Something Shiny!

Fair warning: this might turn into a rant on Food Culture, The Death Of. At the grocery store last night, I picked up a few bars of Lindt dark chocolate (80%). As the checker rang them up, she looked at them quizzically and said, “what are you going to do with those?” I told her I planned to make brownies with them. The look of confusion on her face was something otherworldly. She seemed to not believe me. I laughed and joked that I should have said I was going to eat all of the chocolate myself. She chuckled nervously and said, “yeah, but isn’t that like eating [wait for it] uncooked chocolate?” Uncooked chocolate. Uncooked chocolate? Give me a minute while I weep for how little upcoming generations know about baking and cooking. What are these people eating? McDonalds? Frozen dinners? I digress. While I puzzled over what she meant by uncooked chocolate, it became clear that she was referring to Baker’s chocolate. I explained that no, dark chocolate isn’t the same as Baker’s chocolate and that it’s perfectly fine to eat. She nodded, but she clearly thought that my brownies were going to taste like ass. She probably also wondered why I wasn’t just going to use a boxed mix. Because isn’t that where brownies come from? Hold me.

Talking to John the other day about someone who’s having a hard time finding a decent house to buy, I mentioned that all of the houses they’d looked at so far were real melons. “Melons?” “Yeah, melons. You know– the houses so far have been real duds.” “You mean lemons, then?” “Oh. Yeah.” What can I say? All of the letters were there, I just had them in the wrong order. AM SMART.

In the lobby, a tutor is helping a coed learn Trigonometry. I hear snippets of their (one-sided) conversation, but not more than that. “See, if it’s on the inside… then if it’s on the outside…”. His charge is staring off into space. After ten minutes, he has her work a problem by herself. Across the room, a guy with a grating, nasally voice is having a conversation for all the world to hear. He doesn’t seem to realize that there are twenty other people in the lobby, some of whom might not want to hear about what he did all day. “Yeah, and then I took a nap at about 11:30. Then I went to the gym. Then I showered and took another nap.” I silently hope that his sleep schedule isn’t interfering with his studies. Two guys studying next to me audibly hope that he shuts up soon. Meanwhile, the coed has finished her trig problem. It’s unclear if she was successful. Her tutor asks her if she has any questions, and when she doesn’t, he fires off a few of his own. She’s nodding her head, but it’s debatable that she’s taking in anything. Just as I’m contemplating whether or not I should move to a quieter area (though I’d miss the coed-trig tutor saga), Nasal Guy makes another phone call. Time to relocate.