Editor's column: Random thoughts from a random mind

It’s hard to buy food and cook for one person. There is hardly anything in the grocery store designed to prepare a meal for one.

Things are packaged in quantities that, if you only want to cook enough for one, always result in leftovers. The upside to this is there are leftovers, so there is the savings of making more than one meal. The downside to this is there are leftovers, and many times stuff gets thrown out because I get tired of eating it.

Even some cans of stuff are too much for one person to eat at one time. I’ve often wondered why there aren’t things packaged for one person, but food manufacturers don’t seem to think like I do. Come to think of it, not thinking like me may be a good thing.

I sometimes think about expanding my TV viewing choices. I really only watch live sports and the local news in the mornings and really only watch the news to see what the weather is going to be.

While watching tennis, or basketball, or football, or whatever, I sometimes see promotions for shows. When I see these promos, I begin to wonder what I would even watch.

There is a show that gets advertised a lot where someone moves into a house with a bunch of people from the opposite sex, eventually picks the one they want to marry and gives that person a rose (notice how I worked a rose into a column that will come out close to Valentine’s Day).

I’m sure there’s lots of drama and fun stuff to watch as this selection process takes place, but I don’t think that one would be for me.

I’ve also seen ads for one where a group of single people are put together on an island where they will hopefully find a relationship. What? Somehow I don’t think I’d get any amusement out of that, either.

Furthermore, why are people having to resort to a TV show to find happiness with another person? Do they get paid to do this and is a relationship a bonus? Do they simply want a relationship badly enough to go on TV and have the whole country (or whatever portion of the country that would actually tune in to one of these shows) watch? Whatever happened to the old-fashioned way of meeting someone and actually dating them?

I apparently have a lot of questions about all of this.

Maybe I’ll just stick to watching sports.

The supply chain issues have caused problems in finding a lot of things lately, and in my case they turned up in a way I didn’t expect. It has become almost impossible to find black jelly beans.

They are kind of hard to get anyway, but it has definitely been worse lately. I looked all over in recent weeks and have been unable to come up with any.

This is more of a surprise since, apparently, I am among a small number of people who like them. Most of the people I ask think I’m odd because I like them. Come to think of it, most of the people I talk to think I’m odd anyway, but I digress.

According to a story in the Observer-Reporter newspaper in Pennsylvania, I am indeed in the minority. A study was actually conducted on jelly bean preferences, and on what was obviously a slow news day, the newspaper had a story about it.

The study showed that 19.8% of men and 10.9% of women had black as their favorite jelly bean. However, 21.8% of men and 17.8% of women said it was their least favorite.

The red jelly bean ranked highly among most people while white and purple were among the least favorites.

In addition, the study gave personality traits depending on a person’s favorite jelly bean. Men who like black jelly beans “exercise great personal charm when dealing with others.” They also “avoid endangering their chances for success.”

The study indicated women who like black jelly beans “desire recognition and control” and “are considered persistent in their demands.”

I’m not sure how charming I am, but I was grateful when my friends were able to find some black jelly beans and gave them to me. I will enjoy them while attempting not to endanger my chances for success.