Tuesday, December 2, 2008

what do you call cheese that's not yours?

Surprise, surprise: I like when I can extract meaning from things that otherwise appear to be innocuous or silly or unimportant. This is why when three notable yet fundamentally unimportant things happened to me over the Thanksgiving holiday (ha, is it sad I can't type that without thinking of that bizarre house-swap Cameron Diaz/Kate Winslet movie?), I couldn't shake the feeling that I was missing something, that there was some greater puzzle being constructed around me that I couldn't quite follow.

INCIDENT #1: Feeling surprisingly hungry on Wednesday night after a hearty dinner of take-out Italian food, I was transfixed by the Nacho Cheese Doritos staring at me though the vending machine glass. I WANT YOU, I thought to myself, thinking about the Doritos. My two brothers were yards ahead of me in our hotel lobby, paying no attention to my actions; I acted impulsively, whipped out my wallet and went for it. I put my dollar into the machine... only to become enveloped in all-consuming rage when the heavenly chips inexplicably got stuck in the machine (see picture). I am not kidding when I tell you that I pounded this vending machine harder than I have ever hit anything or anyone before (not saying much, but still...). I rammed into the vending machine with all of my might and - sort of like would happen in a scene from a really bad sitcom - the chips didn't budge. For the rest of our hotel stay, every time I walked past the vending machine, the suspended Doritos taunted me, like that kid in middle school you wished you could be friends with but was always somehow always out of reach.

INCIDENT #2: The next morning, mid-shower, I noticed that the shower curtains in our hotel room (see picture) were apparently designed by an 8-year-old who had just received a new box of crayons from her grandmother. WTF.

INCIDENT #3: My 9-year-old cousin was sitting on my lap on Thursday afternoon and I was reading him some "Calvin & Hobbes" comics (his new obsession). At one point in one of the strips, someone (I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was either Calvin or Hobbes) says the word "popularity."

"What does 'popularity' mean?" Jack asked.
"'Popularity' is 'how cool you are,'" I responded automatically.

My brother Sam, ever the Role Model, interjected right away with bemusement and mock-horror. "Are you serious??" he asked/berated me, "You are telling a 9-year-old that popularity is based on how cool he is??!?!?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, defensively, rationalizing my definition as I went, "I mean, isn't that how it is? I'm just preparing him for what's to come, I guess."

This "argument" went back and forth between my brother and me for about a minute, and eventually morphed into an ongoing joke that strangely lasted for the next few days. Perhaps my "popularity" convo with Jack will be one of those childhood moments he somehow remembers really vividly when he is in his teens and he'll write some personal essay about it in 10th grade. Or maybe he wasn't even paying attention. Perhaps this all just indicates that I am a shallow person. Or maybe the takeaway is really just that I am not good at talking euphemistically to young children.

So there we have it, friends. Doritos, a shower curtain, a meditation on "popularity." Perhaps there is some greater meaning to be had from these disparate and ambiguous tales. Or maybe, as I sometimes worry is too often the case, I was simply paying too much attention.

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