Acheiving Inner (Intestinal) Harmony
Why does Coke go so well with greasy food? Is it because that’s the liquid people use to remove car battery corrosion?
There’s nothing more gastrointestinally awesome, to me, than pizza followed by a can of diet cola. (Or, as some of you so charmingly call it, brown pop.)
I thought, this morning, that I could eat cheesy eggs and two smoked sausages for breakfast. Instead, I ate the cheese off my eggs and then one sausage, and then gave my other sausage to a coworker.
The sausage was like a fiery dragon within me. Diet Coke, I realized, would be my knight in shining armor.
This sounds like one of those clever embedded blog ads, I know. But it isn’t. You know it isn’t, because I didn’t link to Coke’s web site, and because I called it battery corrosion cleaner.
I will never put secret ads on this blog, you guys. At the same time, however, I see no reason to hide my reoccurring Diet Coke addiction. I used to sneer at people who ordered it in restaurants. But now, I understand. Its chemical taste and separate chemical aftertaste get to you, after a while. You start to appreciate it like fine red wine.
Houston’s Big News Today
“The big story this morning… The weather!” says the morning radio newsperson. Yes, the weather. Because it’s been 76 or 82 degrees all month, and today we’re getting a “blue Norther” and they promise the temperature will drop to 40 by afternoon rush hour.
Oh my god! Forty degrees! Here is the conversation taking place all around me.
“Did you bring your coat today?”
“Yes!”
“I didn’t.”
“What? Oh my god! It’s gonna be 40 degrees! It’s already 37 in San Antonio!”
“I know. [Sighs.] But I’m leaving at lunch today for a doctor’s appointment, then going home. I think I can make it. If not, I can always stop at Target and buy a coat, I guess. If I get there in time…”
“Godspeed to you, then. Godspeed!”
Because that’s how dramatic we like to get about cold weather around here. Especially now that it’s been so (slightly) unseasonably warm for so long.
Gift Tree!
They finally put up the gift tree in our lobby, a week or two after the xmas decorations. I was kind of scared they weren’t going to do it this year, after all, but they came through. I saw it yesterday on my way home, then – don’t think I’m smurfy, but – woke up this morning excited to come back to work. I showed up early so I could have time to read every single effing tag.
You know how some people get off on reading Post Secret or Craiglist’s Missed Connections? Well, that’s how I get off on reading the gift tree wish tags.
I took a few pictures of them, but I’m not sure it’s right to post them on my Flickr, since they used the kids’ full names. If I have time to blot out their last names, I’ll post them later tonight.
This year I noticed they shifted from elementary-age kids to Kinder and Pre-K, ages 6 and below. They put the kids’ names, ages, teachers’ names, and 3 gift choices each. For the second year in a row, it was obvious that they asked the kids to keep the costs low. There were no requests for I-Pods or bikes. Also, this year it seemed like someone got after the kids to ask for more “educational” things. Almost everyone asked for books and/or magnets and/or science lab stuff. I mean, maybe books are just the hot item this year, all of a sudden, but I doubt it. I’m not dumb.
Most of the kids’ tags were filled out by adults, obviously. Some, as usual, were in Spanish. One was in Spanglish – someone wanted “una muneca de beybey con mamila.” Mamila was the one word I didn’t know. Is that a bottle or a pacifier?
Some of them had “gift certificate” (or variations on that spelling) for the first choice. Some only had two choices filled. The most popular requests this year were dolls (evenly divided between Barbies and Bratz), Legos, and lucha libre items. One girl wanted a “Hello Kitty mouse for computer.” You go, little girl.
My favorite request was from a six-year-old boy who apparently wrote the tag himself. This is what he wanted:
1. SWORD
2. POWER RANJR (Power Ranger.)
3. LEGOS
I like a man who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to ask for it in all caps. And I like that the teacher had to edit his tag, just in case the adults working in my building couldn’t make the intuitive leap from Ranjr to Ranger. (Good thinking, lady.)
Mostly, though, I just like little kids and the crazy stuff they come up with. Earlier this month they had coloring contest entries posted in the lobby. Now we have the gift tree. I swear, if they could come up with a new child-created display every other week (like essays or project boards), then I would look forward to coming to work every single day.
