I’m sorry this column took such a harsh turn, but the tough love is necessary. Have you ever seen people shopping on Black Friday? It’s like gangs of middle-class women having turf wars. If I were mayor, I’d have all the city’s police officers hide inside stores before Black Friday. Then when customers opened the doors in the morning, the police would beat them unmercifully.

However, since I’m a nice guy, I’ll make exceptions to my December rule. If you want to shop for Christmas presents in November, that’s fine. Just keep it to yourself. Tell no one, and act as though you’re shopping for necessities. If anyone asks, you must tell them you are buying food, toilet paper, or conservative underwear. Keep it secret, keep it safe. No flashy underwear. People might suspect.

I will also allow Jewish people to begin celebrating Hanukkah, since it starts earlier in the month. This annual celebration of your miracle container of olive oil can even begin the second week of November. You may not put up anything resembling Christmas lights, though. You’re limited to Menorah lights or displays that remind people of the horrors of the Holocaust.

This is the first year I’ve had to set rules like this. Normally I’m nice enough to accommodate the mentally unstable people who want to extend the stressful holiday season as long as possible, but this year I just snapped. My workplace has been playing Christmas music since the beginning of the month, and no matter how many times I throw up, I can’t void the Rudolph song that’s been melting my brain for the past three weeks. Like Rudolph, my nose will also be bright red this Christmas, but only from the brutal alcoholism my employer has driven me to.

When I die – which will probably be around December 23 when my liver gives out – I’d like to be remembered as a man with an enormous penis. But seeing how that’s not actually true, my second choice would be for everyone to remember me as the guy who wasn’t a total dickhole in November. Or rather, the guy who was only a dickhole in print.

*Today is also “End a sentence with a preposition day”.

So how the hell can it have E. coli in it? I guess I shouldn’t trust a company whose nutritional facts list 70 ingredients, none of which I can pronounce. What happened to making pizzas out of dough, cheese and sauce? Why does my frozen pizza need “maltodextrin”? Is that an anti-depressant?

I could use an anti-depressant, now that I know my good friends at Totino’s are putting poop on my pizza. That is not a topping I normally order. If you’re going to surprise me by adding unlisted toppings to my pizza, try sausage or canadian bacon, not feces. My life is not a reality show starring Joe Rogan.

I realize there’s roughly 100 billion to 10 trillion E. coli in a single human being’s bowel movement, but is it too much to ask that you keep it away from my goddamn pizza? I didn’t care when spinach was infected with E. coli. I’m a bachelor. But Totino’s? Terrible food is my life. I don’t know how to cook anything besides garbage. Give me a bag full of real groceries and I’ll just eat each item individually. Flour for dinner tonight? Why not? Tomorrow I’ll eat salt.

Sure, I could start buying real pizza, but then I’d be screwing up my goal of only eating meals that cost one dollar or less at the supermarket. Mac n’ cheese? Throw it in the cart. Ramen? Throw it in the cart. Fifty frozen corn dogs for four dollars? Cart. Day-old burritos for half-off? I didn’t know burritos could be day-old, but let’s put them in the cart.

I felt safe buying these items because none of them contain real ingredients. I laughed as I watched vegetarians freaking out over the spinach E. coli outbreak, but now that fake food is also being affected, I’m not sure what to do. Should I picket something or yell at someone? Just point out the person and I’ll give them the business.

The only good news is that all people affected by the Totino’s outbreak recovered fully. E. coli can be deadly, but mostly just for babies and old people. I know a few people who would feed Totino’s pizza to a baby, but luckily none of them have or will ever have children.

If you think you’ve eaten a tainted Totino’s pizza, call a doctor immediately. The symptoms of E. coli poisoning are bloody diarrhea and dehydration. Unfortunately, these side effects are common even when you eat non-affected Totino’s pizzas, so perhaps we shouldn’t have been worried in the first place.