quote:
It's odd... a lot of it is really bitingly funny, and other parts are really quite touching. I was waiting for a joke at the end of the "Flag cake" story, but none came. It was really quite sweet.
Well, the cake-baking one is really a very dry commentary on the way that mid-west America deals with crises. They bake cakes. Normally, it's a lot clearer and easier to kind of point and laugh at the people in the Onion's stories, but in this case we *all* feel that helplessness.
In other Onion stories, like the one in an older issue about the guy who won't shut up about how he gave up watching TV and is glad because his life is so much richer, we identify with the people around the main character. In this one, everyone is at a loss for something to do.