, but points to one major cause overall.

When asked what that cause was, he offered only one word, “Pinterest.”

Pinterest, a popular social media site that allows users to “pin” articles and images they come across on the internet, has spawned an insatiable appetite in the United States for pallets. Debbie Spatz, a mother of 3 that lives in Pocatello, ID, is an avid Pinterest user, and has amassed over 200 pallets, which she keeps in her garage. Debbie, who has yet to complete any of the projects she has “pinned” on the popular site, says that she “just doesn’t know when she’ll need [the pallets], and so likes to keep them on hand,” that way she can use them when needed. She has plans to make a coffee table, two side tables, 2 night stands, a headboard, a miniature windmill, 4 dog houses (she has no dogs), and a topogan out of the pallets.

A follow up with the source from NPC had this to say about Debbie and others that use the popular internet site; “It’s just insane. There are whole companies that make furniture you can build yourself all over the place, and that furniture is also made out of cheap, crappy wood. Why go through all the effort to steal - or for God's Sake BUY - pallets? They’re mostly used for shipping cheap crap to cheap stores. Can’t they just get furniture from Ikea?”

Ikea is a Swedish company that makes furniture that customers must build themselves, often after a customer's significant other has insisted that they need it. Ikea furniture is also made from cheap wood, much like pallets.

As of this writing, NPC and other suppliers of pallets fully expect to need to increase production by 300% over the next year to meet the demand that has been created by people who use Pinterest, a feat that they feel may be beyond their capacity. The source at NPC did state, however, that if they could get the pallets back that people have taken but have not done anything with, they would have a surplus of nearly 150%, though he does not see that happening.

“They are just nuts. They just go out, collect pallets, and then sit on them forever. I don’t get it.”

***Jason doesn't write for anyone but himself, his wife, his 2 sons, and their cat. He also uses Pinterest, and sometimes thinks about building that 'really cool' mini-windmill he saw on there once***

A Few Internet Sites Didn't Like This, So I'm Sharing It With You.

6 Hobbies Dads of Young Boys Can Legitimately Have

            When men become fathers, many of their favorite past-times get forced out of their lives into oblivion. Despite the boundless joys one experiences as a parent (read: mind numbing drudgery punctuated by moments of blind rage/unfathomable exhaustion) there exists a real void where productive and entertaining hobbies used to exist. Gone are the days of quietly whittling a bird house/functioning mini windmill out of the abundant raw wood you painstakingly collected on multiple day long hikes in the woods. No, with those little rugrats taking up a great deal of your valuable man time, you need some more realistic options.

1.    Wine Tasting

Us men no longer have the time to head out to the bars at a fresh 1 pm and get turnt. 1) We are now responsible for one or more (I routinely lose count) young and impressionable children. Our hobbies have to accommodate for that. Wine tasting is an upscale and responsible alternative and still completely acceptable in the middle of the day if you are either wearing a sweater vest or it’s sunny outside. 2) We should also consider hobbies that we can share with our significant others, ‘cause we’re in this together! Wine is the great harbinger of amiable relationships, and if your significant other doesn’t like wine, you can have their portion and they’ll appreciate your willingness to include them in your hobby.

2.      Hide and Seek

At first, it may seem as though Hide and Seek would be more of a family pastime, but for the right man, it can be a fulfilling solo creative hobby. Imagine the lessons you could teach your children – especially after an hour long tantrum about the way their pineapple slices are arranged on their plate - if they were unable to find you for days. You would get to truly tap into the ingenuity that was your best friend in college while playing How To Pass This Test Without Studying, and your kids will get a fantastic life lesson regarding attachment disorder and how to avoid it in the future.

3.      Reading

Remember when you and your significant other had nothing but epic amounts of passion filled physical release? That was great. These days, with sweet little cherubim rightfully drawing the bulk of your attention, you’ll need to find a hobby that helps abate thoughts that don’t include bath time strategies and grilled cheese recipes (hint: crust is not an ingredient). Staring at words on a page/screen that happen to be right next to some tasteful pictures of people just like you enjoying the art of making more cherubim is a fantastic way to pass time that would otherwise be spent bugging your sweetly sleeping significant other. If you also happen to be tired, there is plenty of reading material that forgoes the hassle of letters and words and allows you to just enjoy the purity of image.

4.      Racquetball

Racquetball is an enjoyable sport that burns a ridiculous amount of calories, keeping you in shape.

5.      Open an etsy shop

While it’s not something that most would have spring to mind if asked about manly hobbies, an etsy shop could give you hours of productive fun. Etsy is a great place to not only let the world finally see your lacquered PBR can belt buckles, but you could also earn anywhere between -$12.60 and $0 for only like 47 hours of laborious, detail oriented work. It’s also another great entry on this list that you could share with your kids, cause if it takes off, someone is going to have to help you finish those PBRs, and kids are great at drinking and eating things they “haven’t liked since they were babies and now I’m a big kid and I don’t like it.”

6.      Invent a time machine

You’re probably expecting me to say something about going back and stopping yourself from having children. Don’t be ridiculous! You’re going to use that time machine to throttle yourself into the future so that you can scare the holy-living-crap out of your grandchildren in the middle of the night as you enjoy your latest hobby, late-night-god-awful-payback. You’ll also enjoy the opportunity to really mess with your now grown children as you completely rearrange the furniture in their house and throw absolutely every single piece of everything they own onto the floor moments after they have finished cleaning and left the house to go to the store. It’ll be a blast.