Mints are very popular and generally considered to be a positive thing. We often hear something called "minty fresh," whereas you rarely hear the term "minty stale" or "minty rancid." Likewise, you very often will hear "cool mint," but rarely "hot mint" or "dorky mint." So I think mints get some points right there.
Of course, there are so many different kinds of mints. The most common ones are probably spearmint, peppermint and cinnamint. The last one, of course, is just a combination of cinnamon and mint. Which always makes me think, is peppermint just mint combined with the spiciness of pepper? And if so, who in their right mind eats spearmint? If I want to eat something sharp, I’ll have cheddar.
Still, that’s just the tip of the mint iceberg -- an iceberg that would undoubtedly make the water fresher and cooler. Right now there’s been some interest (ha!) in the Federal Reserve, with many people asking how they set rates and control the money supply. But they just control the implementation of the money supply. The actual money is supplied by a mint, in turn controlled by the govern-mint.
Much of the gold from that mint is located at Fort Knox, which I always thought was a good answer to the question of what you do when someone won’t let you into the fort. They’ve got lots of gold bars there, although to be fair, we have a few bars in North Adams too, just not as much gold.
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Flask yourself: Have you figured out everything you’ve mint to? Have you wondered, when someone gives you a package of Tic-Tacs, should you put them on your Toe? Is that good for the sole? Or maybe a gift of mints is one that will only cause you shame, because it is as if the person giving them to you is saying, "Here’s a gift you need because your breath stinks." What an embarrass-mint.
There’s actually a whole genre of gifts that it seems incredibly rude to give someone. Breath freshener, deodorant, diet books, makeup ... you could buy someone a very generous box set that basically says you think the recipient is smelly, fat and ugly. But I’ve never been big on gifts; I think it’s more important to just tell people how you really feel. Especially because if they’re insulted by a gift, they might throw the gifts back at you, which would be due punish-mint.
But wait just a mint. Even mints can’t escape the societal pressure to look a certain way. The media always presents images of Thin Mints, but you rarely see positive images of Fat Mints. Actually, last year in Florida, a woman was placed in jail for a crime related to the theft of thin mints. Her roommate stole her mints, so she attacked the roommate with a deadly weapon and was imprisoned for it. I hope you might find that anecdote mint arresting.
I wanted to conclude this column by saying something about the mints that hotels put on your pillow, but I don’t know what to say about that.
I guess I’ll sleep on it.
Seth Brown is a humor writer, the author of "From God To Verse," and has menthol issues. His work appears weekly in the Transcript, and weakly on RisingPun.com.
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