I'll be stuffed for Thanksgiving

Here's a bulletin direct from the Department of Irony:

The inventor of Stove Top Stuffing has died, on the day before Thanksgiving.



Now, I mean no disrespect for the deceased. I'm sure Ruth M. Siems, a home economist who worked for General Foods for 30 years, was a fine lady, and a clever, inventive person in her own right.

But have you ever tasted Stove Top Stuffing?

Egad.

Then again, the very concept of Stove Top Stuffing is flawed from jump street.

First, you can't make stuffing without a turkey. If you're not going to shovel it inside the thoracic cavity of a hunk of roast poultry, the food substance is called dressing, not stuffing.

Second, proper dressing (or stuffing) cannot be made on the stovetop. Or from a mix. Or from tiny little chunks of white bread, for pity's sake. (The only people who believe white bread belongs in dressing have a certain something in common with the bread, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.) Dressing must be made using corn bread as the basic material, and it must be baked in the oven.

Any home economist should know that.

But if you're reading this in the cramped living room of your double-wide, and you're bound and determined to consume Stove Top Stuffing tomorrow as part of your Turkey Day repast, then turn down the football game for a moment of silence, and raise your forty of Mickey's to Ruth M. Siems, who made the whole thing possible, before you cram a wad of the gooey mess down your gullet.

Or you could just suck on a bottle of Elmer's glue, and achieve the same effect.