Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Diet Soda

Dear Diet Soda,

I am very disappointed in you. Especially Diet Coke. Diet Coke tastes like swill, and has left such a profound impression on me that I cringe whenever I see anyone drinking it.

You see, Diet Soda, most of my disappointment stems from my expectations. I know this is my fault. But would it really hurt you to taste at least something like Regular Soda. Was it silly of me to think that the only difference between Diet Soda and Regular Soda was supposed to be the calorie/sugar content? I suppose it was, because you taste like impending doom. I don't mean to offend, but if evil had a taste, it would be Diet Soda.

I implore you to take the path of my good friend, Diet Dr. Pepper. Diet Dr. Pepper tastes exactly like his brother, Regular Dr. Pepper. They are both tasty and satisfying. They are also refreshing. This brings me to a tangent dealing with Sunkist. I never drink Regular Sunkist because it makes me more thirsty. I still believe that soda is meant to quench thirst, and when I drink Regular Sunkist, I am forced to drink something else to do the job Regular Sunkist could not fulfill. The reason I mention Regular Sunkist in conjunction with Regular Dr. Pepper is that Diet Sunkist, like Diet Dr. Pepper, tastes like its brother. I approve of this, even if both Sunkists make me unpleasantly thirsty.

I know what I'm about to say next isn't your fault, but I'm wondering if you could do something about it, all the same. Sometimes when I am at parties and I ask for a soda, people hand me Diet Soda in a cup. They think I won't notice the difference, but I do. Then they are annoyed at me for being difficult, and I'm annoyed at them for ignoring my request and trying to trick me. In short, make people stop doing this or stop tasting like backwash.

And what the hell is up with these One Calorie Sodas? I think there is even more of an implied message in these that they taste like Regular Soda. But they do not. One calorie's worth of sugar isn't going to make the deal for me. I suppose One Calorie Soda is the supersized meal version of Diet Soda for those foolish enough to like Diet Soda. But One Calorie Soda is pointless and annoying, so please, Diet Soda, tell people to stop drinking it. Also, please try to eliminate Diet Soda with Splenda, because it is a disgusting, dumb idea.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is, if you can't taste like Regular Soda, can you at least not taste terrible? It's just a thought.

Sincerely,
The-Girl-Who-Likes-Real-Sugar

P.S. You may taste sucky, but you have really good commercials.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Cell Phones

There was a bright time in my life in dealing with cell phones. That time has been followed by what I like to call the Cell Phone Dark Ages. When I was a junior last year, I noticed several signs of an impending apocalypse:
1. camera phones becoming ubiquitous
2. a cell phone going off in a class at least once a day
3. non-midi cell phone rings
4. my being forced to purchase a new cell phone (old one was five years old)
5. aural phoneglueitis

Aural phoneglueitis is perhaps the most threatening thing on the list. It is a disease that spreads just by sight and pop culture. It is loosely defined as the compulsive need to whip a cellphone and call someone (anyone!) and talk to her for the brief time between class. Once the phone is up to the ear, the victim is unable to remove it. This awful disease has another strain that runs through twenty-something women in public places. These afflicted women feel the need to be on the phone at all times while in public, even to the point of keeping someone on the line while shopping in case they need opinions on what to purchase. A symptom of this disease is paranoia and narcissism, specifically dealing with the thought that absolutely anyone who is walking around or glances at the patient has a deep, invested, voyeuristic interest in what is, as the victim views it, strictly a private conversation. Yet another problem is a loss of a grip on reality, which unfortunately leads to the belief that any conversation can be private when held at a high volume in a public place.

There are 1000 people on campus, 800 of whom live on said campus. The campus can be walked from north to south within a little less than fifteen minutes, and much more quickly going east-west. People probably see their friends a minimum of three times a day, at least at every meal. So why, for the love of God, do you insist on having stupid, five minute conversations between classes? You live with each other, what the hell is so important that you can't wait two hours to discuss it?

Second, how do you have friends to call? You woefully neglect the ones walking with you. I'm not sure I will ever understand the impulse to call a friend while you're already with friends. There's this crazy concept where you spend time with your friends in person and form stronger relationships. There's no point in being with them if you're not really there. The message you send by being on the cellphone when you're walking with your friends is, "Yeah, I'm walking with these people, but I've got someone much cooler on the line. Because I'm a badass and I have friends and they're really awesome, yeah. So there." No one believes you, cares, or thinks you're that important, so flip the phone shut.

I know that there's something romantic and exciting about being able to constantly be communicating with people everywhere. But the capability is about choice, and once you can't stop yourself from continuously interacting with someone, you remove the choice. There is perhaps some value in spending a precious few minutes alone in the day when you're not working or talking, and have some time with your own thoughts. Don't let aural phoneglueitis get you, we don't have a cure yet.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Muffins vs. Cupcakes

A friend recently gave me a chocolate chip cupcake. It was rather large and had no frosting on it, so I said, "Thank you for the muffin!" She informed me that it was in fact a cupcake, not a muffin. It was then that I realized that I had no idea what the difference between muffins and cupcakes is. It has come down to several factors, according various sources:
1. They are normally different sizes, cupcakes being smaller.
2. Cupcakes have more sugar.
3. Muffins don't have frosting.

The third difference is one I've already grappled with, since apparently my friend was giving me a cupcake, even without frosting. I feel that a cupcake is sort of like a person in that if you put a hat on a person, he's still the same person. Similarly, if you put frosting on a muffin, it's still a muffin, and cupcakes are still cupcakes without frosting. Also, have you eaten those muffins with sugar glazes on them? Kind of like frosting...

My experience with the gigantic cupcake also threw the first difference into question. It was distinctly muffin sized, but she told me it was a cupcake. I've also had small, cupcake-sized muffins.

Perhaps the only legitimate difference is that of sugar content. Cupcakes, admittedly, have more sugar. But I feel that the line has become increasingly blurred. Perhaps in earlier days, muffins had far less sugar than pancakes, and didn't taste to sweet. But no more! The muffins you can buy in bakeries nowadays have plenty of sugar, and how. Muffins and cupcakes may have a slightly different texture, but if you slapped frosting on a muffin, it would probably taste about the same, and I don't know that I would know the difference.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that there is in fact no difference between cupcakes and muffins. A blueberry muffin is secretly also a blueberry cupcake, but a blueberry cupcake is strange, so we market it as a blueberry muffin. I think this realization that I've had about cupcakes and muffins is in fact tied to the feeling I had as a child when I would go to Starbucks with my parents. I would always ask for the chocolate chip muffin, and feel that I'd tricked them. They didn't know it, but I'd pulled the wool over their eyes, and was in fact eating a cupcake at 8 in the morning. I felt that Starbucks was conspiring with children everywhere, and I was in on it.

My theory is that the muffin/cupcake divide was created by some especially clever, for children exactly like I was. Parents could say, "Well, it's kind of like a cupcake, but it's actually a muffin, so I can give this to Jimmy this morning." Then the children gleefully eat what they know is a glorified, pseudo-healthier cupcake. And to whomever it was who conceived this: well done.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Penis Frisbee

Since the water polo season ended, I've been playing with club ultimate frisbee. It's been quite fun and good exercise, but there's one glaring problem: boys. Now, I like boys, and normally have nothing against them. And by no means all of them are culprits in what I'm about to describe. But some of them like to play a brand of frisbee that can only be called "Penis Frisbee." Penis frisbee is defined thus:
n.
any kind of ultimate frisbee play in which the males in the game either
a) refuse to pass to wide open girls, throwing to covered boys instead
b) throw the frisbee as far down the field as possible, with no one to receive it
c) make fun of girls' efforts, even when getting schooled by them
d) generally act like cavemen

The term "Penis Frisbee" originated with one of my friends, who most adequately described it as gameplay in which a boy throws the frisbee as far as possible, under the misguided notion that it will somehow prove that he does, in fact, have the largest penis. I have since expanded it to include of all of the criteria in my definition of it.

I had a blessedly penis frisbee-free summer of ultimate frisbee, so the games I've encountered this week have come as something of a shock. Perhaps it's just that I've been playing single-sex sports for 9 months, but the sexism of one boy in particular was jarring. It's been a while since I've seen people being treated as such incompetents for no good reason. Some of the males with frisbee envy seemed unable to grasp the idea that girls can, in fact, both catch the frisbee and pass it successfully, and maybe even run, too. One girl in possession of the frisbee, when a boy demanded she pass it, responded, "No, because you never pass it to me." And she waited until somebody else opened up before passing.

Teamwork be damned, I was proud of her. These moments give me hope and allow me to get beyond the penisy way some people act, to really enjoy things like I should and want to. I can remember that the majority of the boys I've been playing with have been most excellent. In somewhat related news, I did a damn sweet layout on Monday, and then rolled all over the place and got some prodigious grass stains. So I guess this brings me to my point, which is that I understand that testosterone is powerful and you need to prove yourself, but it's a game, meaning you're supposed to have fun, something I doubt you do when all anyone does is throw field-length passes back and forth.

In short: you still have a small penis, so you might as well throw me the plastic disk.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Red Cross

Giving blood was such a better idea in theory. My friends and I decided that we would go over to the gym, where the drive was taking place, waltz in, drop some of our precious life manna and peace out. This was not the case. It took an hour and a half. I briefly leafed through the packet of information that said something to the effect of, "If you're not an ubermench, we don't want none of your damn diseased blood. Go home now, you slacker." Thankfully, I am ubermensch, and was able to give blood.

I sat down in the waiting section and was escorted to a chair, where I was asked for paperwork that I certainly didn't have. I was redirected to the chairs in the waiting section facing the opposite direction, because, unbeknownst to me, they are descending from on high to allow me to give blood, and I'm just a stupid peon, despite being led to believe that I'm an ubermensch. On an unrelated note, there was a copy of The Boston Globe sitting around, and somebody had taken a picture of a baby on the top right and glued it over Condoleezza Rice's face. We stared at it for a good few seconds before realizing that it wasn't just some of the worst Photoshopping ever, but in fact the work of a scissors vigilante, righting all terrible front page pictures. There was some obvious questions we couldn't answer, like who carries around both glue and scissors in her bag?

Anyway, after this important contemplation, a nurse took me to a top secret, screened section. The woman then jabbed me with a plastic thing that looked like a CD plastic opener and took some of my blood. One of my revelations for the day was that I am secretly The Amazing Human Blood Clot, and she had to go for the second finger before she got enough blood to perform magical tests with. There was then a rigorous line of questioning which, in retrospect, sounded something like this:
Nurse, "Have you had sex with a man who's had sex with another male who was mixing medications?"
Me, "No."
"Do you have an obscure, African disease?"
"No."
"Have you had sex with somebody with an obscure, African disease?"
"No."
"What about interacted with somebody in the last six months who owns a dog with an obscure, African disease?"
"No."
"Your mom?"
"What?"
"Have you ever been ravaged by an angry monkey with a foaming mouth?"
"No."
"Have you ever thought about what it would feel like?"
"Would it disqualify me if I said yes?"
"Yes."
"No."

They also asked me if I'd had sex with a prostitute. Fortunately, they preserved my delicate senses by phrasing the question of, "Have you been a prostitute?" as "Have you ever received money, drugs or other payment for sexual services?"

At last, I was allowed to give my blood, which I proceeded to do like the blood giving badass that I am. I pumped out the blood in six minutes. And then I went to the food table and ate ice cream. I think more people would come and there wouldn't be such a panic about not having enough blood if people knew that they would be offered chilidogs and ice cream after giving blood. Love of one's fellow man may not be compelling enough, but I assure you that free food is. Blood's free, we can make more of it, but I can't make my own, free corndog. Red Cross might have to get things moving more quickly, though, because I don't know if the cup of vanilla ice cream was worth an hour and a half of my life.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Telephone

I hate telephones. This might not be so terrible if I didn't also hate checking my voicemail. I have an inexplicable aversion to picking up the telephone. The telephones on campus ring three times before going to voicemail. This further encourages me to not pick up my phone, given that the annoying ringing isn't terribly persistent. My friends have often been witness to my phone ringing. I continue business as normal. At first they would look between me and the phone, the obvious question on their lips, "Aren't you going to pick it up?" No. I will not pick it up, nor will I make any motion to pick it up. The person on the other line doesn't necessarily know that I heard the phone ringing and chose to ignore it. Now my friends have given up hope that I will pick up the phone, we all continue with our business as the phone rings, neglected, in the corner.

I think perhaps I despise the telephone because it requires constant attention. When someone's talking to you on the phone, you don't get the benefit of their expressions and body language, but you still have to engage them and pay attention to them. With instant messenger, when conversation peters you, you both just stop talking and go back to Snood. With the telephone, however, there is often the awkward phone silence. Neither person knows what to say, but you feel like you should say something, since you've gone to the effort of calling. Even worse is when you know there was something you meant to tell the other person, but you can't remember it quickly enough to keep them on the line. For example:
"...so then I said, 'Get out of my pie, you stupid cat'!"
"Hahaha. Yeah."
"Yeah."
"......"
"......"
"So..."
"Yeah..."

AWKWARD. And I'd rather avoid it whenever possible. I'm not the typical girl, I suppose, in that I've never found incredible satisfaction in chatting on the phone. I'm more a fan of the man approach, where you use the phone to convey information quickly, keeping conversation Spartan. I feel most of the time that phones should only be used to explain homework to someone or to organize a meeting with someone. It always grates my mother, who insists on conversing over the phone, that I can't stop my desperate need to multitask. She always comments on it when she can hear me tapping away at my computer, finishing up my English paper or blogging. The beauty of talking to somebody over the internet is that they recognize that you're probably multitasking and accept it. And when you're talking to somebody face to face, you can look at them, and I don't feel the need to do three other things at the same time.

The other thing that makes me weary of phones, especially public phones, is phacne. How if you rub the telephone receiver on your chin inadvertently, you get everyone's mouth germs there and it gives you acne. That's just a little disgusting. Kind of like how people on campus can't seem to put their damn cellphones down while they're walking, even while walking with friends. But that's a rant for another day.

Ring, ring, ring, ring, banana phone!
Sorry, banana phone, I'm never going to pick you up, even if you're cool because you're made from my imagination.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Language

I have been studying Japanese for four years. Whenever I mention this, people's eyes light up in excitement, and they immediately demand, "Say something in Japanese!" And suddenly my mind blanks. I can think of absolutely no sentence to say to them, aside from the reflex response of "Omae no haha" (your mom). If they don't ask me to translate a specific sentence, I usually I ask them for a sentence in English and do my best to translate. For some reason, people hear, "I'm studying Japanese" as "I'm fluent in Japanese." Despite my homestay in Japan, there are still some more complex words that I'm missing and don't allow me to translate some of the sentences I'm given, such as the phrase "nuclear warfare."

One night last month, however, I had an epiphany. I had always understood that people were trusting me to actually translate whatever sentence I gave them correctly. To see it in action, however, I suddenly
got it for the first time. I was working at my school's Middle Eastern bazaar/event, writing names in Arabic (I'm studying Arabic, too). The person would fill out her name in English on a card, and I would write it out in Arabic before passing it on to Hebrew. One girl wandered away as the guy writing Hebrew was working on her card. He left the card on the table and went on break.

The head of the "Get your name written in different languages!" table came over, looked, and the card, and snatched it off the table with a panicked expression.
"What?" I asked. "We're going to have to get this girl a new card."
"Why?"

He paused, shifting from foot to foot. "It's wrong."

"No, seriously, there must be something else."

Finally, after a bunch of back and forth conversation similar to above, he finally blurted, "The Hebrew, it says 'shithead', not her name." And he crumpled the card with finality.


I pursed my lips, reminding myself that this was funny in the same way that watching a skateboarder fall off his board when trying to jump a curb is funny. In other words, funny as it was, I really shouldn't laugh so the unhappy party could retain some kind of dignity. The table head seemed almost beside himself at allowing this to happen. I wondered how many other people gotten vulgarities scrawled on their cards and walked away, showing their friends, not knowing the difference. And I wondered what harm it really did, as long as no one ever found out. The kids were happy, the juvenile, Hebrew-writing kid was happy, and (most importantly)
I was happy.

If I really wanted to, I could just respond with 'your mom,' and tell him I had just said that I like cheesecake. Most people don't delve into the semantics, "Well which word means what?" He probably wouldn't remember the sentence, and everyone would walk away satisfied. There's a certain kind of power in that. Thankfully, I, like Spiderman, will endeavor to use my powers for good.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Houses At Night

Let me set the stage: I am driving down the street, and it is about 9 o'clock at night. It is a two-lane road, and there are mostly trees on either side. I feel pretty safe and healthy in my car, and I'm excited about my destination. I happen to notice that there's a row of single-family homes coming up on one side of the house. As I pass, I see that all of them have lights on in the front on the first floor. Suddenly I notice that all these houses have several things in common:
1. every single house has a 24 in. plus television screen in it
2. every television is on
3. the television is in the front of the house
4. the television is facing so that you can view some of its content through the window
5. the drapes/blinds are wide open

I had vaguely noticed this phenomenon before. I can almost always see somebody watching a flickering blue screened television in their house as I drive by. The only time I'd ever truly taken notice of it before last night, though, was when I noticed that one of the houses had a porn video going. I'm not sure if people can help their living room being in the front of the house. And I understand that porn is an essential in many people's lives. What I'm not sure I get is why this man/woman didn't feel the need to close his blinds before watching his porn. And really, even if you're not watching porn, do you really want people looking in on your nighttime activities? Apparently people don't care.

For a country that seems to be in a near-panic about privacy invasion and rights, we sure don't seem to be doing much. People are whimpering about phone taps and whinging, "How can they invade my private life like that!" I'm amazed that information agencies have to resort to covert information gathering. All you have to do is drive by somebody's house at night, and you can see absolutely everything she's doing. I was also amazed that the only thing that people can think of to do at night is watch television in their living room. But I suppose I would find it even more strange if they were playing Monopoly or Scrabble around the living room table or reading a book.

In conclusion, I don't like inadvertently seeing what you're watching on television. It gives me a strange feeling, like it's my privacy that's being invaded, not that of the people in the house. Close your blinds, at the very least when there's a vagina on screen.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Bagpipes

I'm in a concert band and this term we're playing an arrangement of Pirates of the Caribbean, due to the remarkable failure of the brass section to get anywhere near the right notes when we sightread Pirates of Penzance. Our conductor, however, surprised us yesterday with new music. I stared at the piece, wondering what it could possibly sound like (the piccolo part is remarkably unhelpful, and includes 31 measures of rest at the beginning). However, within five minutes everything became clear. There was 31 measures of rest in my part for a BAGPIPE solo.

This is misleading. We are in fact accompanying five bagpipes. Now, if you've ever heard the bagpipe being played, you'll understand why I am concerned. The bagpipe is possibly the loudest instrument I know. The students on campus are forced to leave doors and windows open when they practice indoors because if they don't, it drowns out all other sound in the building. They have taken to roving in circles in the quads at around sunset, practicing and sometimes wearing kilts. We are, however, planning to play with five bagpipes and a concert band in a church, which is, you may note, an enclosed area. One clarinet player jokingly suggested that we line the bagpipes up around the building. What's great is that it would probably give us the balance of sound we need to not deafen the audience. I was both horrified and excited by the thought of hearing five bagpipes at once, since I've had a secret fascination with them for most of high school.

Bagpipes were originally meant to be heard over long distances and over the clanging and shouting of battle. The sound of them was intended to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. And after sitting directly in front of a bagpipe going full blast for an hour and a half, I understand why. The bagpipe is a fearsome, deafening, and slightly ridiculous instrument. I imagined myself, in my 31 measures of rest, fighting in a battle. I'm feeling good and I've just decapitated someone when suddenly a horrendous moan crosses the field, wavering in pitch. It grows louder, and suddenly a violent, triumphant music starts blasting me. I look up, and there's a man in a kilt, blowing into and squeezing a pig's stomach, staring me down and blasting me with music so loud and fearsome that it must be sent from God. In my wonder, I am killed by an errant spear.

In conclusion, the bagpipe is a great instrument because it feels anachronistic. Its sound doesn't fit properly in our buildings and long distance warfare. I also like that its purpose was not merely to create music to be played in parlors. Bagpipes have far more of a place in my world than, say, the barry sax. Bagpipes, I salute you!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Names

One of my teachers in elementary school once taught a kid whose name was Thomas Madideford Christopher Holmes Peter Calvanas Travanas Jones Perry Hanam. He was mocked. He was an unfortunate soul whose 10 names, in any pair conceivable, could have been the name of a normal boy. But his parents made an executive decision to have their son be a child who was derided and jeered at. My class made up a song to remember his name and commemorate his parents' cruelty.

This brings me to my point. Show some self control when naming your children. It is understandable that parents, when confronted with their wrinkly, red, beautiful baby fresh from the womb, they are overwhelmed by the beauty and otherworldly nature of having created a baby, and feel an exotic name is the only appropriate way to express their wonder. Thus insistence of people on naming their daughters Princess in every language available, almost none of whom speak said language, or can find the homeland of its native speakers on a map. I feel for these children.

What is perhaps worse than people who decide that all the "average" names available are unacceptable, but lack the drive to pick even an exotic name and research its meaning. These are the people who think naming their child Apple because she's the apple of their collective eye is clever. It is the same people who name their children things like Baby. It's like naming your dog Dog, except that your dog doesn't have to navigate 18 years of years being made fun of and desperately wishing for the day when she can get a legal name change, as well as an entire life with the parents who shackled her with the name. As sweet as you think the name you have chosen for your child is, think of the child's welfare.

I feel similarly about children whose names don't exist. The feeling that seems to accompany these namings is that any name currently available on earth is inadequate to express how perfect and unique the child is. Thus, a unique and impossible to pronounce name must be chosen. Naming something Zamoleania Angelbaby Johnson should be restricted to stuffed animals, and absolutely never be extended to the realm of human beings. I couldn't decide if this group of namers is worse or better than those who name their children too-cute-to-be-clever names, but I have ultimately decided that they are, for different reasons, on the same level of awful. There is the terrifying possibility that your child will turn out creative and beautiful and fabulous without your naming them something you deem to be described by said adjectives.

And nickname's don't undo the terrible wrong that these people have done. If the girl's name is Schanikaquafondelila and you say that we can just call her Shani, something's wrong. Shani is not in fact her name, and it is entirely her parents' fault. I feel much the same way about calling people by their (usually much more normal and pronouncable) middle names. If we're going to call the child by his middle name, then why wasn't he named that way? You can't name your child Poophead and insist we call him Barry, his middle name; I won't let you get away with it, and you should be ashamed for trying. Additionally, sometimes people are unaware of the fact that they are calling their friend by what is not her true name, and this can cause buckets of confusion later on.

Conventional names aren't the cruelty that some seem to find them. Neither are conventional spellings. So before you decide that your child's name will be Emily, but that it shall be spelled, Aemilee, stop and think. Will anyone ever be able to spell your daughter's name? No. Will she spend a lifetime complaining about it? Yes. So make sure before you name your child that a) people can pronounce the name b) people can spell it, at least sort of c) school children won't make fun of the name.

So decreed.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Your car is not your house

Your car is not your house. I know that you spend so much time in it that you think you live there, but I want you to dig deep. That's right, remember that place that you use your car to get to at the end of the day? That's the one, the one where your golden retriever lives, where you keep your refrigerator. It has electrical outlets. You can plug your cell phone into them and recharge it, and these outlets don't look like a cigarette lighter. This place is your house, and you live there.

There are many things that people can do in the house. They can eat, talk on the phone, watch television, sleep there. You may notice that these are things you can also do in your car. I understand that the ability to do these activities both in your car and your house may have caused you to confuse your car with their houses, but they are
not the same. You should note that your car, however, unlike your house, is moving up to a one hundred-something miles an hour next to other cars moving at similar speeds. When you divert their attention from these other cars (NOT HOUSES), you may find that bad things happen that will prevent you from talking on the phone or eating well, such as loss of limbs.

There is an importance to the distinction between houses and cars. You should not shave your legs, read the newspaper or change your shirt while you are driving your car. Nor should you do a combination of these things. You can, however, do these things in your house, and should restrict these activities to locations that are not moving. It makes me nervous to pass you on the freeway and see that you have your leg up on the dashboard, running a razor across your calf while you are traveling 65 mph. It also makes me nervous to know that the man driving behind me is simultaneously driving and reading a grocery store novel at night.


I think part of the reason people have so much road rage is that they've put all their stress in the car. I've been instructed to not do homework on my bed because it combines sleeping and working areas, and it subconsciously merges the two. You can't hate one without the other being tainted. If you live in your car and something goes wrong on the road, everything in your life feels worse, it all accumulates, and soon you're smashing someone's sideview mirror. I encourage you all to roll down your windows (not in traffic) and turn up the radio. And go home. Park your car in the garage and enjoy the true home you've been missing for so long. Nothing is so urgent that everything needs to be compacted into a half hour long commute.


Living in your car: no longer just for the homeless.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

No Pants

If it wouldn't get me arrested or sent to a professional, I would boycott pants. I have an unexplainable hatred of them. In my best of possible worlds, I would not be required to wear pants. Originally I went around saying that in my ideal world, there would simply be no pants, but my opinion has since evolved. This evolution was facilitated by the upsetting thought of several people without pants and in fact in a universe where they would NEVER wear pants. I have thus decided that it would only be acceptable for me to not wear pants.

It's not that I find skirts more enjoyable, or tights or pantaloons. It's just that I wish I could roam free. Admittedly, I used to be the number one supporter of pants in the world, and fought for my right to wear them valiantly against my mother. She attempted with minimal success to get me into dresses and skirts for twelve years. When I was in first grade, and my mother had to return yet another skirt that was oh-so-cute, that I would surely like this time, she asked in frustration, "Well, why can't you wear skirts? Are you morally opposed to them?"

No. Nor have I ever been morally opposed to them. It was just that you can't hang upside-down on the monkey bars when you're wearing a skirt. Otherwise boys would make fun of you and you'd have to push them off a swing set or give them cooties (between the times you were getting married).

I'm just in favor of my being free to run around in my underwear. People have suggested that I am at nudist at heart, and perhaps that's true. The subsequent suggestion has been that I move to a nudist colony. My response is, "Would you move to a nudist colony?" It's not that being partially unclothed would be a lifestyle choice, I'm not for returning to a naked, pseudo-Adam-and-Eve state, it's that pants are inconvenient and mildly uncomfortable, and I'd prefer not to deal with them. People in nudist colonies seem to feel that they are enlightened much in the way the first few people who bought hybrid cars seemed to feel that they were to the environment was Jesus was to humanity, i.e. saving it. I don't think I'm englightened or have entered a different plane of being, nor do I wish to spread my beliefs. I in fact would hope to be the sole person who engaged in the pantless freedom.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Buying Shoes

Dear Uppity Shoe-Salesman:

You are a shoe-salesman. I don't know if this wasn't clear to you. Your objective, you see, is to sell me shoes. As in, after interacting with you, I should walk away with one or more pairs of shoes. I know you're cranky because you touch women's sweaty feet all day. And I understand that many of these women try on eight pairs of shoes that fit and look nice, and then decide that they're not buying them or inform you that they were just enhancing the window shopping experience, and that they're heinous people. Despite this, you seem to be operating under some misapprehensions. You appear to believe that your job is to:
a) pretend you don't see me holding shoes and looking at you expectantly
b) mozy over when you finally deign to grace me with your attention
c) wander to the back of the store for ten minutes
d) stop to talk with your coworker
e) attempt to "assist" three customers at the same time
f) finally come back and tell me that you don't have the shoes in my size
g) tell me that other stores may have a pair in my size, but you will not be calling said stores
h) get angry when I talk to the manager and go to another store

Allow me to enlighten you: this is not your job.
Next time don't assume that my not being a sixty-year-old woman with a Gucci bag and sneer means I'm not going to drop some money. Or that because I'm younger than you that I'm going to take your shit. There's this crazy thing that comes around once a year where teenagers spend extraordinary amounts of money. Prom, you may be familiar with it. Perhaps not, since I imagine I'm not the first person to walk out in disgust without purchasing anything. I don't know when people decided that "the customer is always right" is some sort of fabrication to keep you down, but I assure you that it's not. Being a salesman means that you sell me something and spend effort attempting to get me to do so, not that I exert a lot of energy trying to purchase something. We live in a capitalist country, so surely you can appreciate that in order to make money, especially on commission, you must first not only have a product, but get it to a customer efficiently. It's your responsibility, so get off your arse.

I don't hold it against you that you don't like your job and aren't particularly good at it. You're not alone. Go listen to some pop music, eat chocolate, and please don't become one of those woman-hating serial killers that my grandmother warns me about every time she finds about a new one on television

Sincerely,
The Girl Who Bought Shoes for Prom, Despite Your Best Efforts to Thwart Her

Friday, May 12, 2006

7 Things I'd Like To See the Administration Do Before I Graduate

The following list is actually a top 10 list in the op-ed section of this week's edition of my school newspaper, but the last three points are only relevant to my school specifically.

1. Organize a Senior Skip Day. I have become aware that about all we seniors do at this point is sleep, eat, procrastinate, and complain that we are still expected to do homework. These are essentially the same things we have been doing for four years. We have relatively few benefits to lord over underclassmen with (mostly that extra hour of freedom a night). The administration could help us out with that and give us a day off. (n.b. Principal’s Day, while excellent, does not count.)
2. Perform weather-altering dances. What good is being full of sage, senior advice, slacking off, and owning a new Bocce Ball set when there is no consistently warm, sunny weather to accompany it? Despite being more than a month into spring, there have only been a handful of days truly worthy my senior spring. I understand that the administration is not omnipotent and that the demand that it try to change the weather is perhaps unreasonable. I have no problem with that. All I am saying is that a brief Sun Dance à la the Sioux Indians couldn’t hurt.
3. Install communal recumbent bicycles. Our school can be a hustle and bustle place, and sometimes we just need to take it easy. The recumbent bicycle is the best possible combination of leisure and efficiency. The recumbent bicycle, no matter how quickly it moves, feels like it is moving at a relaxed pace. Students would feel at ease while rushing to class, and maybe the terminally late kid would show up to class on time one day. Maybe.
4. Create a campus map detailing the quickest routes from place to place. I know that more than one student has tried to figure out, unsuccessfully, what the fastest route from the P.O. to her dorm is. These questions continue to plague us all because one or both people, when testing the paths, can’t resist the urge to beat the other person, and start sprinting as soon as they are out of sight. The administration should therefore tell me definitively which route from the Grill to assembly hall is quickest, and how long it would take me to make the journey if I moved at exactly 2.5 mph.
5. Institute a campus-wide celebration of National Chocolate Chip Day (May 15), National Sea Monkey Day (May 16), or National Bike to Work Day (May 19). I should note that, in respect to the last holiday mentioned, recumbent bicycles can be shipped overnight.
6. Arrange to have gum once again be sold in the Grill; additionally, they should set up a taser system which activates when people spit gum on the ground indoors, hopefully getting some of the people who interfered with our ability to purchase gum in the first place.
7. Establish or make clear the rule for teachers arriving late. More than once my class has stood in front of a door, milling around and waiting for the teacher. Usually we abandon our wait after (sometimes less than) ten minutes, at which point we scatter and run, hoping the teacher will not arrive at that precise moment, jingling his keys and looking at us expectantly. The suggestion that we wait outside until the end of the class period is ludicrous, yet some teachers seem to expect it. It would save both students and teachers a lot of grief if we students knew exactly how long we have to wait before going to check our P.O. boxes for mail for the fourth time that day.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Baby Sack

I see some relatively strange things on the street when I'm at home, home being in a city. People wearing period costumes, aggressive singing hobos, general crazies who mutter to themselves. But none of this compares to the strange thing that has increasing prominence in both small towns and big cities: baby sacks. Gone, apparently, are the days of strollers and walking your baby down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace. You can't fit a stroller into a dressing room, it blocks aisles in little boutiques, and they're quite generally cumbersome. After all, you need your hands free. Thus, parents have chosen, instead, to rock it caveman style and carry the babies in sacks. This is about one step up from a cloth slung over your shoulder and tied behind your back, which, after I wrote this sentence, I realized is called a sling. Anyway...

The babies always have mildly disgruntled looks on their faces. I can't figure out whether this stems from the shame of being treated like a sack of potatoes or that their chins are being shoved up by the cloth harness with rainbow dinosaurs on it. And these babies are almost always wearing too-cute hats. There are two varieties of baby sack: the front baby sack and the back baby sack. Both are equally amusing, though in different ways.

The back baby sack has definite high points. Chief among them is that for the proximity that the parent has to the baby, they have no actual face time. The baby has acquired what is the equivalent to one of those six unfortunate seats on the subway that face the wrong way and make people sick. The baby sits, bottom lip protruding, bouncing a bit with each step the parent takes. His face says, "Why, God, WHY? My parents are the kind of people who will upgrade me to the toddler leash as soon as I can walk." My second favorite part of this is how many fathers seem to favor the back baby sack. You can't really feel like a man while holding a baby out in front, I suppose, but when you put the baby on your back it's like you don't know it's there, or it snuck up on you and attached itself to your back.

The front baby sack seems to be the preferred sack of mothers. It has two varieties within itself. The first is the "you will stare at my face for hours, small, adorable baby, and we will BOND, and you will feel LOVED by your mother, and smart because of all the Mozart I played to you in the womb" where the baby is stomach to chest with the mother. The second kind is the "yes, my baby is the best, most adorable baby in the world, feel free to shower much cooing upon her." The baby will attempt a few feeble kicks, perhaps a desperate attempt to escape and roam free, or at least get a comfortable seat.

You remember those diaper-shaped swings that you only fit into for about 6 months after acquiring the ability to walk? And how mildly uncomfortable they were? Yeah, picture riding in that for hours, and you have the baby sack. I see it as only the first in a long series of things that parents do that will inadvertently embarrass their children later on. Hey, remember those two years of your life when I carried you on my back like we were a chimpanzee family? No, well I have pictures, and wouldn't your boyfriend like to see?

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Skim Milk

Skim milk is an abomination. I grew up as one of the few children who truly enjoyed milk. I loved the thickness of it, the strange, non-flavor it had. My parents never had to force it down my throat, unlike cauliflower, which is a disgrace to the name of vegetables. I grew up luxuriating in the fatty 2% milk that my parents kept in the house. We only didn't drink whole milk because the knowledge that my parents preferred whole milk sent their physicians into cardiac arrest. After my increasing appreciation of sugar and subsequent weight gain (nothing nearly as bad as the obese kids who can't walk up stairs without wheezing and stopping halfway), my pediatrician moved me to 1% milk. I begrudgingly complied, and still drink 1% milk, but I refuse to drink that disgusting watery liquid they try to pass of as milk. I never appreciated until an older age that milk, like people, is diverse. Milk, however, unlike people, can come in far inferior quality. Case in point: skim milk.

When I came to boarding school, I had options in my milk, skim and 1%. They provided us with skim milk to counteract the dangerous potential for a freshman fifteen. It was unfortunately not enough for many, because they still gave us access to frozen yogurt, daily pizza offerings, grilled cheese sandwiches, and juices with -18% natural ingredients. But I digress. I asked my friend to get me milk while she was up, and she brought back milk. I ate a bite of my chocolate cake and sipped the milk. I chewed, thoughtfully, realizing something was amiss. The milk tasted bad, and not in a something's rotten in the state of Dairyland sort of way. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong, until I realized it was like I had just dirty, scum-filled water.
"What kind of milk did you get me?" I asked.
"Skim."

My expression of horror amused them. I had never drunk skim milk before, and I realized suddenly that many of the people I knew drank it on a regular basis. Not only did they drink this swill, they ENJOYED it. My disgust was palpable. After that incident, there was a period where my friends would be cruel and bring me skim milk whenever I asked them to get me milk. Thankfully, that period has passed. And now I can tell the difference in color between the milks, too; skim milk is a sickly, yellow color.

In short, whole milk only has about 4% fat to skim's >1%, so there really isn't that much difference. Why do you make yourself like a watered down version of true joy when you could be happy and still be skinny? Life's too short to drink skim milk.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Search Engine

Perhaps I spend too much time on the internet, but I increasingly wish that my life had some of its conveniences (though NOT its slang). Take, for example, blocking on the instant messenger friends list. Person you don't want to talk to or know you're around? No problem, just block them. I would utilize this same principle to block people I have no desire to see. That annoying kid in class who talks so much nothing that he creates a black hole? No problem, just life block him. That girl you see on campus every day but you don't know her name, and it bothers you every time? Do the same.

You could ward off many illnesses in the same way that your computer (although not necessarily if it's a PC...ZING!) does. No more concerns about figuring out which strain of flu is going to sweep the nation, just subscribe to a virus protector. You could wander safely through this dangerous, germ/virus/whatever-illnesses-we-fear-ridden world knowing that we are updated to be protected from the newest dangers every Tuesday.

When you were shopping in a department store and desperately needed to find something specific, you could sort by color, silhouette, designer, etc. For example, this weekend I needed to find a white dress, quite possibly the most difficult thing to find. If I could have just sorted the department store by color, I would have procured a white dress much more easily.

Perhaps all of this is frivolous and I desire it only due to laziness; but laziness has its place in the world, and that place is with me.

And dammit, where is my search engine? I can't find my sunglasses.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Slang

I know most people in my country speak English, so why do they insist on hurting me by ignoring this ability? I know that languages are constantly evolving, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm one of those people who says "whom" when she remembers to, but usually doesn't make the effort, after all. But there are some ways that I language can change that will lead to its being killed by a temperature or stronger, ravening tiger languages. I have therefore created a top five slang words that should be destroyed immediately. There is a top five slang words that are okay immediately following.

Top Five Slang Words That Inspire Homocidal Thoughts:

1. OMG, LOL, BRB in normal conversation. You're not on the internet, and once you've started talking, you might as well go the extra mile and just say, I'll be right back. It's not that much slower. I'm especially distraught when people say "LOL" because I'm sitting right in front of you, and I know you're not laughing. I can appreciate that you're not necessarily laughing when you type "LOL" in an AIM conversation, but it comes off as bizarre and terrible when introduced to speaking.
2. BTdubs. This one has emerged on my campus recently as a substitute for "by the way." Worse than any of my pet peeves in number one, it is a bastard of already bastardized English, "BTW." Somehow even a w has become too complicated to manage, so we've taken it to a whole new level of laziness, replacing "W" with "dubs." I just don't understand.
3. Obvi! Another shortening, this time of "obviously." No one has ever come away from saying "obvi" sounding intelligent. It inspires images of gum-smacking, hair-twirling girls who have no qualms about saying, "Oh my god!" but can't be bothered, so they say, "OMG."
4. N*gga. I don't care if people think they're empowering themselves by making an evil word a slang word, trying to make it something silly. Okay, I get what you're trying to do, but we've done all we can with it. It's time to stop calling each other "n*gga," because now it's not an in your face kind of thing, it's becoming a socially acceptable thing. We're moving backwards, so let the word die.
5. Um, like. I'm not particularly bothered by the use of the world "like" or your not knowing what to say. But the combination is unbearable. It leaves the impression that not only are you inarticulate, you also don't know what words you want to use of the few at your disposal. Just take your time sorting your thoughts and trust that people will take the time to listen.

Five Slang Words That Are Welcome:
1. WTF? Now, I know people may think me hypocritical for liking this letter substitute for "What the fuck?" but not "OMG" or "BRB." My simple reasoning for this one is that it looks really good on t-shirts. Every time I see it on a t-shirt, I crack up. It's probably because of this video; I always think of an Australian going, "WTF, mate?!"
2. Asshat. Someone who has his head so far up his ass that he wears it as a hat. Brilliantly graphic, descriptive, and accurate of many people, if only one intellectual step up from "poophead."
3. BFF. I know most people beyond the age of eleven don't use "best friends forever" but that phrase was one of the shining moments in the otherwise abysmal pubescent stage. It inspires thoughts of purple body glitter sticks, orange-scented body sprays, scrunchies and Sketchers. Most important, however, was the BFF necklace that you could buy that was shaped like a heart, and each person in the BFF partnership got one side of it.
4. Wicked. I knew I was in New England when a billboard said, "Campbell's Soup: it's wicked good." Brilliant! Perhaps it's not the height of cool in the rest of America, but "wicked" gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
5. Fugly. I'm sometimes a fan of the hybrid words, like humongous, that encompass a feeling that neither word by itself could. There was a hole in my life before I learned the word "fugly." There are things in this world that are not just ugly, not just really ugly, but unbelievably ugly. Fucking ugly, in fact, inspiring an initial reaction of "Fuck!" Fugly has really helped me to express my feelings.

So mote it be.

Friday, May 05, 2006

French Onion Soup

I love French onion soup, and I eat it at every possible opportunity. My family is not a soup-inclined family, so I never tasted it until my junior year, when the dining served it and I finally noticed. I tasted it with cheese and croutons, and I've been addicted ever since. The dining hall copped out yesterday, though, and listed the soup as "Chef's Choice" rather than French onion; it never occurs to me to check out what the soup is. So, when my friend sat down with a hot bowl of French onion soup, I immediately squealed and made a dash for the soup pot.

I had already eaten much of my dinner, so I didn't think I had room for a big bowl. I picked up one of the small bowls and brought it to the pot. I brought the ladle out of the steaming soup, and looked in horror at its large size. I would have to be careful getting the soup in the bowl. I tipped the ladle, and immediately poured boiling soup in the bowl, but also on my hand. I shrieked and immediately let go of the bowl. I looked on in surprise as the bowl dropped into the pot with a plop. It just seemed so out of the realm of possibility that I would lose the bowl in the pot of soup.

I glanced around. No one had seen. I stood in front of the pot, fishing around, trying to get the bowl into the ladle and extract the bowl. After about two minutes of angry stirring, I finally succeeded. I put the bowl in a larger bowl on the counter and smiled in triumph. When I looked up, however, one of the dining hall staff was staring at me with a look on her face that clearly said, "FREAK." I took a big bowl of onion soup, like I should have in the beginning, and gave myself extra cheese to console myself.

What you should learn from this story: yes, you can get first-degree burns from soup. And if something seems like a bad idea, you're probably right.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Reality Television

In my dreams, I am a reality television star. I don't meant that it's one of my life goals, I mean that it's literally what I've been dreaming about recently. My dreams have always been what would normally be nightmarish, but without the element of fear. I feel that my dreams are strangely prophetic or perceptive in a way that I am not while I'm awake.

For example, when I was eleven, with no conscious understanding of insurance, I had a dream that I built a house on a cliff. Every once in a while, my house would fall off a cliff. I would be sitting in the house with a family that definitely wasn't mine, but I lived with anyway. I would feel the house tip, see all the furniture going to the ceiling, and see the house hitting the ground. Then the house would warp itself back up to the top of the cliff in pristine condition, and someone would come by to sell us insurance. Repeat this until infinity, and that was my recurring dream from that age. I didn't understand it then, but my dream was a prophetic metaphor for puberty. You keep encountering pitfalls like hair in unexpected places, awkward growth in feet and height, acne, and all the while someone is trying to sell you something from Limited, Too and the Disney Channel.

But what I usually dream about nowadays is not insurance, but myself as a reality television star. I'm usually on the Real World Season XXI in Armpittsburgh, or somewhere like that. In the beginning, I think I'm the only even moderately sane person in the house. Everyone's either crying, having sex in the hot tub, or crying and having sex in the hob tub. But suddenly I'm hooking up with that hot guy in the house whom everyone passively hates, except for the one girl with past problems who hates everyone and likes to tell them so. And it all spirals out of control until I'm walking around naked all the time because I don't want what I'm doing to appear on television. And I'm flipping the bird next to my face at all times so they won't want to use the footage, given that half of my face is blurred out. Then there are long periods between barfights where we just SIT there in the house, not doing much of anything, too bored to even get up enough energy to think about being bored. Towards the end, I think, "Did I really take off a year from college to do this?"

Or I'm on American Idol. I sing like no one's ever heard before the judges, and then pull a sweet dancing move so that they'll remember me. I charm them, and then I charm the TV audience, too. And I stand through that agonizing two-hour season finale while the votes come in on who should be the winner. My feet are cramping, I'm distraught, but I win! And it feels great. But for some reason I am a man.

My favorite, however, is the one where I'm on this sort of Amazing Race/Survivor combination show. We have to travel from deserted, tropical island to deserted, tropical island, eating rats and tanning and bitching. I form an alliance with a man who wrote a song about the show to get on it, but I discover that it was an emo song and break it off. About a month into it, we get to another island, where I am crushed by a manatee when I get in its way as it attempts to get back into the water. And it turns out that the guy whom I had formed a brief alliance with had enraged the normally gentle manatee and set it on my path in an attempt to injure me, therefore knocking off his prime competition. My first dream-dead thought is, "What an asshat." And I realize distantly that I died on reality television. It occurs to me that I'm watching my dead body on the sand, the crews swarming around it.

I don't know what those dreams mean, but I'm sure it's something deep. Being prophetic is difficult work.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

DVDs

DVDs are yet another piece of technology that have not lived up to expectations. DVDs were supposed to perform magic, take my viewing pleasure to an entirely new level. They would make the picture quality better, I would never have to rewind them, and I could skip to my favorite scenes with mere presses of a button. And I didn't have to wait until the end of the movie to see the cool extra features. Finally, they wouldn't be as bulky and easy to destroy as VHS tapes.

Well, the picture quality is better, and I don't have to rewind them (and we've gotten to the point where few people I interact with are unaware of this), and I can skip to my favorite scenes. Unfortunately, there is a flaw in DVDs' magic: they still crap out, just like VHS tapes used to. Increasingly, new DVDs will have flaws that cause strange phenomena while I'm watching my movies.

For example, the movie will stop, always with an actor caught in the most awkward facial expression. The room tenses collectively, hoping that no one will have to get off her ass and kick or wipe something. Slowly, the scene begins moving, but all of a sudden everything is broken into 100 colored boxes that shift color and move slowly as the scene sputters and the actors slowly attempt to speak and move their heads. The eyes of actors on the screen break into boxes, move up, grow gigantic and start popping with excruciating slowness out of foreheads for no explainable reason. Suddenly my favorite movie has become abstract modern art, some sort of updated, pixelated Picasso wonderland. The TV emits a low, sputtering whine as parts of dialogue are attempted, snipped, and elongated to unrecognizable levels.

Finally, after thirty seconds of hoping time will make the movie miraculously return to its glory, someone gets up to wipe the DVD. One should note that this is necessary because once the DVD starts spazzing out, it's impossible to just skip to the next scene. She glances down. The DVD is unscratched, and in fact in pristine condition. So why the hell doesn't it work? She pops it back in. Sometimes it works, and sometimes the movie stops in the exact same place. After ten minutes, we finally get to the next scene of the movie. Unfortunately, DVDs have been manufactured to break only at crucial points in the storyline. We gape, aghast, as the married man starts canoodling with the cute waitress he met in the beginning of the movie. Oh wait, he's not married, he got DIVORCED in the scene we missed. I didn't catch that, I was too busy watching the wife's mouth drift down to her sternum and explode in a shower of large pixels. Oy vey.

I've decided that because new DVDs sometimes pull modern art trick, it's not always my fault when it breaks. My older DVDs are still going strong and have never exhibited any of the problems the newer ones do. I don't know if production has gotten sloppier or cheaper or what, but if it's a clever scheme to get me to purchase the same movie more than once, it's not going to work. I'm onto your tricks, don't think you fool me.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Rain

I awoke this morning to a serious dilemma. I looked out my window and discovered that it was raining. New England is a crazy region of the country, and very rarely do I ever actually have to dress for rain. Usually it stays sunny and warm during the spring, only to suddenly turn bleak, cold and rainy in the fifteen minutes you spend indoors. This leaves me wearing shorts and flip-flops and dashing across campus in a futile effort to not drown, my flip-flops almost slipping off the entire time. To actually prepare for venturing out into rainy weather, however, is almost beyond my capabilities at this point.

Do I wear pants? I can't, because then the bottom of the pantleg inevitably gets wet. And then I'm weighed down and gradually my pants are wet up to the knee. And also, I have very cute, plaid rainboots that I wish for the world to see. But I can't wear a skirt because it's only 45 degrees out, and tights only do so much. This leaves me with only rainboots on the bottom of my body, and I can't go to class like that. It would cause quite a stir. One morning I tried rolling up my pants to just above the top of the boots, but I felt like a doofus the entire day. When I actually have a choice about how I will attire myself to go out into the rain, the stress is almost too much. And you can't complain to New Englanders, either, because then they ask why you didn't dress more appropriately.

For today, I will try yet another unsatisfactory combination: long spandex and a skirt. It may not be fashion-forward, but neither are Uggs, and people still get away with those. Perhaps I will go puddle-jumping later to console myself about this tragedy.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Scandalous Pants

In my sophomore year, a strange phenomenon suddenly appeared. I glanced down at my jeans during class one day and discovered that I had rubbed down the denim on the inner thigh of my right leg by walking so that a hole had formed. Within days, a similar hole had appeared on the left leg. Given that the inner thighs of my pants are not normally exposed to the public, I continued to wear the pants. Unfortunately, the holes expanded until the edges of them were visible from the back. I was forced to cut the pants and make them into a skirt.

The phenomenon suddenly began appearing in all the pairs of jeans I owned. In my junior year, it happened with my newest favorite pair of jeans. Not willing to go the skirt route and not wishing to throw out the pants, I decided that I would just wear them around. I call them The Scandalous Pants. I tried to patch them with t-shirt material, but I didn't do a good enough job sewing them, and so I resigned myself to the fact that my jeans would just be scandalous pants. The girls in my dorm would gasp whenever they caught sight of them. "Meredith, are you seriously wearing those?" There is a half gleeful, half horrified feeling about The Scandalous Pants among my peers.

The strangest thing about The Scandalous Pants is that once people see them, they tell me that their jeans begin doing the same thing. It has never happened to them before, but it seems to be the pants equivalent of yawning. As soon as one person yawns, you feel compelled to yawn, the power of suggestion being too strong. And when pants feel the tremendous power of The scandalous Pants, they too rip along the inner thigh. By now, The Scandalous Pants are almost infamous.

Perhaps I am not appropriately modest, but I don't know if I can get around that. I don't have qualms about many things that I, as a girl, should have qualms about. There is something liberating about feeling a little risque and waltzing around with pants that would definitely never get out of the front door if I lived at home. It's not that I can't afford new pants or want to be a ho, it's just that I believe you should wear pants until they rot off your body. That's when they get just to the right level of comfort, right before they dissolve. I like comfort and scandal.

If I were a superhero (aside from Pedestrian Girl), my outfit of choice would be The Scandalous Pants and a pseudo-clever t-shirt that says something like "Drink Apple Juice. O.J. will kill you," with a picture of O.J. Simpson on it.