Watch out, Fyre Festival–the Scots are giving you a run for your money. Last week, some schlubs in Glasgow who call themselves the ‘House of Illuminati’ (yeah, totally legit) sold £35 tickets ($45 USD) to families, promising young kids a ‘Willy Wonka”-themed event trumpeted as “a chocolate fantasy like never before”.

The farce was propped up by AI-generated images of rainbows and candy mazes, helping pique the interest of dozens of parents looking to entertain their kids for an afternoon.

But when said kids and parents showed up, all they saw was a half-empty warehouse cheaply decorated with a small bouncy castle and some cardboard props.

Children left in tears, having only been given cups of lemonade and jelly beans by the scam artists/volunteers, and parents were (understandably) irate, with many of them queuing in line for hours for this fiasco.

“Underwhelming was an understatement. Embarrassing doesn’t even cut it. I paid for Willy Wonka and got Billy Bonkers,” one parent wrote on Facebook.

I just had to share that line with y’all–it cracked me up for a good ten minutes. In fact, all of the memes from this brouhaha are worth looking up, like that one picture of that Oompa Loompa volunteer working in some science lab like it’s a “Breaking Bad” crossover episode.

Moral of the story: If your kids are bored, just take them to the mall. They can find weird “Willy Wonka’’ crap at Spencer’s, plus you can also buy them (and yourself) some Auntie Anne’s pretzels at the food court. It’s a win-win.

It’s allergy season!

We’re currently in the month of March, where my seasonal tree pollen allergy makes itself known in the early mornings and afternoons, giving me itchy eyes and sneezing fits. Luckily, it’s nothing that some Claritin can’t fix, plus my allergies do give me a great excuse for whenever I start feeling sappy and emotional about stuff–like when I watched “One Day” on Netflix without any idea how it ended.

(The silly, happy promos with Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall were too deceiving, damn it!)

‘Flip’ phones

 I upgraded my phone last week, and it took every fiber of my being to not pick out the Galaxy ZFlip or the Motorola razr–what is it with these so-called “flip phones” that I’m obsessed with? In my mind, I know it’s gimmicky to own a foldable smartphone, but it’d be so fun to randomly whip one out in a meeting or something and amaze people for a few minutes. The Galaxy ZFlip 5 in particular looks so cool; it reminds me of a Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP with how fun it is to use as well as the different color options on sale on the Samsung website.

But no, I got a ‘regular’ unfoldable smartphone–how boring of me. Maybe Samsung can bring back physical keyboards next.

Andrea Gutierrez is the editor of the Bryan County News.