I have a theory that most great academic work is undertaken in order to prove somebody else wrong. There's nothing quite like the rush that comes from getting to do an obnoxious "told you so" dance, and--if you're a nerd like me--that joy is easily multiplied tenfold when you get to footnote your gloating with sources and facts and snooty research. (Or, in this case, "research" with air quotes.)
It's not unlike a sugar rush, you might say. What an appropriate analogy, because we're talking about Halloween candy! You might think tonight is just a night for costumes and free candy (or, if you're an adult, costumes and booze), but for me, it was the scene of a grand experiment.
BACKGROUND
Like all great experiments, mine had its roots in a great debate. But first, I need to set the scene. My sister and I, being your typical millennials, both live at home still. The difference between living at home as a teenager and living at home as an adult, however, is that when Halloween rolls around, you are now in charge of buying the candy instead of just eating it with wild abandon.
But since communication is apparently not one of Tracey's and my strong points, we did not coordinate on the purchase of our Halloween candy. Which meant that we ended up with ten bags of various fun-sized chocolate bars, a fact that I did not discover until about a week before Halloween, when I mentioned to my father that I'd bought some candy.
"I think Tracey did, too," he said. "But what did you get?"
"100 Grands," I said. "3 Musketeers. Yorks."
"YORKS?!" my dad shouted. He was driving at the time, and I half-expected him to dramatically slam on the brakes in indignation and disbelief. "You bought Yorks? That's the worst candy ever!"
"I like Yorks!" I insisted. "Who doesn't love peppermint? I never used to get them in my treat bag as a kid--"
He snorted. I ignored him.
"--and I would have liked to, so I got them as a service to all the other neighborhood kids."
"I was listening to the radio the other day," he said, disregarding my impassioned defense of peppermint patties, "and they voted those the worst candies. What else did you get?"
"Butterfingers," I said, feeling confident in this choice, at least.
"You got all the terrible ones!" he cackled. "That was like the third worst on the list."
"I've never met someone who doesn't like Butterfingers!" I insisted. "I mean, maybe some of my friends don't really like them like them, but I've never met anyone who vehemently dislikes them."
"I hope Tracey picked better candies than you," was the only rejoinder I got.
The next day, I had the chance to ask Tracey which candies she'd bought. "Milky Ways, Kit-Kats, Snickers, 100 Grands, Crunch, and Butterfingers," she said. "Why, what did you get?"
"100 Grand, Butterfingers, 3 Musketeers, and Yorks," I said.
"YORKS?!" she hooted. "What are you, eighty-five years old?!"
"WHAT DID I TELL YOU?" my dad shouted, appearing out of nowhere to gloat.
"Do you hate children?" Tracey said. "Do you even want people to come to our house?"
It was then that I decided to take on what is undoubtedly the greatest, most relevant, and most important experiment of our time: I was going to prove that Yorks are a legitimate Halloween candy choice, dammit, or I was going to die trying.
THE (100) GRAND EXPERIMENT
I was the sole person in charge of distributing candy this year, given that everyone else conveniently had plans to be out of the house during prime trick-or-treating time. So I put my plan in motion.
I emptied all the available 100 Grands and Butterfingers into the candy basket without bothering to count them--since Tracey and I had both picked them, they weren't part of the argument. I decided to put in equal numbers of all the other candies and observe which, if any, were left at the end of the night. Due to the fact that Tracey had taken some of her candy to distribute among her coworkers, I had only 14 Snickers and 14 Kit-Kats left to work with, so I put 14 of each type of candy into the basket, mixed things up as well as I could, and waited for 6:00 to roll around.
The first hour or so went by pretty uneventfully. The kids were told they could each take one piece of candy, although I saw a couple sneak two. (Clearly scientific variables mean NOTHING to these children.) At 6:55--nearly the halfway point for the trick-or-treating window in our town--I took a tally of what remained (excluding, once again, the 100 Grands and the Butterfingers). Here's what was left:
Snickers = 11 (79% remaining)
Kit Kat = 3 (21% remaining)
Milky Way = 7 (50% remaining)
Crunch = 3 (21% remaining)
Tracey's candy = 43% remaining
Yorks = 7 (50% remaining)
3 Musketeers = 5 (36% remaining)
Renée's candy = 43% remaining
OH SNAP!
Although it's still anyone's game in terms of statistics, so far anecdotal evidence unfortunately appears to support the hypothesis that Yorks are "the worst candy ever," as I watched one little boy pick up a Yorks, realize what it was, debate putting it back, decide it would be rude, and put it into his bag with a palpable mixture of disappointment and vague resentment.
Things really got interesting around 7:15, when a group of around 30 kids traveling in what can only be described as a herd descended upon my doorstep. Two little girls argued over the last Yorks in the basket--score one for Yorks!--and, as a side note, about a quarter of the group went absolutely ga-ga over the Butterfingers, saying we were the first house to have them. Weird.
Needless to say, at 7:20 the breakdown of remaining candy was dramatically different.
Snickers = 1* (< 1 % remaining)
Kit Kat = 0 (0% remaining)
Milky Way = 4 (29% remaining)
Crunch = 1 (< 1% remaining)
Tracey's candy = 11% remaining
*There were actually 2 Snickers of the original 14 remaining, but the package was wide open so I removed it from the basket. I'm many things, but I'm not the sort of person to feed children suspicious candy bars.
Yorks = 0 (0% remaining)
3 Musketeers = 1 (< 1% remaining)
Renée's candy = < 1 % remaining
At this point, we were running low on candy, so I had to add a few bars. I was all out of Snickers and Kit-Kats, though, so I just added 2 candies each of Milky Way, Crunch, Yorks, and 3 Musketeers. (All future percentages for those candies will therefore be calculated using a total of 16 candies instead of 14, because that's how math works. I think. I was an English major and we're talking about Halloween candy; you should really just take all of this with a grain of salt.)
After the giant pack of York-loving children departed, the rest of the night was pretty quiet, although I did have this gem of a conversation with three of the last trick-or-treaters of the night, all of whom were probably under seven or eight years old:
Girl: Are there any more Kit-Kats?
Me: No, not anymore. We had some earlier, but they went really quickly.
Girl, with the air of a defense attorney cross-examining a witness: But there WERE Kit-Kats at one point?
Me: Yeah, but they're all gone now.
Boy #1: Did the big kids get 'em?
Me: I think so.
Boy #2, arriving on the scene: I like Kit-Kats, too.
Me: I know, they're good! But we don't have any more.
Boy #2: I think I've got a Kit-Kat in here somewhere.
He rummages through his candy bag, finds a Kit-Kat, and holds it up for inspection.
Boy #2: There it is!
Me, at a loss: Yep, that's a Kit-Kat...!
Awkward pause as Boy #2 combs extensively through all the remaining candy in the basket.
Boy #2: I don't really like any of this candy.
Me: No?
Boy #2: Yeah. I guess I'll just...
He picks up a 100 Grand, puts it back, ignores his friends calling him impatiently from across the yard, picks up a Butterfinger, hesitates, starts to put it back, then bags it with a "what the hell, why not?" sort of attitude.
Boy #2: Thank you!
Me: ...!
Kids, man. They're priceless.
By the end of the night, the numbers were as follows:
Snickers = 0*/14 (0% remaining)
Kit Kat = 0/14 (0% remaining)
Milky Way = 1/16 (< 1 % remaining)
Crunch = 0/16 (0% remaining)
Tracey's candy = 0.01667% remaining
*Still one Snickers technically left that's not counting toward the total. But let's be real, it probably would have gone anyway.
Yorks = 0/16 (0% remaining)
3 Musketeers = 1/16 (< 1% remaining)
Renée's candy = 0.03125% remaining
CONCLUSION
So Tracey beat me, but only barely. We both finished with less than one percent of our candy remaining, and the thing that kept me from winning, it really must be noted, was NOT a Yorks Peppermint Patty. I can only conclude that Yorks are not the worst candy ever, and my family really needs to have more faith in my candy-picking abilities.
Now...here's to a statistics-free November!
And that's how nerds do Halloween.
Showing posts with label insanity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insanity. Show all posts
Friday, October 31, 2014
Friday, July 5, 2013
Baseball and Childhood Obesity and Apple Pie, Oh My!
In case the title didn't give it away: I am back in the United States, suckas! Have been for four weeks, but nothing says "I'm back in America" like laziness and procrastination, am I right?
I've gotta say, as awesome as traveling around Europe was, being back to my boring floss-every-night-and-in-bed-by-eleven routine is pretty great, too. It sounds really cheesy, but there are lots of things about home that I have a new appreciation for. I still haven't gotten over how luxurious regular bath towels feel after five weeks of using my wimpy microfiber travel towel. Every time I dry off I feel like I'm being hugged by angels or something.
The downside to my homecoming was that I instantly got sick. Predictable, perhaps, but I've had nary a sniffle for the past year and a half and I was really hoping that I had somehow become immune to everything. (Yes, everything.) I've got the remnants of a hacking cough that tells me I was sadly mistaken.
I've also acquired a brief soundbite that I use whenever someone asks about how my trip was: "It was awesome, but I'm so glad to be back. It's nice to take long showers and sleep in my own bed." BAM. Five weeks of traipsing across an entire continent, encountering everything from hailstorms to the inefficient French train system to neo-Nazis, reduced down to a cliché about how there's no place like home. I feel like my English degree is going to waste. (Although, to be fair, I imagine most English majors feel that way.)
The truth is that it's really hard to encapsulate five weeks' worth of activities in some polite conversational small talk. Hell, I can't even summarize a forty-minute TV episode in fewer than five minutes, with extra time taken to analyze every character's motivations. ("And then he said nothing was wrong, but they did a close-up on his face and you could just tell something was wrong, you know what I mean? But everyone just accepted it and you could see in the background of the shot that he was all upset that no one pressed the issue. And then they cut to a commercial and I was like, 'Noooooo! Can't you people see he's dying inside?!'")
Luckily (for me, maybe not so luckily for you), I have a blog, which allows me to ramble on for however long I want. So I can say here that I have a lot of mixed feelings about my trip. It was awesome, don't get me wrong, and I am glad to be back. But it wasn't all rainbows and ponies and non-stop adventurous fun like I had hoped/sort of expected it to be. Some parts of it really, really sucked. By about week four I was wishing I could just hop a bus to Heathrow and fly straight back to Boston. And yet, I was still sad to leave.
Saying that I liked my trip seems too simple. It's more apt to say that I respected it.
I realize this doesn't really make sense, because I'm talking about my trip, an abstract concept essentially created by me, as if it's a separate, animate entity that holds some power over my life. But that's how it feels.
Lots of things about this trip did not go as planned. (See Paris, re: everything.) Destinations didn't live up to my expectations, either because I was too tired to really appreciate them or had built them up in my head too much or because by week five I had just seen too many damn cathedrals. (Europe is lousy with cathedrals, guys. You might think, "But cathedrals are beautiful! I'll never get tired of them!" Oh, yes. Yes, you will.) I'm sort of ashamed to admit it, but when I think back on my favorite trip memories one of the first ones that springs to mind is watching an entire episode of Sherlock on BBC One. Just sitting there with like four other random strangers at the hostel, none of us talking, all of us transfixed by the television. Ninety minutes of mindless entertainment. Excellent.
And really, that was it: the mindlessness of it. I've just spent a whole stiflingly hot New England afternoon flopping around my house like a wet dish towel, and it's been kind of boring. But this just didn't happen while I was traveling. There is something to be said for being lazy and bored every so often. If you don't ever take time out to be bored you start getting bored by non-boring things, like jaw-dropping eight-hundred-year-old cathedrals, and that's just a shame. I never want to be the person who looks at, say, a magnificent piece of art or priceless historical artifact and goes, "YAWN, another one?" I want to be thrilled, excited, amazed by all the wonderful stuff in the world. I don't want to force myself to take an interest when I'd really rather be napping. And in order for all the amazement and whatnot to happen, you need to take time out to process everything, sometimes by watching slickly-produced British crime procedurals.
So, lesson one from my trip: take time to be bored. Not too much time, but a little time. It may seem like a waste of time and money to fly to Europe and then spend an afternoon doing the same stupid stuff you could do for free in America (I'm looking at you, Buzzfeed), but honestly, it probably would have made my trip a little less one-note in some ways. (If I ever do a trip like this again, however, I fully expect to ignore this insight and keep scheduling things wall-to-wall, dawn-until-dusk. There's just so much stuff to see and so little time to see it all!)
Lesson two has been less of a "lesson," per se, and more of a slow-burning observation, and that is: Whatever. I don't really care.
This sounds really negative and spoiled-teenager-y, but I assure you I mean it in the most positive way possible. Since I've returned home I've found it a lot easier to get over minor embarrassments and setbacks. I'm not saying I am impervious to social awkwardness. (Nay, I unfortunately continue to thrive upon it. For a prime example, see my use of "nay" just now.) I'm just saying that my recovery time seems to be much quicker and far more painless than previously. Because really, once you're forced to solve all your problems on your own in a foreign country, stumbling over your words no longer provokes agonizing mortification.
In a similar vein, people don't really scare me anymore. (I mean average joe people--your garden variety bullies, rudesters, unpleasants. For the record, I am still terrified of serial killers, rapists, and horror movie antagonists--or I would be, should any of them ever cross my path.) Since I was traveling by myself, I settled into a pattern of not really caring about others. I mean, I was polite and considerate of people and all that jazz. I just did nothing to accommodate them when doing so ran contrary to my own desires or momentary whims. From day one, I stopped wearing make-up. (I only used it a couple times over the course of my trip when I felt like gettin' fancy.) My hair was basically a windblown rats' nest for a month. By week two, I was wearing the same outfits over and over until they started to smell. By three-and-a-half weeks in, I was wearing clothes even after they started to smell. Who was going to judge me? Other travelers? Big deal, when would I ever see them again? As long as I kept my personal hygiene at a level that was acceptable for sharing a room with other human beings (and I did at least manage that), what did it really matter what other people thought of my laundry habits (or lack thereof)?
Furthermore, I learned really quickly that no one else was going to take care of my whiny life issues, so I became my own problem-solver. There was no passing the buck, no "I'll just take care of that later," nothing. So I became great at fake confidence. And then real confidence. And bizarrely enough, it started to spill over into my interactions with others. When I met people and we did things as a group, I found myself in charge. I picked the restaurant. I got directions to wherever we were going. I pulled together a delicious dinner from £5 of groceries. I got things DONE, and other people noticed. For the first time in my life, I ended up the de facto group leader in random social situations, even though I was just as clueless as everyone else. Not gonna lie, it was a pretty cool feeling, being on top of everything and having people...look up to me, I guess. The whole "fake it 'til you make it" thing really is true; the more other faith people put into my apparent problem-solving abilities, the more confident I acted. And the more confident I acted, the more actually secure I felt. It was like a vicious circle, but pleasant. (A pleasant circle? Someone needs to coin a better term for this.)
I realize that this entire blog post detailing my backpacking voyage of self-discovery sounds really pretentious and self-absorbed, so I think I'd better just cut things off now before I start using shudder-worthy phrases like "a simpler way of life" and "finding myself." And I know this was all pretty rambly and nonsensical. I'm still trying to find the words to convey what I'm trying to say. But for all its faults, this description comes a lot closer to doing the whole experience justice than my line about long showers and fluffy towels and sleeping in my own bed.
But really. Long showers. Towels. Bed. You can't beat 'em.
I've gotta say, as awesome as traveling around Europe was, being back to my boring floss-every-night-and-in-bed-by-eleven routine is pretty great, too. It sounds really cheesy, but there are lots of things about home that I have a new appreciation for. I still haven't gotten over how luxurious regular bath towels feel after five weeks of using my wimpy microfiber travel towel. Every time I dry off I feel like I'm being hugged by angels or something.
The downside to my homecoming was that I instantly got sick. Predictable, perhaps, but I've had nary a sniffle for the past year and a half and I was really hoping that I had somehow become immune to everything. (Yes, everything.) I've got the remnants of a hacking cough that tells me I was sadly mistaken.
I've also acquired a brief soundbite that I use whenever someone asks about how my trip was: "It was awesome, but I'm so glad to be back. It's nice to take long showers and sleep in my own bed." BAM. Five weeks of traipsing across an entire continent, encountering everything from hailstorms to the inefficient French train system to neo-Nazis, reduced down to a cliché about how there's no place like home. I feel like my English degree is going to waste. (Although, to be fair, I imagine most English majors feel that way.)
The truth is that it's really hard to encapsulate five weeks' worth of activities in some polite conversational small talk. Hell, I can't even summarize a forty-minute TV episode in fewer than five minutes, with extra time taken to analyze every character's motivations. ("And then he said nothing was wrong, but they did a close-up on his face and you could just tell something was wrong, you know what I mean? But everyone just accepted it and you could see in the background of the shot that he was all upset that no one pressed the issue. And then they cut to a commercial and I was like, 'Noooooo! Can't you people see he's dying inside?!'")
Luckily (for me, maybe not so luckily for you), I have a blog, which allows me to ramble on for however long I want. So I can say here that I have a lot of mixed feelings about my trip. It was awesome, don't get me wrong, and I am glad to be back. But it wasn't all rainbows and ponies and non-stop adventurous fun like I had hoped/sort of expected it to be. Some parts of it really, really sucked. By about week four I was wishing I could just hop a bus to Heathrow and fly straight back to Boston. And yet, I was still sad to leave.
Saying that I liked my trip seems too simple. It's more apt to say that I respected it.
I realize this doesn't really make sense, because I'm talking about my trip, an abstract concept essentially created by me, as if it's a separate, animate entity that holds some power over my life. But that's how it feels.
Lots of things about this trip did not go as planned. (See Paris, re: everything.) Destinations didn't live up to my expectations, either because I was too tired to really appreciate them or had built them up in my head too much or because by week five I had just seen too many damn cathedrals. (Europe is lousy with cathedrals, guys. You might think, "But cathedrals are beautiful! I'll never get tired of them!" Oh, yes. Yes, you will.) I'm sort of ashamed to admit it, but when I think back on my favorite trip memories one of the first ones that springs to mind is watching an entire episode of Sherlock on BBC One. Just sitting there with like four other random strangers at the hostel, none of us talking, all of us transfixed by the television. Ninety minutes of mindless entertainment. Excellent.
And really, that was it: the mindlessness of it. I've just spent a whole stiflingly hot New England afternoon flopping around my house like a wet dish towel, and it's been kind of boring. But this just didn't happen while I was traveling. There is something to be said for being lazy and bored every so often. If you don't ever take time out to be bored you start getting bored by non-boring things, like jaw-dropping eight-hundred-year-old cathedrals, and that's just a shame. I never want to be the person who looks at, say, a magnificent piece of art or priceless historical artifact and goes, "YAWN, another one?" I want to be thrilled, excited, amazed by all the wonderful stuff in the world. I don't want to force myself to take an interest when I'd really rather be napping. And in order for all the amazement and whatnot to happen, you need to take time out to process everything, sometimes by watching slickly-produced British crime procedurals.
So, lesson one from my trip: take time to be bored. Not too much time, but a little time. It may seem like a waste of time and money to fly to Europe and then spend an afternoon doing the same stupid stuff you could do for free in America (I'm looking at you, Buzzfeed), but honestly, it probably would have made my trip a little less one-note in some ways. (If I ever do a trip like this again, however, I fully expect to ignore this insight and keep scheduling things wall-to-wall, dawn-until-dusk. There's just so much stuff to see and so little time to see it all!)
Lesson two has been less of a "lesson," per se, and more of a slow-burning observation, and that is: Whatever. I don't really care.
This sounds really negative and spoiled-teenager-y, but I assure you I mean it in the most positive way possible. Since I've returned home I've found it a lot easier to get over minor embarrassments and setbacks. I'm not saying I am impervious to social awkwardness. (Nay, I unfortunately continue to thrive upon it. For a prime example, see my use of "nay" just now.) I'm just saying that my recovery time seems to be much quicker and far more painless than previously. Because really, once you're forced to solve all your problems on your own in a foreign country, stumbling over your words no longer provokes agonizing mortification.
In a similar vein, people don't really scare me anymore. (I mean average joe people--your garden variety bullies, rudesters, unpleasants. For the record, I am still terrified of serial killers, rapists, and horror movie antagonists--or I would be, should any of them ever cross my path.) Since I was traveling by myself, I settled into a pattern of not really caring about others. I mean, I was polite and considerate of people and all that jazz. I just did nothing to accommodate them when doing so ran contrary to my own desires or momentary whims. From day one, I stopped wearing make-up. (I only used it a couple times over the course of my trip when I felt like gettin' fancy.) My hair was basically a windblown rats' nest for a month. By week two, I was wearing the same outfits over and over until they started to smell. By three-and-a-half weeks in, I was wearing clothes even after they started to smell. Who was going to judge me? Other travelers? Big deal, when would I ever see them again? As long as I kept my personal hygiene at a level that was acceptable for sharing a room with other human beings (and I did at least manage that), what did it really matter what other people thought of my laundry habits (or lack thereof)?
Furthermore, I learned really quickly that no one else was going to take care of my whiny life issues, so I became my own problem-solver. There was no passing the buck, no "I'll just take care of that later," nothing. So I became great at fake confidence. And then real confidence. And bizarrely enough, it started to spill over into my interactions with others. When I met people and we did things as a group, I found myself in charge. I picked the restaurant. I got directions to wherever we were going. I pulled together a delicious dinner from £5 of groceries. I got things DONE, and other people noticed. For the first time in my life, I ended up the de facto group leader in random social situations, even though I was just as clueless as everyone else. Not gonna lie, it was a pretty cool feeling, being on top of everything and having people...look up to me, I guess. The whole "fake it 'til you make it" thing really is true; the more other faith people put into my apparent problem-solving abilities, the more confident I acted. And the more confident I acted, the more actually secure I felt. It was like a vicious circle, but pleasant. (A pleasant circle? Someone needs to coin a better term for this.)
I realize that this entire blog post detailing my backpacking voyage of self-discovery sounds really pretentious and self-absorbed, so I think I'd better just cut things off now before I start using shudder-worthy phrases like "a simpler way of life" and "finding myself." And I know this was all pretty rambly and nonsensical. I'm still trying to find the words to convey what I'm trying to say. But for all its faults, this description comes a lot closer to doing the whole experience justice than my line about long showers and fluffy towels and sleeping in my own bed.
But really. Long showers. Towels. Bed. You can't beat 'em.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Caffeine 1, Renee 0
In case you did not know it, guys, I'm a lightweight. I had a pint of cider--with dinner!-- last night, and before I was even finished, I was in no state to do things like drive or operate heavy machinery. I wasn't drunk, but I was well on my way there. Off a PINT. Of CIDER. Like I said, lightweight.
But I'm also a caffeine lightweight, too. Betcha didn't even know that was a thing, but it is. Ohhhh, it is. I'm super-sensitive to it. I had to stop drinking Mountain Dew when I was sixteen because it made me act like a really, really energetic drunk. The final nail in the coffin came when I drank a can of Mountain Dew and then kept incessantly challenging those nearby to race me to various area landmarks ("Let's race to the flag pole and back! Come on, it'll be fun! I'm winning! I'm winning! Hahahaha, run faster, loser! Just kidding, I'm STILL WINNING!").
I also had to stop drinking chai tea lattes after 4 pm because I realized they were keeping me up literally an hour after I would attempt to go to bed. This was a much greater sacrifice than the Mountain Dew, because chai lattes are infinitely more tasty. (Your heartfelt pity is appreciated, thanks.)
But today in Edinburgh I learned about a drink called Irn-Bru, which our tour guide jokingly referred to as "Scotland's OTHER official drink" (aside from whiskey, obviously) and touted as being a Scotsman's go-to hangover cure.
"It's full of sugar, full of caffeine, and full of quinine, which is a mildly addictive painkiller," he told us. "In the U.S. it's a controlled substance."
"Sounds like something I should drink and then blog about!" I said to myself. "I wonder if I have a greater tolerance for caffeine than I used to. Experiment time!"
So I bought myself a can of Irn-Bru. It cost 39p, or about 65 cents. Quality stuff here.
I would like to quote to you the ingredient list--and accompanying WARNING LABEL--in its entirety:
INGREDIENTS: Carbonated water, Sugar, Citric Acid, Flavourings (Including Caffeine and Quinine), Preservative (E211), Colours (Sunset Yellow & Ponceau 4R), Ammonium Ferric Citrate (0.002%).
Sunset Yellow & Ponceau 4R: may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.
!!!
Like I said, quality stuff.
But I drank it anyway. I did it for you guys! This is an act of self-sacrifice so you never have to let something as suspiciously innocuous-sounding as "Sunset Yellow Colouring" ever enter your body.
It tasted like orange soda and bubblegum flavoring mixed together. If this sounds only barely appetizing to you, it's because this is only a barely appetizing beverage. After the first couple sips the flavor became sort of moot and I would mainly just call it bubbly, cold, and wet.
I wasn't even halfway through the can before I caught myself drumming my fingers against it at a pretty rapid clip. Fifteen minutes later I had drunk face going on. "Drunk face" is what I call the numbed sensation that creeps over my mouth, nose, and cheeks once I've had anything beyond a couple sips of alcohol. This was mildly surprising and slightly disconcerting.
I couldn't finish the can and threw it out while there was still a quarter cup of soda left. The aftertaste was still present ten minutes later but other than that I seemed to be suffering no other ill effects. I was a little disappointed at the anti-climactic nature of it all, as I had been hoping for some caffeine-induced hijinks to ensue. (Hijinks generally make for entertaining blog posts.)
An hour after I had drunk the Irn-Bru, I started having hot flashes in my stomach. Weird, but then they spread over my body. I had two or three really decent, fevery hot flashes. Odd, but then they subsided. I was still surprised at how I'd gotten off scot-free, so to speak (ha! Scot!).
The afternoon progressed normally until I realized around 5:30 pm that I'd been stifling an inexplicable urge to weep uncontrollably for the past half-hour or so. And that I was tearing up over army uniforms in the Scottish War Museum--not exactly normal behavior for me. By the time I'd reached the gift shop I realized that my hands felt so limp it was like they were two floppy vestigial appendages uselessly attached to my wrists. This might have been the result of being out in the chilly Edinburgh weather all day, but I've been sitting indoors typing this for a good forty minutes and I've still got some seriously shaky hands.
Perhaps chasing the Irn-Bru with a hastily-downed half-pint of Magners at lunch was ill-advised. Maybe combining a depressant with a stimulant has been the thing that has kept me from challenging strangers to foot races on the Royal Mile. Either way, I can safely say that Irn-Bru and I are not friends and will never be so, and that it has successfully beaten me even as it ostensibly protects me from malaria (thanks, quinine!).
But now I need to pop off and get dinner somewhere. I'm actually getting pretty tired of eating out but the closest grocery store appears to be a bit of a hike from here. What's more is that I seem to be hurtling headlong toward a caffeine crash despite never having actually experienced the caffeine buzz that's supposed to precede it. What's a girl to do?!
Eat chocolate I have hidden in my backpack somewhere? Ehhh, sounds like a plan!
EDIT: The night that followed this one was noteworthy not only for the fact that it took me AGES to fall asleep but that my stream-of-consciousness thought process was approaching James Joyce levels of insanity. "Scotland Scotland I wonder what movies are playing these days if I were in a movie I'd be pink dress big grin dog on a leash Scotland Edinburgh murderers be crazy I wonder what drives people to become serial killers vampires dogs on leashes shouldn't have drank that soda drank drunk oh geez my grammar is horrible laundry okay stop. Slow down. This is just the caffeine, take a deep breath. This is crazy. Crazy. Crazy like serial killers I wonder what makes people become serial killers I wonder who thought up vampires pink dress I want a pink dress I don't have a pink dress Confessions of a Shopaholic Legally Blonde VAMPIRES!!!"
It was a long night. I recall there being a lot more random insanity, but for the life of me I can't remember what it all was. I think it might be better that way.
But I'm also a caffeine lightweight, too. Betcha didn't even know that was a thing, but it is. Ohhhh, it is. I'm super-sensitive to it. I had to stop drinking Mountain Dew when I was sixteen because it made me act like a really, really energetic drunk. The final nail in the coffin came when I drank a can of Mountain Dew and then kept incessantly challenging those nearby to race me to various area landmarks ("Let's race to the flag pole and back! Come on, it'll be fun! I'm winning! I'm winning! Hahahaha, run faster, loser! Just kidding, I'm STILL WINNING!").
I also had to stop drinking chai tea lattes after 4 pm because I realized they were keeping me up literally an hour after I would attempt to go to bed. This was a much greater sacrifice than the Mountain Dew, because chai lattes are infinitely more tasty. (Your heartfelt pity is appreciated, thanks.)
But today in Edinburgh I learned about a drink called Irn-Bru, which our tour guide jokingly referred to as "Scotland's OTHER official drink" (aside from whiskey, obviously) and touted as being a Scotsman's go-to hangover cure.
"It's full of sugar, full of caffeine, and full of quinine, which is a mildly addictive painkiller," he told us. "In the U.S. it's a controlled substance."
"Sounds like something I should drink and then blog about!" I said to myself. "I wonder if I have a greater tolerance for caffeine than I used to. Experiment time!"
So I bought myself a can of Irn-Bru. It cost 39p, or about 65 cents. Quality stuff here.
I would like to quote to you the ingredient list--and accompanying WARNING LABEL--in its entirety:
INGREDIENTS: Carbonated water, Sugar, Citric Acid, Flavourings (Including Caffeine and Quinine), Preservative (E211), Colours (Sunset Yellow & Ponceau 4R), Ammonium Ferric Citrate (0.002%).
Sunset Yellow & Ponceau 4R: may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.
!!!
Like I said, quality stuff.
But I drank it anyway. I did it for you guys! This is an act of self-sacrifice so you never have to let something as suspiciously innocuous-sounding as "Sunset Yellow Colouring" ever enter your body.
It tasted like orange soda and bubblegum flavoring mixed together. If this sounds only barely appetizing to you, it's because this is only a barely appetizing beverage. After the first couple sips the flavor became sort of moot and I would mainly just call it bubbly, cold, and wet.
I wasn't even halfway through the can before I caught myself drumming my fingers against it at a pretty rapid clip. Fifteen minutes later I had drunk face going on. "Drunk face" is what I call the numbed sensation that creeps over my mouth, nose, and cheeks once I've had anything beyond a couple sips of alcohol. This was mildly surprising and slightly disconcerting.
I couldn't finish the can and threw it out while there was still a quarter cup of soda left. The aftertaste was still present ten minutes later but other than that I seemed to be suffering no other ill effects. I was a little disappointed at the anti-climactic nature of it all, as I had been hoping for some caffeine-induced hijinks to ensue. (Hijinks generally make for entertaining blog posts.)
An hour after I had drunk the Irn-Bru, I started having hot flashes in my stomach. Weird, but then they spread over my body. I had two or three really decent, fevery hot flashes. Odd, but then they subsided. I was still surprised at how I'd gotten off scot-free, so to speak (ha! Scot!).
The afternoon progressed normally until I realized around 5:30 pm that I'd been stifling an inexplicable urge to weep uncontrollably for the past half-hour or so. And that I was tearing up over army uniforms in the Scottish War Museum--not exactly normal behavior for me. By the time I'd reached the gift shop I realized that my hands felt so limp it was like they were two floppy vestigial appendages uselessly attached to my wrists. This might have been the result of being out in the chilly Edinburgh weather all day, but I've been sitting indoors typing this for a good forty minutes and I've still got some seriously shaky hands.
Perhaps chasing the Irn-Bru with a hastily-downed half-pint of Magners at lunch was ill-advised. Maybe combining a depressant with a stimulant has been the thing that has kept me from challenging strangers to foot races on the Royal Mile. Either way, I can safely say that Irn-Bru and I are not friends and will never be so, and that it has successfully beaten me even as it ostensibly protects me from malaria (thanks, quinine!).
But now I need to pop off and get dinner somewhere. I'm actually getting pretty tired of eating out but the closest grocery store appears to be a bit of a hike from here. What's more is that I seem to be hurtling headlong toward a caffeine crash despite never having actually experienced the caffeine buzz that's supposed to precede it. What's a girl to do?!
Eat chocolate I have hidden in my backpack somewhere? Ehhh, sounds like a plan!
EDIT: The night that followed this one was noteworthy not only for the fact that it took me AGES to fall asleep but that my stream-of-consciousness thought process was approaching James Joyce levels of insanity. "Scotland Scotland I wonder what movies are playing these days if I were in a movie I'd be pink dress big grin dog on a leash Scotland Edinburgh murderers be crazy I wonder what drives people to become serial killers vampires dogs on leashes shouldn't have drank that soda drank drunk oh geez my grammar is horrible laundry okay stop. Slow down. This is just the caffeine, take a deep breath. This is crazy. Crazy. Crazy like serial killers I wonder what makes people become serial killers I wonder who thought up vampires pink dress I want a pink dress I don't have a pink dress Confessions of a Shopaholic Legally Blonde VAMPIRES!!!"
It was a long night. I recall there being a lot more random insanity, but for the life of me I can't remember what it all was. I think it might be better that way.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Trendsetting: The Year In Review
Okay, can I be real with you guys for a minute? I want to be a trendsetter. I don't mean a "trendsetter" in the way that Jennifer Aniston and "the Rachel" were trendsetters in the mid-nineties. I mean I want trendsetting in and of itself to become a viable career option, and I would like to get in on it.
I have my suspicions that this is already happening in some sort of (figuratively) underground boardroom, and that there is a cabal of random people who just sit down at the beginning of the year and decide what our culture is going to collectively obsess over for the next 365 days (or, in the case of this particular year, 366 days). As absolutely insane as that theory is, I think it's the most likely of all the possibilities. How else can one explain the trends that characterized 2012?
In my quest to become a part of this elite, presumably cracked-out group of visionaries, I would like to prove my worth by recapping the trends of 2012 and then, in my next post (if I remember and/or feel like it), offering my own suggestions for 2013. Feel free to get in on this with me. Together we can build a better future--or at least a more amusingly scattershot one.
1. Cupcakes
Oh, the Cupcakes. This isn't really so much a new development as it is the final stage of a years-long pop culture takeover. The Cupcakes have their own reality shows. The Cupcakes have cutesy storefront bakeries in bourgeois city neighborhoods. The Cupcakes have their own cookbooks. For the love of Jesus, the Cupcakes even have their own Cupcake ATM. (Full disclosure: I visited it and spent $4 on one cupcake.)
The Cupcakes have seamlessly integrated themselves into every dietary lifestyle. Vegan? No problem, here's a 450-calorie cupcake for you! Gluten-free? The Cupcakes LOVE gluten-free! I haven't got any word firsthand on the situation for diabetics, and logic tells me it probably ain't so great, but if you look at the Cupcakes' track record you realize there's no way in hell they're going to miss out on an entire demographic, so there's probably also a diabetes-friendly cupcake bakery out there.
Can't nobody stop the cupcakes. Not even...
2. Doctor Who
Okay, maybe it's just because I started watching Doctor Who this year so it starting showing up on my own personal trends radar, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case. For one thing, it's the first BBC show to air simultaneously in the US and the UK, which is indicative, I think, of the level of fan-obsession over here. Plus there was that Entertainment Weekly cover story (which I made the mistake of reading before I was all caught up--a simple "spoiler alert" might've been nice, EW). And then Matt Smith and Karen Gillan attended the US seventh season premiere in a Delorean, and everyone was like "TIME TRAVEL GEEKERY!" and I was like, "I'm embarrassed for everyone involved in this right now. Also, wrong time travel fandom."
But long story short, Doctor Who. It came, it saw, it conquered, although possibly not in that order. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and all that.
But even Time Lords can't one-up Maggie Smith and...
3. Downton Abbey
Holy crap, Downton Abbey. I am going to give you a list of people with whom I have discussed Downton Abbey in-depth. See if you can guess which one is untrue:
a.) My roommates
b.) My sorority sisters
c.) Girls rushing my sorority
c.) Members of my a cappella group
d.) My (male) thesis advisor
e.) My mother
GOTCHA! It was a trick question, because I have had in-depth conversations about Downton Abbey with all of these people! I have even had legitimate Downton Abbey viewing parties (featuring tea, scones, and cheese straws) with some of these people! And I swear to you that this is not just me. I read an entire New York Times article about Americans holding Downton events where people have sit-down fancy dinners in period dress. (The juxtaposition of wearing Edwardian clothing while watching television, possibly the same set on which one DVR'd Jersey Shore just days before, apparently has done nothing to deter anyone.)
Bookstores reported spikes in the sales of early twentieth-centuiry historical non-fiction and in period fiction, e.g. Jane Austen. (The fact that Jane Austen died almost one hundred years before Downton's action begins has apparently not deterred anyone, either. "It's old! It's British! There are stuffy society types falling in love! SAME DAMN THING!" says everyone in America.) My public library had a Downton Abbey-themed shelf that practically smacked you in the face on the way in the door. In the interest of full disclosure, I did borrow a book from said shelf: Governess: The Life and Times of the Real Jane Eyres, by Ruth Brandon. Again, it was all about a time period fifty years before the Edwardian era, but still! Brits! Class division! History! Apparently, according to America, there are four stages of British history:
1. Stonehenge-builders (prehistory-middle ages)
2. Monty Python-esque villagers wallowing in mud (middle ages-Renaissance)
3. Uppity snobs who like taxing tea, etc. (eighteenth century - post-WWII)
4. THE BEATLES! Also, still sort of uppity. (1960s-present day)
Speaking of the Beatles, let's draw some comparisons to...
4. One Direction
Or, rather, let's not. I know a lot of people were calling this "the second British invasion." Presumably these people didn't realize that the second British invasion already happened in the eighties. Then again, the majority of One Direction's fanbase probably didn't come of age until the next century--nay, the next millenium--so I suppose you really can't blame them. In fact, kudos to them for knowing enough to try to draw the parallel in the first place. (See, I'm not always mean and bitter!)
I won't lie to you, I own Up All Night and have listened to it in its entirety. I know all the words to "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing." I also know every single boy band harmony in both of these songs. They're catchy, I get it. If you think about it, it's basically five Justin Biebers, but with accents, which is why I try not to think about it.
But seriously. They were at the Olympics. Nothing says "Enjoy your place in the zeitgeist" like performing at the Olympics. Speaking of which...
5. Gabby Douglas and the Olympics
I know, it sounds sort of like she started an all-girl pop group, right? It has a way better ring to it than "Gabby Douglas, her hair, and the Olympics," which is what everyone made it out to be. I mean, really, people. Gabby Douglas just won an Olympic gold medal and became the first African-American all-around individual Olympic champion, and we're gonna talk about her hair? Seriously. Two questions, America:
1. What did your hair look like when you were sixteen? I want prom photos.
2. What did you do in your teens that even comes close to winning the freaking Olympics? That's what I thought.
Gabby Douglas, you rock on into 2013. Gabby Douglas's hairstyle, your moment is long over. It should never have been a moment to begin with.
After all that nonsensical hullabaloo, the Olympic Games themselves were kind of playing second fiddle. Except that everyone enjoyed comparing them unfavorably to the Beijing Olympics. Go easy on the Brits, mmkay, guys? Everyone knows they're uppity and were probably too busy unfairly taxing luxury goods and/or wallowing in mud somewhere to really put in the effort. They built Stonehenge at least. Give them some credit.
No doubt about it, summer belonged to the Olympics. Except, wait, what's this? I think we've found a challenger in...
6. Frozen yogurt
Hey, America! Remember how you all love to bitch about college dining hall food?! Let's take the best part of a college dining hall, slap it into a strip mall, and then charge you even more exorbitantly than a college meal plan would! Sound good?
Seriously, though, I went through the first twenty-two years of my life without it ever occurring to me to go out for frozen yogurt. Ice cream, yes. Frozen yogurt, not so much. And then within a six-month span, no fewer than five frozen yogurt places opened up within a fifteen-minute drive of my house. Let me give you some perspective here by listing things that are not within fifteen minutes of my house:
7. Painting one nail a different color than the rest
Fun fact: this trend apparently started as a way to identify femme lesbians, but then of course mainstream culture got a hold of it and totally divested it of any sort of meaning beyond "I like hot pink nail polish, but I also like acid green nail polish!"
I've seen maybe one or two people wear it well. Everyone else looks like they forgot midway through their manicures which color they were using. And that, my friends, is all I have to say on that score.
8. Every iteration of "Call Me Maybe"
And with that total lack of segue, let's talk about "Call Me Maybe." I think the lack of segue here is appropriate, personally, seeing as "Call Me Maybe" really did just come out of nowhere. It's not as if America was sitting around in the spring of 2012 going, "You know what the world is missing? A really twee song with some violins and a dance beat. Someone should get on that." Carly Rae Jepsen to the rescue!
What separated "Call Me Maybe" from every other ostensibly-much-reviled-yet-universally-known-and-sort-of-guiltily-enjoyed hit single this year, however, was the fact that it became such a youtube cover sensation. Basically if you were in a group with more than four other people and one of you had some sort of recording device, you were making a video of yourself singing along to this song. And that is the sort of thing that earned "Call Me Maybe" a spot on this list. I bet it was thinking it was all special and unique, too, until...
9. "Gangnam Style"
It has an SNL skit (where the punchline is literally just a recording of the song. There is no other overarching joke. "Gangnam Style" is it. Also, 0:55-0:57 pretty much sums up what happened when I introduced this phenomenon to my mother). It is the most-liked video on youtube. It has med-school parodies. It has a BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY PARODY. You will never escape this song. It will be like the Macarena--at parties twenty years from now, your drunk, nostalgic friends will be shouting "AAYYYYYYYY, SEXY LAAAADYYYYYY" and doing this and just generally looking like they've been possessed.
Speaking of being possessed...
10. Paranormal"reality" shows
Guys. Guys. Guys. No, shut up! Did you hear that? It was like a bang, or maybe a boom, or like, I don't know, footsteps. Naw, dude, seriously! I totally heard it! Since houses never settle, and wild animals never roam around abandoned buildings, and vagrants never sneak in, and the wind never blows things over, and there aren't like three of us wandering around in an unfamiliar setting in total darkness, it MUST BE A GHOST! It's the only explanation that makes any sense! Quick, call in the Long Island medium or those people from Dead Files, because we're only a demonic pig sighting and a movie deal away from the next Amityville Horror!
Ugh. Let's talk about hedgehogs.
11. Hedgehogs
These adorable little bastards took over the internet. I mean, you still have videos and pictures and gifs of cats and dogs doing cute stuff, but hedgehogs just came out of nowhere and were like, "Hey, world, we're pretty cute, too." I mean, they have their own category on Buzzfeed. Hedgehogs! Who knew! I mean, come on, how does this not make you go "awwwwww"?
Hedgehogs might melt your heart, but you know what will eat your brains?
12. Zombies
So in right now. I think they might be stealing the Murderous Supernatural Beings Pop Culture Juggernaut Award from vampires, which, let's face it, have had their day. Had I been writing this last year (or the year before that, or the year before THAT), it would have been all about Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc., etc. This year everyone is crazy for The Walking Dead. Given that there's a zombie rom-com coming out in February, it looks like our collective zombie obsession is going to continue into 2013. Everyone get your battle axes (or whatever it is you use to kill zombies, I'm not really up on my zombie lore) ready. Or you could just visit the CDC's web page on zombie apocalypse preparedness. Your call.
You know what confuses me as much as zombie imposters confuse real zombies?
13. Mustaches
I don't understand this. At all. It used to be that mustaches, when they acknowledged at all, were derided as creepy-looking or tool-y. Now suddenly mustaches are the "in" thing--not necessarily as legitimate facial hair, but as a design motif. In my shopping adventures, I have seen mustaches emblazoned on notebooks, mugs, and t-shirts. The phrase "I mustache you a question" pops unbidden into my head far more frequently than I would like. I thought this trend was so stupid, but it's become so common and ingrained in popular culture that I've started to be like, "Oh, that's a cute mustache t-shirt" instead of "WHY IS THERE A MUSTACHE T-SHIRT?!" Of course, stuff like this might have helped. I suppose there's only one thing to do in a situation like this...
14. "Keep Calm and Carry On"
Or keep calm and dance on, keep calm and wait for iPhone 5 (ugh, don't even get me started), keep calm and edit copy, keep calm and add butter, keep calm and talk to Mr. Feeny or, one of my personal favorites, keep calm and carry on, my wayward son. If you want to talk about ubiquity (a word I have used more in this blog post than I did in the entirety of 2012, thank you very much), here you go. "Keep Calm and Carry On" and its various variations (some of which are infinitely more clever than others) are everywhere. On the off-chance that you do not believe me, I will prove it by providing you with a "Keep Calm and Verb-Blankety-Blank" for every single item on this list. (This will also prove how spot-on all my other list items were. Grand finale time!)
I did not make up any of these myself (despite the existence of a "Keep Calm and Carry On" automatic phrase generator). These were all culled from the tangled mess that is Google Image Search. You are welcome, friends.
1. Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake. Or bake them, whatever.
2. Keep Calm, I'm the Doctor (I have this on a magnet. Also, there a million hilarious Doctor Who "Keep Calm"s, my favorite being "Keep Calm and Basically, Run.")
3. Keep Calm and Watch Downtown Abbey
4. Keep Calm and Love One Direction. Guys, there is an entire tumblr for this. I can't even. Just...why.
5. Keep Calm, It's Only the Olympics
6. Keep Calm and Eat Frozen Yogurt
7. Keep Calm and Get a Manicure
8. Keep Calm and Call Me Maybe
9. Keep Calm and Gangnam Style (It's a verb now? Has it always been a verb?)
10. Keep Calm and Hunt Ghosts
11. Keep Calm, Be a Hedgehog
12.Keep Calm and Carry On Run, Zombies Are Coming!
13. Keep Calm and Grow a Mustache
14. Keep Calm and Stop Remaking This F---ing Poster Already
Fare thee well, dear 2012. It's been real.
I have my suspicions that this is already happening in some sort of (figuratively) underground boardroom, and that there is a cabal of random people who just sit down at the beginning of the year and decide what our culture is going to collectively obsess over for the next 365 days (or, in the case of this particular year, 366 days). As absolutely insane as that theory is, I think it's the most likely of all the possibilities. How else can one explain the trends that characterized 2012?
In my quest to become a part of this elite, presumably cracked-out group of visionaries, I would like to prove my worth by recapping the trends of 2012 and then, in my next post (if I remember and/or feel like it), offering my own suggestions for 2013. Feel free to get in on this with me. Together we can build a better future--or at least a more amusingly scattershot one.
1. Cupcakes
Oh, the Cupcakes. This isn't really so much a new development as it is the final stage of a years-long pop culture takeover. The Cupcakes have their own reality shows. The Cupcakes have cutesy storefront bakeries in bourgeois city neighborhoods. The Cupcakes have their own cookbooks. For the love of Jesus, the Cupcakes even have their own Cupcake ATM. (Full disclosure: I visited it and spent $4 on one cupcake.)
The Cupcakes have seamlessly integrated themselves into every dietary lifestyle. Vegan? No problem, here's a 450-calorie cupcake for you! Gluten-free? The Cupcakes LOVE gluten-free! I haven't got any word firsthand on the situation for diabetics, and logic tells me it probably ain't so great, but if you look at the Cupcakes' track record you realize there's no way in hell they're going to miss out on an entire demographic, so there's probably also a diabetes-friendly cupcake bakery out there.
Can't nobody stop the cupcakes. Not even...
2. Doctor Who
Okay, maybe it's just because I started watching Doctor Who this year so it starting showing up on my own personal trends radar, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case. For one thing, it's the first BBC show to air simultaneously in the US and the UK, which is indicative, I think, of the level of fan-obsession over here. Plus there was that Entertainment Weekly cover story (which I made the mistake of reading before I was all caught up--a simple "spoiler alert" might've been nice, EW). And then Matt Smith and Karen Gillan attended the US seventh season premiere in a Delorean, and everyone was like "TIME TRAVEL GEEKERY!" and I was like, "I'm embarrassed for everyone involved in this right now. Also, wrong time travel fandom."
But long story short, Doctor Who. It came, it saw, it conquered, although possibly not in that order. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and all that.
But even Time Lords can't one-up Maggie Smith and...
3. Downton Abbey
Holy crap, Downton Abbey. I am going to give you a list of people with whom I have discussed Downton Abbey in-depth. See if you can guess which one is untrue:
a.) My roommates
b.) My sorority sisters
c.) Girls rushing my sorority
c.) Members of my a cappella group
d.) My (male) thesis advisor
e.) My mother
GOTCHA! It was a trick question, because I have had in-depth conversations about Downton Abbey with all of these people! I have even had legitimate Downton Abbey viewing parties (featuring tea, scones, and cheese straws) with some of these people! And I swear to you that this is not just me. I read an entire New York Times article about Americans holding Downton events where people have sit-down fancy dinners in period dress. (The juxtaposition of wearing Edwardian clothing while watching television, possibly the same set on which one DVR'd Jersey Shore just days before, apparently has done nothing to deter anyone.)
Bookstores reported spikes in the sales of early twentieth-centuiry historical non-fiction and in period fiction, e.g. Jane Austen. (The fact that Jane Austen died almost one hundred years before Downton's action begins has apparently not deterred anyone, either. "It's old! It's British! There are stuffy society types falling in love! SAME DAMN THING!" says everyone in America.) My public library had a Downton Abbey-themed shelf that practically smacked you in the face on the way in the door. In the interest of full disclosure, I did borrow a book from said shelf: Governess: The Life and Times of the Real Jane Eyres, by Ruth Brandon. Again, it was all about a time period fifty years before the Edwardian era, but still! Brits! Class division! History! Apparently, according to America, there are four stages of British history:
1. Stonehenge-builders (prehistory-middle ages)
2. Monty Python-esque villagers wallowing in mud (middle ages-Renaissance)
3. Uppity snobs who like taxing tea, etc. (eighteenth century - post-WWII)
4. THE BEATLES! Also, still sort of uppity. (1960s-present day)
Speaking of the Beatles, let's draw some comparisons to...
4. One Direction
Or, rather, let's not. I know a lot of people were calling this "the second British invasion." Presumably these people didn't realize that the second British invasion already happened in the eighties. Then again, the majority of One Direction's fanbase probably didn't come of age until the next century--nay, the next millenium--so I suppose you really can't blame them. In fact, kudos to them for knowing enough to try to draw the parallel in the first place. (See, I'm not always mean and bitter!)
I won't lie to you, I own Up All Night and have listened to it in its entirety. I know all the words to "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing." I also know every single boy band harmony in both of these songs. They're catchy, I get it. If you think about it, it's basically five Justin Biebers, but with accents, which is why I try not to think about it.
But seriously. They were at the Olympics. Nothing says "Enjoy your place in the zeitgeist" like performing at the Olympics. Speaking of which...
5. Gabby Douglas and the Olympics
I know, it sounds sort of like she started an all-girl pop group, right? It has a way better ring to it than "Gabby Douglas, her hair, and the Olympics," which is what everyone made it out to be. I mean, really, people. Gabby Douglas just won an Olympic gold medal and became the first African-American all-around individual Olympic champion, and we're gonna talk about her hair? Seriously. Two questions, America:
1. What did your hair look like when you were sixteen? I want prom photos.
2. What did you do in your teens that even comes close to winning the freaking Olympics? That's what I thought.
Gabby Douglas, you rock on into 2013. Gabby Douglas's hairstyle, your moment is long over. It should never have been a moment to begin with.
After all that nonsensical hullabaloo, the Olympic Games themselves were kind of playing second fiddle. Except that everyone enjoyed comparing them unfavorably to the Beijing Olympics. Go easy on the Brits, mmkay, guys? Everyone knows they're uppity and were probably too busy unfairly taxing luxury goods and/or wallowing in mud somewhere to really put in the effort. They built Stonehenge at least. Give them some credit.
No doubt about it, summer belonged to the Olympics. Except, wait, what's this? I think we've found a challenger in...
6. Frozen yogurt
Hey, America! Remember how you all love to bitch about college dining hall food?! Let's take the best part of a college dining hall, slap it into a strip mall, and then charge you even more exorbitantly than a college meal plan would! Sound good?
Seriously, though, I went through the first twenty-two years of my life without it ever occurring to me to go out for frozen yogurt. Ice cream, yes. Frozen yogurt, not so much. And then within a six-month span, no fewer than five frozen yogurt places opened up within a fifteen-minute drive of my house. Let me give you some perspective here by listing things that are not within fifteen minutes of my house:
- A hospital
- A bus station terminal
- An airport
- A taxi stand
- A beach
- An amusement park
- Any government building (that is not a post office)
- A reputable bar/club
- My dentist, my optometrist, and my dermatologist
7. Painting one nail a different color than the rest
Fun fact: this trend apparently started as a way to identify femme lesbians, but then of course mainstream culture got a hold of it and totally divested it of any sort of meaning beyond "I like hot pink nail polish, but I also like acid green nail polish!"
I've seen maybe one or two people wear it well. Everyone else looks like they forgot midway through their manicures which color they were using. And that, my friends, is all I have to say on that score.
8. Every iteration of "Call Me Maybe"
And with that total lack of segue, let's talk about "Call Me Maybe." I think the lack of segue here is appropriate, personally, seeing as "Call Me Maybe" really did just come out of nowhere. It's not as if America was sitting around in the spring of 2012 going, "You know what the world is missing? A really twee song with some violins and a dance beat. Someone should get on that." Carly Rae Jepsen to the rescue!
What separated "Call Me Maybe" from every other ostensibly-much-reviled-yet-universally-known-and-sort-of-guiltily-enjoyed hit single this year, however, was the fact that it became such a youtube cover sensation. Basically if you were in a group with more than four other people and one of you had some sort of recording device, you were making a video of yourself singing along to this song. And that is the sort of thing that earned "Call Me Maybe" a spot on this list. I bet it was thinking it was all special and unique, too, until...
9. "Gangnam Style"
It has an SNL skit (where the punchline is literally just a recording of the song. There is no other overarching joke. "Gangnam Style" is it. Also, 0:55-0:57 pretty much sums up what happened when I introduced this phenomenon to my mother). It is the most-liked video on youtube. It has med-school parodies. It has a BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY PARODY. You will never escape this song. It will be like the Macarena--at parties twenty years from now, your drunk, nostalgic friends will be shouting "AAYYYYYYYY, SEXY LAAAADYYYYYY" and doing this and just generally looking like they've been possessed.
Speaking of being possessed...
10. Paranormal"reality" shows
Guys. Guys. Guys. No, shut up! Did you hear that? It was like a bang, or maybe a boom, or like, I don't know, footsteps. Naw, dude, seriously! I totally heard it! Since houses never settle, and wild animals never roam around abandoned buildings, and vagrants never sneak in, and the wind never blows things over, and there aren't like three of us wandering around in an unfamiliar setting in total darkness, it MUST BE A GHOST! It's the only explanation that makes any sense! Quick, call in the Long Island medium or those people from Dead Files, because we're only a demonic pig sighting and a movie deal away from the next Amityville Horror!
Ugh. Let's talk about hedgehogs.
11. Hedgehogs
These adorable little bastards took over the internet. I mean, you still have videos and pictures and gifs of cats and dogs doing cute stuff, but hedgehogs just came out of nowhere and were like, "Hey, world, we're pretty cute, too." I mean, they have their own category on Buzzfeed. Hedgehogs! Who knew! I mean, come on, how does this not make you go "awwwwww"?
Hedgehogs might melt your heart, but you know what will eat your brains?
12. Zombies
So in right now. I think they might be stealing the Murderous Supernatural Beings Pop Culture Juggernaut Award from vampires, which, let's face it, have had their day. Had I been writing this last year (or the year before that, or the year before THAT), it would have been all about Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc., etc. This year everyone is crazy for The Walking Dead. Given that there's a zombie rom-com coming out in February, it looks like our collective zombie obsession is going to continue into 2013. Everyone get your battle axes (or whatever it is you use to kill zombies, I'm not really up on my zombie lore) ready. Or you could just visit the CDC's web page on zombie apocalypse preparedness. Your call.
You know what confuses me as much as zombie imposters confuse real zombies?
13. Mustaches
I don't understand this. At all. It used to be that mustaches, when they acknowledged at all, were derided as creepy-looking or tool-y. Now suddenly mustaches are the "in" thing--not necessarily as legitimate facial hair, but as a design motif. In my shopping adventures, I have seen mustaches emblazoned on notebooks, mugs, and t-shirts. The phrase "I mustache you a question" pops unbidden into my head far more frequently than I would like. I thought this trend was so stupid, but it's become so common and ingrained in popular culture that I've started to be like, "Oh, that's a cute mustache t-shirt" instead of "WHY IS THERE A MUSTACHE T-SHIRT?!" Of course, stuff like this might have helped. I suppose there's only one thing to do in a situation like this...
14. "Keep Calm and Carry On"
Or keep calm and dance on, keep calm and wait for iPhone 5 (ugh, don't even get me started), keep calm and edit copy, keep calm and add butter, keep calm and talk to Mr. Feeny or, one of my personal favorites, keep calm and carry on, my wayward son. If you want to talk about ubiquity (a word I have used more in this blog post than I did in the entirety of 2012, thank you very much), here you go. "Keep Calm and Carry On" and its various variations (some of which are infinitely more clever than others) are everywhere. On the off-chance that you do not believe me, I will prove it by providing you with a "Keep Calm and Verb-Blankety-Blank" for every single item on this list. (This will also prove how spot-on all my other list items were. Grand finale time!)
I did not make up any of these myself (despite the existence of a "Keep Calm and Carry On" automatic phrase generator). These were all culled from the tangled mess that is Google Image Search. You are welcome, friends.
1. Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake. Or bake them, whatever.
2. Keep Calm, I'm the Doctor (I have this on a magnet. Also, there a million hilarious Doctor Who "Keep Calm"s, my favorite being "Keep Calm and Basically, Run.")
3. Keep Calm and Watch Downtown Abbey
4. Keep Calm and Love One Direction. Guys, there is an entire tumblr for this. I can't even. Just...why.
5. Keep Calm, It's Only the Olympics
6. Keep Calm and Eat Frozen Yogurt
7. Keep Calm and Get a Manicure
8. Keep Calm and Call Me Maybe
9. Keep Calm and Gangnam Style (It's a verb now? Has it always been a verb?)
10. Keep Calm and Hunt Ghosts
11. Keep Calm, Be a Hedgehog
12.
13. Keep Calm and Grow a Mustache
14. Keep Calm and Stop Remaking This F---ing Poster Already
Fare thee well, dear 2012. It's been real.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Curses!
Prepare yourself for the worst: I have...a black spot.
Its origins are less than mysterious: I was shelving a can of Chef Boyardee extra large meat ravioli* when I pinched the skin of my finger between said can and the shelf on which I was trying to put it. I think most people would agree that this is simply a minor blood blister sort of situation, and that any attempt of mine to put my affairs in order and start looking at coffin models is a bit of an overreaction.
*I just don't understand the concept of extra-large meat ravioli in a can. The can is the same size. You are eating the exact same amount of food. "But I'm extra hungry!" you might say. Well, my suggestion to you would be to eat a meal that you cannot buy for a dollar-fifty and does not fit in the palm of your hand.
However, I am nothing if not a pop culture junkie, and pop culture has taught me that black spots--any black spots--have dreadful consequences, particularly if one is on board a pirate vessel of some kind.
So while part of me continues to live life like a normal human being, a small, irrational part of me keeps waiting for Bill Nighy-as-an-octopus-person to come up behind me and blare "Yeh owe meh yer soooooul!" right before my spot jumps ship to go seek its fortune and marry another black spot. My one comfort is that Rory and Pirate!Hugh Bonneville managed to make it work for them on Doctor Who, and, as everyone knows, a television show about a time-traveling alien is always a proper yardstick by which to measure your own life. (Side note: your life is, and will always be, inadequate compared to Doctor Who. True story.)
Further side note: Did you know that, of all the black spots in film and television, the only one I could find a video of was the 2011 Doctor Who episode "Curse of the Black Spot?" Do you believe me now? Give it enough time, and the Black Spot (maybe it merits capitalization?) will destroy everything it touches, including media depictions of itself!
Whoa, it just got all meta up in here, didn't it?
I blame the spot.
Its origins are less than mysterious: I was shelving a can of Chef Boyardee extra large meat ravioli* when I pinched the skin of my finger between said can and the shelf on which I was trying to put it. I think most people would agree that this is simply a minor blood blister sort of situation, and that any attempt of mine to put my affairs in order and start looking at coffin models is a bit of an overreaction.
*I just don't understand the concept of extra-large meat ravioli in a can. The can is the same size. You are eating the exact same amount of food. "But I'm extra hungry!" you might say. Well, my suggestion to you would be to eat a meal that you cannot buy for a dollar-fifty and does not fit in the palm of your hand.
However, I am nothing if not a pop culture junkie, and pop culture has taught me that black spots--any black spots--have dreadful consequences, particularly if one is on board a pirate vessel of some kind.
So while part of me continues to live life like a normal human being, a small, irrational part of me keeps waiting for Bill Nighy-as-an-octopus-person to come up behind me and blare "Yeh owe meh yer soooooul!" right before my spot jumps ship to go seek its fortune and marry another black spot. My one comfort is that Rory and Pirate!Hugh Bonneville managed to make it work for them on Doctor Who, and, as everyone knows, a television show about a time-traveling alien is always a proper yardstick by which to measure your own life. (Side note: your life is, and will always be, inadequate compared to Doctor Who. True story.)
Further side note: Did you know that, of all the black spots in film and television, the only one I could find a video of was the 2011 Doctor Who episode "Curse of the Black Spot?" Do you believe me now? Give it enough time, and the Black Spot (maybe it merits capitalization?) will destroy everything it touches, including media depictions of itself!
Whoa, it just got all meta up in here, didn't it?
I blame the spot.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Live!Blogging: book two of the Hunger Games
So, I kind of lied. I didn't actually live blog Catching Fire. I didn't have that kind of foresight. I did, however, harass my roommate repeatedly via email over the period of time when I was reading it and she was not in my immediate vicinity. So it's practically like live blogging. This is why I need ("need") a Twitter--so I can harass everyone with every thought that stomps through my brain.
Spoilers (and mildly naughty language) abound. But if you haven't read any of the Hunger Games, none of this will make sense anyway.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:13 PM
it's only chapter two of the hunger games and SHIT'S GETTING REAL. gotta love it when the president drinks blood and whatnot. eesh.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:39 PM
"i'll have to marry peeta."
i'm sorry. i don't see the problem here.
kidding...but actually though.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 3:14 PM
public marriage proposal? what is this shit?
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 3:15 PM
they are SIXTEEN YEARS OLD! i know they live in what used to be appalachia, but come on!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 8:26 PM
Subj: Wtf
You can't send victors back into the arena!!! I call bullshit!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:32 PM
totally saw the fake pregnancy coming. that dress transition was bad-ass, though. cinna-rific!
okay so they're in the water arena and while i was initially startled by
it now i keep picturing it like a round of mariokart and that makes it
way less intimidating.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:54 PM
wait, wait, wait. hold UP. finnick just brought peeta back from the dead. that is so not the point of the hunger games. if your ally is already dead, you don't bring him back to life, you just say, "oh, well, tally-ho, guess i'll just steal his stuff now" and move on. finnick definitely has some kind of agenda beyond winning the games himself.
also, katniss, pull it together. i know you're "pregnant" but you're acting bella-swan-pregnant, not badass-katniss-everdeen-pregnant. get a grip, woman!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:55 PM
okay katniss, you and your fake supersonic left ear have redeemed themselves in my eyes. i retract my bella swan comment. it was a low blow.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:58 PM
"plutarch heavensbee might have already been given orders to knock us off."
he's got a mockingjay watch! he's ON YOUR SIDE!!!!
bella, bella, bella.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 11:03 PM
"finnick asks a lot of questions about the rodent...how high was it, how long did i watch it before i shot, and what was it doing? i don't remember it doing much of anything. snuffling around looking for insects or something."
THE WATER IS IN THE TREES, DUM-DUMS!!!!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 11:07 PM
CALLED IT. i would totally win the hunger games. except for the part where i have to kill people.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 11:35 PM
"she keeps saying 'tick tock.' is she referencing plutarch's watch?"
"you're too smart for this book."
"that's a yes."
And then, lucky for you guys (but probably not for herself), Melissa came home, thus ending my need to email her my every thought. I'm sure she'd appreciate any and all tokens of thanks.
Spoilers (and mildly naughty language) abound. But if you haven't read any of the Hunger Games, none of this will make sense anyway.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:13 PM
it's only chapter two of the hunger games and SHIT'S GETTING REAL. gotta love it when the president drinks blood and whatnot. eesh.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:39 PM
"i'll have to marry peeta."
i'm sorry. i don't see the problem here.
kidding...but actually though.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 3:14 PM
public marriage proposal? what is this shit?
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 3:15 PM
they are SIXTEEN YEARS OLD! i know they live in what used to be appalachia, but come on!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 8:26 PM
Subj: Wtf
You can't send victors back into the arena!!! I call bullshit!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:32 PM
| Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM |
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:54 PM
wait, wait, wait. hold UP. finnick just brought peeta back from the dead. that is so not the point of the hunger games. if your ally is already dead, you don't bring him back to life, you just say, "oh, well, tally-ho, guess i'll just steal his stuff now" and move on. finnick definitely has some kind of agenda beyond winning the games himself.
also, katniss, pull it together. i know you're "pregnant" but you're acting bella-swan-pregnant, not badass-katniss-everdeen-pregnant. get a grip, woman!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:55 PM
okay katniss, you and your fake supersonic left ear have redeemed themselves in my eyes. i retract my bella swan comment. it was a low blow.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:58 PM
"plutarch heavensbee might have already been given orders to knock us off."
he's got a mockingjay watch! he's ON YOUR SIDE!!!!
bella, bella, bella.
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 11:03 PM
"finnick asks a lot of questions about the rodent...how high was it, how long did i watch it before i shot, and what was it doing? i don't remember it doing much of anything. snuffling around looking for insects or something."
THE WATER IS IN THE TREES, DUM-DUMS!!!!
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 11:07 PM
Fri, May 4, 2012 at 11:35 PM
"she keeps saying 'tick tock.' is she referencing plutarch's watch?"
"you're too smart for this book."
"that's a yes."
And then, lucky for you guys (but probably not for herself), Melissa came home, thus ending my need to email her my every thought. I'm sure she'd appreciate any and all tokens of thanks.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Adventures in oral hygiene
I've found, as I get older, that in many facets of my life, I'm just a straight-up anomaly. I like plucking my eyebrows. I usually relish the opportunity to clean up a really messy room. And, perhaps most strangely, I don't fear the dentist.
I mean, it's not like I look forward to my appointments for weeks and eagerly check off the intermediate days on a calendar or anything. But I just don't have any aversion to it. It probably helps that, crooked bottom teeth aside, my dental experiences have been pretty much all positive. No braces. No root canals. No cavities, even. When I was a kid, going to the dentist was actually kind of a positive experience. The dental hygienist would poke around for awhile, which was not so fun, but then she'd let me pick a toothpaste flavor and would brush my teeth for me with that weird whirring suction stick thingy, after which I'd get a free toothbrush, a trinket (comparable in quality to the prize in a Cracker Jack box), and a compliment on how my pearly whites were, well, pearly white.
As I've grown older, I don't really look forward to the dentist (No more prizes?! What is that all about?!), but I tend to view it with a detached kind of neutrality. I go, I get my teeth cleaned, I leave, and I repeat the process in six months. Whatever.
However, my most recent foray into the world of oral hygiene was different than the others, in that I actually had a problem. My gums around my wisdom teeth had been swollen for a few days, and despite my fervent wishes that they would just go back to normal on their own, they did not. So yesterday I headed in to my regular dentist appointment and mentioned to the hygienist in what I hoped was a casual way:
"You know, I'm glad I could get an appointment for today. I have a little swelling around my gums."
"Oh, really?" she said. "Let's take a look."
I got into the chair and opened wide. She took out the least-friendly looking metal instrument on the tray and held it as she peered inside.
"Oh, yeah, you do have some swelling there," she said. She gingerly poked around with the metal thing before adding, "Holy moly."
At that point, I knew all was lost. It's never a good sign when your dental hygienist, who has presumably seen quite a few oral maladies, starts throwing around phrases like "holy moly."
So after my check-up I was scheduled to return this morning to get all the bacteria scraped out from under my gums. Sounds like fun, right?
Well, yes and no. The Novocaine shots (all three of them) weren't so bad, but ever since my medical drama in February (three stitches above my eyebrow, three on my eyelid, and about eight painful anesthesia shots preceding them) I've adopted a more blasé attitude toward giant sharp poking implements in the immediate vicinity of my face. The gum-scraping itself wasn't all that awful either, given the effectiveness of the shots, although the scraping instruments kept coming out of my mouth looking considerably gorier than they had when they went in. At any rate, the whole thing was over in about twenty-five minutes, and this includes the serious post-procedure talk I got about proper flossing to prevent future occurrences like this.
The Novocaine, however, has yet to wear off.
Granted, it's only been about an hour since I left the dentist. Though now that I mention it, I seem to have regained some control of my tongue, and I can smile again without having one side of my mouth be way more into it than the other. Bizarrely enough, though, my chin and left ear appear to be pretty numb still. It's a bit frustrating, as I've had an itch on my chin for the past twenty minutes and scratching is pretty non-effective, since I can't feel it. I don't even know how it's even medically possible to be able to feel the itch and not the scratching, but there you go.
It hasn't been all bad, though. Having the entire left side of my face numb from my ear to my chin has actually been, to me at least, pretty entertaining. (I know, small amusement for small minds.) It began in the dentist's office when I tried to rinse out my mouth. Never having had Novocaine injections before, I severely overestimated my ability to manipulate my lips and tongue and, instead of neatly spitting the water into the sink, managed instead to dribble it down my chin. A second attempt proved just as fruitless, possibly even more so, since I happened to catch a look at my face in the mirror above the sink as I was attempting to swish the water around in my mouth. I looked rather like Cletus the slack-jawed yokel and half-spit the water out in laughter while the rest of it trickled down my face again and ended up (mostly) in the sink. Luckily no one was around to witness this incredibly graceful display, and I managed (with great effort) to hold myself together for the remainder of my time in the dentist's office, speaking almost normally.
Once I got out of there, however, all bets (along with my dignity) were off, and I became a lithping mathine thomewhat resthembling Thindy Brady. My teeth felt like they were about twice their normal size and five times their regular density, my face somehow felt like it was simultaneously made out of Play-Doh and a balloon, and I kept almost choking on my own tongue. By all accounts, it was not a very proud moment for me, but it was just so darn funny.
I got home and decided that it would be a good idea to take some ibuprofen before the numbness wore off, since having someone digging around in your gums is bound to result in some soreness later on. Drinking water proved a challenge, but that was easily solved by getting a drinking straw into the mix. Swallowing the ibuprofen was a little tougher, as I actually had to throw my head all the way back and let gravity do most of the work (whilst trying to prevent it from working on my tongue, which I was still apt to accidentally attempt to swallow). And now, an hour-and-a-half post-dentist (I took some time off in the middle of this post to google Harry Potter), I've got some feeling back in the very tip of my tongue but am definitely still numb everywhere else. The dentist said it would last about an hour but that it was different for everyone. I wonder how long it will last for me. It's been funny and everything, but I'd really like to eat some lunch without the danger of accidentally biting off a huge chunk of my own tongue.
The moral of the story here is, I suppose, is that if you don't mind giant syringes in your mouth, Novocaine is pretty amusing. If you'd rather avoid needles altogether, though, do yourself a favor and floss.
I mean, it's not like I look forward to my appointments for weeks and eagerly check off the intermediate days on a calendar or anything. But I just don't have any aversion to it. It probably helps that, crooked bottom teeth aside, my dental experiences have been pretty much all positive. No braces. No root canals. No cavities, even. When I was a kid, going to the dentist was actually kind of a positive experience. The dental hygienist would poke around for awhile, which was not so fun, but then she'd let me pick a toothpaste flavor and would brush my teeth for me with that weird whirring suction stick thingy, after which I'd get a free toothbrush, a trinket (comparable in quality to the prize in a Cracker Jack box), and a compliment on how my pearly whites were, well, pearly white.
As I've grown older, I don't really look forward to the dentist (No more prizes?! What is that all about?!), but I tend to view it with a detached kind of neutrality. I go, I get my teeth cleaned, I leave, and I repeat the process in six months. Whatever.
However, my most recent foray into the world of oral hygiene was different than the others, in that I actually had a problem. My gums around my wisdom teeth had been swollen for a few days, and despite my fervent wishes that they would just go back to normal on their own, they did not. So yesterday I headed in to my regular dentist appointment and mentioned to the hygienist in what I hoped was a casual way:
"You know, I'm glad I could get an appointment for today. I have a little swelling around my gums."
"Oh, really?" she said. "Let's take a look."
I got into the chair and opened wide. She took out the least-friendly looking metal instrument on the tray and held it as she peered inside.
"Oh, yeah, you do have some swelling there," she said. She gingerly poked around with the metal thing before adding, "Holy moly."
At that point, I knew all was lost. It's never a good sign when your dental hygienist, who has presumably seen quite a few oral maladies, starts throwing around phrases like "holy moly."
So after my check-up I was scheduled to return this morning to get all the bacteria scraped out from under my gums. Sounds like fun, right?
Well, yes and no. The Novocaine shots (all three of them) weren't so bad, but ever since my medical drama in February (three stitches above my eyebrow, three on my eyelid, and about eight painful anesthesia shots preceding them) I've adopted a more blasé attitude toward giant sharp poking implements in the immediate vicinity of my face. The gum-scraping itself wasn't all that awful either, given the effectiveness of the shots, although the scraping instruments kept coming out of my mouth looking considerably gorier than they had when they went in. At any rate, the whole thing was over in about twenty-five minutes, and this includes the serious post-procedure talk I got about proper flossing to prevent future occurrences like this.
The Novocaine, however, has yet to wear off.
Granted, it's only been about an hour since I left the dentist. Though now that I mention it, I seem to have regained some control of my tongue, and I can smile again without having one side of my mouth be way more into it than the other. Bizarrely enough, though, my chin and left ear appear to be pretty numb still. It's a bit frustrating, as I've had an itch on my chin for the past twenty minutes and scratching is pretty non-effective, since I can't feel it. I don't even know how it's even medically possible to be able to feel the itch and not the scratching, but there you go.
It hasn't been all bad, though. Having the entire left side of my face numb from my ear to my chin has actually been, to me at least, pretty entertaining. (I know, small amusement for small minds.) It began in the dentist's office when I tried to rinse out my mouth. Never having had Novocaine injections before, I severely overestimated my ability to manipulate my lips and tongue and, instead of neatly spitting the water into the sink, managed instead to dribble it down my chin. A second attempt proved just as fruitless, possibly even more so, since I happened to catch a look at my face in the mirror above the sink as I was attempting to swish the water around in my mouth. I looked rather like Cletus the slack-jawed yokel and half-spit the water out in laughter while the rest of it trickled down my face again and ended up (mostly) in the sink. Luckily no one was around to witness this incredibly graceful display, and I managed (with great effort) to hold myself together for the remainder of my time in the dentist's office, speaking almost normally.
Once I got out of there, however, all bets (along with my dignity) were off, and I became a lithping mathine thomewhat resthembling Thindy Brady. My teeth felt like they were about twice their normal size and five times their regular density, my face somehow felt like it was simultaneously made out of Play-Doh and a balloon, and I kept almost choking on my own tongue. By all accounts, it was not a very proud moment for me, but it was just so darn funny.
I got home and decided that it would be a good idea to take some ibuprofen before the numbness wore off, since having someone digging around in your gums is bound to result in some soreness later on. Drinking water proved a challenge, but that was easily solved by getting a drinking straw into the mix. Swallowing the ibuprofen was a little tougher, as I actually had to throw my head all the way back and let gravity do most of the work (whilst trying to prevent it from working on my tongue, which I was still apt to accidentally attempt to swallow). And now, an hour-and-a-half post-dentist (I took some time off in the middle of this post to google Harry Potter), I've got some feeling back in the very tip of my tongue but am definitely still numb everywhere else. The dentist said it would last about an hour but that it was different for everyone. I wonder how long it will last for me. It's been funny and everything, but I'd really like to eat some lunch without the danger of accidentally biting off a huge chunk of my own tongue.
The moral of the story here is, I suppose, is that if you don't mind giant syringes in your mouth, Novocaine is pretty amusing. If you'd rather avoid needles altogether, though, do yourself a favor and floss.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Stranger Things Have Happened...No, Wait, They Really Haven't
I wanted to write but nothing too noteworthy happened today, so I will instead make a list of bizarre (but absolutely, 100% true) things that have happened at the Basket.
1. A man walks into a Market Basket supermarket...
...wearing a business suit and wool socks. No shoes. Just socks. It had rained recently. There were puddles. I'm just saying.
2. What's the big deal, anyway?
I give a woman her change. This is our post-sale interaction, verbatim.
WOMAN: Oooooh.
ME: What?
WOMAN: You gave me a Canadian quarter.
ME: ...
WOMAN: ...
ME: Do...you want me to...change it?
WOMAN: Yes. That'd be great.
So I have to go to the signout menu, hit the "no sale" button, and type in my password just because this lady has a thing against quarters with moose on them. Let me tell you something, lady: no one else in the world cares whether your quarter is Canadian or not. It came out of my roll of quarters. It's fine.
3. Didn't I used to have another kid?
A woman just strolled out of the store without her son once. The poor kid stood in the front of the store screaming "Mommy!" I might be mistaken, but I think someone had to go chase after her to get her to come back. For HER OWN CHILD.
4. Gee, what's that sound?
Another one in the category of negligent parents: A woman just stands by as her son flips the handle on the emergency exit door, which results in a loud, piercing, and - most importantly - annoying sound. Said woman calmly collects her children and strolls out without so much as an apology to the employees trying to figure out how to shut the alarm off or a reprimand to her precious child.
I amended my customer "hello-how-are-you" speech from "have a nice day" to "have a quiet day."
5. Scoot off a cliff, why dontcha?
Third in the Parental Negligence Series: a kid (around ten, maybe) will sometimes come into the store around 8 at night and ride his scooter along the front of the store (inside, not out) for no apparent reason, despite the fact that he's been kicked out multiple times for doing so.
6. Could I change four ridiculous hissy fits for one full-fledged tantrum?
A man asked me to make change in fives for his twenty. I politely told him that I can't make change (it's against store policy/rules) and that he could get change at the courtesy booth. He promptly exploded all over me.
ME: I'm sorry, sir, I can't make change.
MAN: What?! Don't give me that! I can see in your drawer; you've got a ton of fives right there!
ME: I'm not allowed to make change, sir. You can go over to the courtesy booth...
MAN: I don't WANT to go to the courtesy booth!
Well, I don't want to be having this conversation. Life just sucks for us both, I guess.
ME: I'm very sorry, sir.
MAN: They make change for me all the time at the [insert name of other town here] store!
Does this look like the [other town] store?! No. I don't care about what they do at the other store; I care about what my bosses tell me to do HERE. And they told me not to make change. I value my paycheck more than your constant need to have things your way.
ME: I'm sorry.
But not really.
I thought I had more stories than this. Poo.
1. A man walks into a Market Basket supermarket...
...wearing a business suit and wool socks. No shoes. Just socks. It had rained recently. There were puddles. I'm just saying.
2. What's the big deal, anyway?
I give a woman her change. This is our post-sale interaction, verbatim.
WOMAN: Oooooh.
ME: What?
WOMAN: You gave me a Canadian quarter.
ME: ...
WOMAN: ...
ME: Do...you want me to...change it?
WOMAN: Yes. That'd be great.
So I have to go to the signout menu, hit the "no sale" button, and type in my password just because this lady has a thing against quarters with moose on them. Let me tell you something, lady: no one else in the world cares whether your quarter is Canadian or not. It came out of my roll of quarters. It's fine.
3. Didn't I used to have another kid?
A woman just strolled out of the store without her son once. The poor kid stood in the front of the store screaming "Mommy!" I might be mistaken, but I think someone had to go chase after her to get her to come back. For HER OWN CHILD.
4. Gee, what's that sound?
Another one in the category of negligent parents: A woman just stands by as her son flips the handle on the emergency exit door, which results in a loud, piercing, and - most importantly - annoying sound. Said woman calmly collects her children and strolls out without so much as an apology to the employees trying to figure out how to shut the alarm off or a reprimand to her precious child.
I amended my customer "hello-how-are-you" speech from "have a nice day" to "have a quiet day."
5. Scoot off a cliff, why dontcha?
Third in the Parental Negligence Series: a kid (around ten, maybe) will sometimes come into the store around 8 at night and ride his scooter along the front of the store (inside, not out) for no apparent reason, despite the fact that he's been kicked out multiple times for doing so.
6. Could I change four ridiculous hissy fits for one full-fledged tantrum?
A man asked me to make change in fives for his twenty. I politely told him that I can't make change (it's against store policy/rules) and that he could get change at the courtesy booth. He promptly exploded all over me.
ME: I'm sorry, sir, I can't make change.
MAN: What?! Don't give me that! I can see in your drawer; you've got a ton of fives right there!
ME: I'm not allowed to make change, sir. You can go over to the courtesy booth...
MAN: I don't WANT to go to the courtesy booth!
Well, I don't want to be having this conversation. Life just sucks for us both, I guess.
ME: I'm very sorry, sir.
MAN: They make change for me all the time at the [insert name of other town here] store!
Does this look like the [other town] store?! No. I don't care about what they do at the other store; I care about what my bosses tell me to do HERE. And they told me not to make change. I value my paycheck more than your constant need to have things your way.
ME: I'm sorry.
But not really.
7. Yummy!
A woman came through my line munching on dog biscuits. I was rather alarmed. I've been informed since, by someone I know, that dog treats are actually quite tasty. I suppose they'd be sort of like meat snacks (like jerky or whatever), but I'm a vegetarian - what do I know?
I thought I had more stories than this. Poo.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Eau de Market Basket
I just returned home from working the "five to close" shift at the MB (!!!), feeling lonely and dejected because
a.) I'm missing my aunt's "Watch the Fireworks from my Back Porch" cookout.
b.) I am the ONLY one missing aforementioned cookout.
c.) Someone nearby is setting off fireworks which I can hear but cannot see, which only serves to rub the "ha-ha, loser, you had work" salt in my figurative wound.
So I walked into the house, happy at least to see that the cat was waiting for me at the door. So I sat down on the stairs, the epitome of one who is, as previously mentioned, lonely and dejected, and said to the cat, "Come sit with me, Katie. I'm lonely and I need SOMEONE to hang out with." (On the way home from work, I seriously considered finding some dolls and large stuffed animals in the attic, setting them up around the kitchen table, cooking myself a veggie burger, and having an imaginary cookout. You think I'm kidding. I'm really not. But that was too pathetic, not to mention borderline psychotic. )
Anyway, the cat did her whole "I do not follow your foolish whims, lower life form. I am a CAT" stare but eventually hopped up on the step next to me and let me pat her a little. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. This is the cat who refuses to visit me when I am deathly ill and am using up my last ounces of energy to snap my fingers and cluck my tongue and whistle, all in hopes of enticing the cat to visit so I don't feel like a complete doof. Her usual response is to sit innocently in the hallway just outside the door, looking at me as if to say, "I wish I knew what you were trying to say to me. I haven't the faintest idea what you're getting at. Toodles, off to cry until someone feeds me."
So anyway, the cat was standing next to me, allowing me to pat her, then she gave my work-issued smock a sniff and subtly began to edge away. I know why: the smell of Market Basket. (It's not the smell of me. Underneath the smock, I smell flowery and shower-fresh.)
I always knew that Market Basket has a very distinct smell. It's sort of metallic, which I suppose comes from the canned goods, money, etc. But my cat, who has smelled both cans and money before, wouldn't shy away from them. So I must conclude that there is more to the MB's odor than meets the nose. I have broken it down as follows:
Base scent: Metal (coins, cans, carriages, doors, checkout console-thingies, etc.)
With overtones of: Depression, dismay, boredom, false perkiness, grocery items, and soul-crushing defeat
And undertones of: Mild physical pain (from the standing, dontcha know), resentment (of both customers and anyone who ISN'T working at Market Basket), and (surprise!) slight amusement (at the ridiculousness of a good number of the things that go down while one is on duty)
Hmmm, speaking of smell....it seems that a skunk has decided to traipse through my yard. I'm so glad it's summer and ALL THE WINDOWS ARE OPEN. Deee-lish.
As I write this, I'm venting to Jess via AIM, because not only is she my best friend (despite my uncanny ability to turn HER complaints into complaints of my own...because I'm a narcissist and that's what we do best), but she also works at Soul Crushers, Inc. (aka the MB). As such, she is very sympathetic, even when I ramble on for ages without allowing her to get an IM in edgewise:
Me: and then i felt stupid later because i was putting hamburger and hot dog rolls in a bag myself (b/c they're bread and you know how you bag it yourself) and i went to go put the hamburger rolls in with the hot dog ones and i was like (in my head) hmm, that won't all fit. so I took out the hamburger rolls and grabbed the bag with just the two packages of hot dog rolls and the customer dude took the bag and went...
Me: "renee, I'm just gonna rearrange these because i don't want squished hot dog rolls."
Me: okay. bastard.
Me: i mean, a.) how exactly will two packages of hot dog rolls squish EACH OTHER?
Jess: people like that are annoying.
Me: b.) you don't need to ANNOUNCE it to me. I mean, i know I'm an employee and you're a customer so you can just piss all over me if you feel like it, but it's RUDE.
Me: and c.) YOU DON'T KNOW ME. DON'T CALL ME BY NAME JUST BECAUSE MY TAG SAYS IT.
Me: that's in case you're being accidentally fed into the cardboard compactor in the back and you need to know my name so you can shout "RENEE! HELP ME! I'M BEING FED INTO THE CARDBOARD COMPACTOR!" and specifically get my attention.
Jess: because that happens all the time. xD but I get what you're saying.
Me: oh, it WOULD have happened if i had anything to say about it.
Me: except in that scenario, the customer would be screaming, "RENEE! NO! I'M SORRY! PLEASE DON'T FEED ME TO THE CARDBOARD COMPACTOR!"
That's right. Beg for mercy. Do it. Remember who you're dealing with. This chick is crazy. We're talking "assigns-a-smell-to-her-place-of-employment, contemplates-imaginary-parties-with-imaginary-guests, fantasizes-about-feeding-customers-to-the-cardboard-compactor" CRAZY.
And then she blogs about it.
That's either very healthy (cathartic) or very disturbing ("Publicizes fantasy life," my future shrink will perhaps note.)
At any rate, it's ME. Peace out (for now).
a.) I'm missing my aunt's "Watch the Fireworks from my Back Porch" cookout.
b.) I am the ONLY one missing aforementioned cookout.
c.) Someone nearby is setting off fireworks which I can hear but cannot see, which only serves to rub the "ha-ha, loser, you had work" salt in my figurative wound.
So I walked into the house, happy at least to see that the cat was waiting for me at the door. So I sat down on the stairs, the epitome of one who is, as previously mentioned, lonely and dejected, and said to the cat, "Come sit with me, Katie. I'm lonely and I need SOMEONE to hang out with." (On the way home from work, I seriously considered finding some dolls and large stuffed animals in the attic, setting them up around the kitchen table, cooking myself a veggie burger, and having an imaginary cookout. You think I'm kidding. I'm really not. But that was too pathetic, not to mention borderline psychotic. )
Anyway, the cat did her whole "I do not follow your foolish whims, lower life form. I am a CAT" stare but eventually hopped up on the step next to me and let me pat her a little. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. This is the cat who refuses to visit me when I am deathly ill and am using up my last ounces of energy to snap my fingers and cluck my tongue and whistle, all in hopes of enticing the cat to visit so I don't feel like a complete doof. Her usual response is to sit innocently in the hallway just outside the door, looking at me as if to say, "I wish I knew what you were trying to say to me. I haven't the faintest idea what you're getting at. Toodles, off to cry until someone feeds me."
So anyway, the cat was standing next to me, allowing me to pat her, then she gave my work-issued smock a sniff and subtly began to edge away. I know why: the smell of Market Basket. (It's not the smell of me. Underneath the smock, I smell flowery and shower-fresh.)
I always knew that Market Basket has a very distinct smell. It's sort of metallic, which I suppose comes from the canned goods, money, etc. But my cat, who has smelled both cans and money before, wouldn't shy away from them. So I must conclude that there is more to the MB's odor than meets the nose. I have broken it down as follows:
Base scent: Metal (coins, cans, carriages, doors, checkout console-thingies, etc.)
With overtones of: Depression, dismay, boredom, false perkiness, grocery items, and soul-crushing defeat
And undertones of: Mild physical pain (from the standing, dontcha know), resentment (of both customers and anyone who ISN'T working at Market Basket), and (surprise!) slight amusement (at the ridiculousness of a good number of the things that go down while one is on duty)
Hmmm, speaking of smell....it seems that a skunk has decided to traipse through my yard. I'm so glad it's summer and ALL THE WINDOWS ARE OPEN. Deee-lish.
As I write this, I'm venting to Jess via AIM, because not only is she my best friend (despite my uncanny ability to turn HER complaints into complaints of my own...because I'm a narcissist and that's what we do best), but she also works at Soul Crushers, Inc. (aka the MB). As such, she is very sympathetic, even when I ramble on for ages without allowing her to get an IM in edgewise:
Me: and then i felt stupid later because i was putting hamburger and hot dog rolls in a bag myself (b/c they're bread and you know how you bag it yourself) and i went to go put the hamburger rolls in with the hot dog ones and i was like (in my head) hmm, that won't all fit. so I took out the hamburger rolls and grabbed the bag with just the two packages of hot dog rolls and the customer dude took the bag and went...
Me: "renee, I'm just gonna rearrange these because i don't want squished hot dog rolls."
Me: okay. bastard.
Me: i mean, a.) how exactly will two packages of hot dog rolls squish EACH OTHER?
Jess: people like that are annoying.
Me: b.) you don't need to ANNOUNCE it to me. I mean, i know I'm an employee and you're a customer so you can just piss all over me if you feel like it, but it's RUDE.
Me: and c.) YOU DON'T KNOW ME. DON'T CALL ME BY NAME JUST BECAUSE MY TAG SAYS IT.
Me: that's in case you're being accidentally fed into the cardboard compactor in the back and you need to know my name so you can shout "RENEE! HELP ME! I'M BEING FED INTO THE CARDBOARD COMPACTOR!" and specifically get my attention.
Jess: because that happens all the time. xD but I get what you're saying.
Me: oh, it WOULD have happened if i had anything to say about it.
Me: except in that scenario, the customer would be screaming, "RENEE! NO! I'M SORRY! PLEASE DON'T FEED ME TO THE CARDBOARD COMPACTOR!"
That's right. Beg for mercy. Do it. Remember who you're dealing with. This chick is crazy. We're talking "assigns-a-smell-to-her-place-of-employment, contemplates-imaginary-parties-with-imaginary-guests, fantasizes-about-feeding-customers-to-the-cardboard-compactor" CRAZY.
And then she blogs about it.
That's either very healthy (cathartic) or very disturbing ("Publicizes fantasy life," my future shrink will perhaps note.)
At any rate, it's ME. Peace out (for now).
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