I hate potpourii...there, I said it.

I hate potpourii. There, I said it.

You know, potpourii...those little bowls of dead leaves and tree bark that people burn to make their house smell great? See what you do is you take a very nice container of some kind - a very elegant crystal bowl or ornate glass dish that you paid a lot of money for - and you go to the store and buy a sack full of leftovers from someone raking the leaves up out of their yard (you know, that little pile of debris that's too small for you to get up) and you put it inside the decorative bowl and burn it.

For a minute, let's pretend that burning dried up leaves and sticks inside your house is a good idea from a safety standpoint. Do you realize that you are paying money for old flower petals and sticks? How far gone are we from a fashion standpoint when we find ourselves burning leaves in our own homes to make a decorative statement? Why would anyone pay more than 1 cent for a 5 lbs. bag of this stuff? Somehow it's ok because they smell like a freshly made bowl of cinnamon oatmeal sitting in a rain-soaked field of lillies.

Arent we sending mixed messages to the kids? "No, little Johnny...don't throw a match onto that pile of leaves...wait until we get them in our best crystal bowl before you burn them!"

And hey...whoever came up with the word "potpourii" needs to be kicked in the head at every available opportunity. This is one of those stupid words that is spelled differently than it sounds and has all sorts of extra letters thrown in. It's pronounced "po-pour-i" but spelled potpourii - which should be pronounced "pot-pour-i" But it's not pronounced "pot", but rather "po". Why? I have never understood the idea of having silent letters in words...if you don't pronounce the letter, WHY HAVE IT IN THERE? What else do letters do besides help us understand how to say the word? What is that letter "t" doing in there? He's just collecting letter welfare...the rest of the letters are working hard to collectively mean something, and then there's that "t" just sitting there. Maybe he's best buddies with the extra "i" at the end of the word and they're on a sight-seeing trip! Why is the letter "i" shown twice at the end of this word? Are we supposed to say "po(skip the t)-pour-i-i?" NO! It's as though someone said "Ok. We've come up with a word that is spelled differently than it sounds. What else can we do to make it more inaccessible to the general public? Hey I know...let's add another letter "i" to the end of the word! People won't know what to do with it, and mass confusion will ensue!" In the immortal words of Paul Sr. (of American Choppers fame), "Come over here and turn around so I can slap you in the back of the head."

In light of all this, I hereby nominate the guy who invented potpourii for some sort of award. After all, he convinced us to burn his leftover yard trash inside our own homes - and to pay him for it!