Canoga Please! Those Diabetic Test Strip Signs! Also, Quick & Easy Summer Recipes!

Canoga Please! Every time I’m forced to slow down at an intersection here in Canoga Park because some jackass blows through a stop sign before I get a chance to, I have time to roll my eyes upward in annoyance — and every single time they come to rest on a telephone pole-mounted sign with an offer to buy ‘diabetic test strips!’ Who the hell has diabetic test strips to sell? Are Canoga Park residents overwhelmingly diabetic? If so, how come they have spare test strips? Why aren’t they using them? What’s going on here?  —Mabel K., sent from my phone while flying across Owensmouth at Valerio

Dear Mabel,

‘What’s going on’ here is the entrepreneurial spirit that made America — and Canoga Park! — great! Many of those who suffer from diabetes receive free testing supplies thanks to Medicare and Medicaid. But who has time to check their blood sugar levels when you’ve got to get to the local donuteria before they run out of bear claws? Therefore, our local diabetics end up with a surplus of testing supplies taking up valuable space at home — space that could be better used for storing stacks of butterscotch pudding cups from the dollar store. 

Companies like those who have invested in local telephone pole advertising space offer cold hard cash for the supplies and then sell them to people who actually are managing their diabetes but who have to pay for their supplies — yet can’t afford even the cost of the co-pays. Thanks to a bustling free market and exciting private programs like these, Canoga Park diabetics are no longer ‘victims’ as they’ve been characterized for so long in the past and are now taking control of their disease and earning extra money by making diabetes work for them! The day has come for these now-productive members of society to stand up and be counted! (Those who still have legs, anyway.)

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Canoga Please! 'Cold hard cash,' hmm? Can you suggest a recipe for a really decadent, rich dessert? Oh, let's say a delicious, sweet, gooey poundcake...and, eh, also — tell me how I can sign up for Obamacare! —Mabel K., sent from my phone, now at Valerio and Variel, and gaining speed

Dear Mabel,

Sure!  Take one pound sugar, one pound butter, one pound flou—  ...Now wait a minute...!   —Burton Cantara

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