Eggs should be cooked slow. When are we are all going to realize this? I am tired of gnawing on people's rubbery deviled eggs at Easter get-togethers, and hearing them say, “Oh, they're so easy to do. I just leave them boiling on the stove, for 20, 25 minutes, whatever. The shells come right off.” No. You bring them to a boil, then turn the heat off immediately and leave them for 12 minutes, 15 tops if they are large and grocery-store bought. The organic, rock hen eggs I get from Fisher Farm only need 12 minutes. They come out soft and velvety. Same with scrambled or fried. Cook on the lowest heat possible. Have patience with your eggs!
People need to stop being so chirpy in emails and written announcements. All those exclamation points make me feel like I'm being shouted at all the time. The head of a local school group I am a part of simply cannot go a full paragraph without a minimum of seven exclamation points. As I read her exuberant updates of how the book fair or teacher appreciation lunch went, all I picture is her face stricken with an ear-to-ear smile, eyebrows arched to her hairline, eyes wide with the unbelievable sunshine of our school family. Emoticons also get on my nerves—especially the ones used to ensure someone you're “just kidding.” If you can't express your meaning with words, then take responsibility for it—don't fall back on little smiley faces. I enjoy droll wit and sarcasm, and it's actually entertaining to leave people wondering. And since when did a little mysterious facetiousness hurt our relationships? It keep things interesting. Perhaps emoticons bother me because they are a descendant of the email itself. I don't think I would mind if someone doodled a face on a hand-written letter to me. But back when I exchanged snail-mail letters frequently, I don't remember a lot of little smiley faces in them. They just weren't necessary. It's the hurried pace of email exchange that seem to require them. I guess I'm still a luddite at heart, grudgingly toiling away at the screen every day, loving its convenience but missing the breather we used to get between communications. Time between letters gave us pause, and perhaps we chose our words more carefully too.
Can we please end the “adolescent jeans with the crotch hanging halfway down to the knees and the boxers showing” fad? Hasn't it been long enough? I am not a fashion policer, and I don't think it's an issue of modesty. It's just absurd and makes me seriously ponder the state of mind of some of our teenagers. But I'm sure that makes me sound rather ancient. Other teenagers probably don't have much of an opinion; those guys that shuffle around with jeans 3 sizes too big are just from another fashion, or social clique. They're harmless. And they are; but for some reason, I just want to move on. Skinny jeans are pretty ridiculous too, for that matter. Can't we settle on something in between? We can all pronounce our individuality with brand, or embellishments. I'm partial to Levis myself. My little girls love glittery things on their jeans; butterflies and flowers are big, and peace signs seem to be making a comeback.
Scent pollution is a serious problem. I applaud the doctor's offices that request that patients refrain from wearing perfume when they come to appointments. My husband's office has also banned heavy scent from the workplace. Can we ban it everywhere? The other day at the gym I was assaulted by the body spray from a fellow exerciser when she alighted on the machine next to mine. Instant headache for me and it ruined my whole workout. Another time, my husband and I took a cross-country flight that also carried the Don Juan of Drakkar Noir. We both had full-fledged sneezing attacks all the way to Anchorage. Fellow passengers were leaning away from us fearing we had the flu. If you shower pretty regularly, maybe use a little essential oil behind the ears, you should be all set. Let your natural scent waft out. It's amazing we as a species persist if pheromones are supposed to be major players in opposite sex attraction—how does anyone smell the love hormones under all those chemicals?
Excessive packaging is an even more serious problem. I can't stand the big plastic containers that house salad mix and strawberries. But those are the best deals and I grudgingly purchase them from time to time, wishing for less bulky alternatives. Yes, the plastic containers can be recycled in some places, but not all; it would be better not to use them in the first place. So many of our products come over-packaged. Laundry detergent and dish soap come in heavy plastic bottles when they could be sold in those plastic sleeves. Doggie bags from restaurants are handed to you not in simple foil and paper, but in a styrofoam clamshell often 3 sizes too big for your leftovers. Many children's toys are encased in shiny boxes and rendered immobile with metal and plastic ties, tape and glue. Does the Fisher Price Fun Castle really need to be packaged to sustain a space shuttle mission? Everything from batteries to grocery store sushi is encased in plastic tubs—are biodegradable paper containers really that much more expensive to produce? It's been a while since I read up on the cradle-to-grave environmental cost of various containers—the ecological cost of production, recycling or landfilling. But paper-made containers are for some reason less offensive to my senses. They just seem more natural, less processed. I'm sure it's mostly of matter of economic cost for most package manufacturers. Some companies are changing packaging, I know. It's just not happening fast enough for me. I mean, am I truly expected to live a full life without those 3 pounds of strawberries and the Fun Castle?
People need to stop being so judgmental. A friend of mine told me this story the other day. My friend was at a her friend Claire's house, and they were talking about their kids. Claire's young daughter chimed in, “People that stop at two are just quitters,” referring to the number of kids people have. Claire just smiled at her daughter's clever parroting, and agreed. My friend was simply speechless; she is a mother of two shining young boys, and has had two miscarriages recently. Claire, a mother of three, knows every detail of the miscarriages. What are people thinking in moments like this? I have opinions about the number of children we have and the reasons why we have them, but this is an issue that should not be treated with casual judgmental barbs. It is thorny and fraught with personal and political issues. I have always loved that saying about honey going down better than vinegar. If you really want someone to listen to you, be kind. Talk less. Then when you do say something, people might just stop and listen. Regarding this matter of eggs—the number you choose or are able to fertilize (or the temperature you choose to boil at): all I have to say is: slow down, have patience, and go easy on your fellow beings.
this post is dedicated to cindy, whose opinion essay inspired me to write one like it--thank you cindy.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you guys are reading each other's things and inspiring each other--that's important but I can't mandate it without making it less important, if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteA piece like this is designed to be very much a performance piece. Your audience pictures you stalking around a stage doing stand-up, enlisting your audience. It has to be a little over-the-top.
But, Jennifer, you're just too darned reasonable and nice a person: you start out here in high dudgeon but too quickly devolve into a more domesticated, thoughtful outrage, barely outrage at all, almost kindly--so the tone trends down rather than reaching a crescendo.
You jump right in with the idiocy of the fast-egg cookers--definitely on track there (do I dare to use an exclamation point after that sentence? Perhaps not today.... And no smileyfaces, for you, Ms Student, not if you don't appreciate them [tempted to put in another exclamation point--but no no no....] [Note to self: thank god, she is not taking off after ellipses and dashes, two of my besetting sins, today.])
So, graf 2, as you can see from my previous graf also sank its hooks into me. But after those first two grafs, I think you lose your way, particularly in graf 5--I'm always worried when a writer unconsciously starts using 'you' instead of the first person. 3/4/5, though, as always well-written, were predictable and low-energy.
Last graf is different altogether; it belongs in a more serious venue. I appreciate the cleverness of the eggs in the beginning and the eggs in the end, but a child's rudeness and the mother's casual cruelty or cluelessness is too serious and sad to share space with badly-boiled eggs.
How about a smiley face now to keep everything happyhappy?
ok, you obviously like cindy more than me. (i refuse to insert the expected emoticon here.)
ReplyDeletelow energy! i didn't picture myself doing stand-up with this, rather more as andy rooney giving his two cents at the end of 60 minutes...i suppose that changes everything, doesn't it?
darn it all, and i spent at least an hour writing this. so i can salvage about 1/3, only the first two rants that were ranty enough? i can somewhat see that--but i thought the third and fourth grafs weren't getting that soft or kindly. i do see your point for grafs 5 and 6--they were getting on the serious side, and i guess my attempt at humor on the excessive packaging topic wasn't quite enough. but are these fixable; is it a matter of tone or topic?
i'm already re-writing the last graf, with an altogether different subject, because i do think that subject just doesn't fit.
(and btw, i LOVE ellipses and dashes!!!)
Yes, you are definitely more Andy Rooney than standup, but wouldn't you rather be standup?
ReplyDeleteStalking around a smoky stage, silencing all hecklers, swigging from a glass holding who knows what, audience roaring with you, holding forth extempore and on a wicked roll--or would you prefer to be in a sterile tv studio looking at the red light on a camera and reading a teleprompter?
Just not nasty enough for a rant--if you'd said you could barely keep yourself from pantsing some young punk or puking on the airplane guy with the cologne, but, no, you suffer in silence and in the case of the cologne wound up being the sneezy villain on the 747 instead of the blame going where it deserved.
Fixable? That's for you to say. For a piece like this topic leads directly to tone. Some topics goose you and put you in a state where the tone erupts in the reader's face. See grafs 1 & 2 for examples.
The other topics didn't do that in my opinion, but there's no intrinsic reason they couldn't--except for miscarriage. That won't work for a rant or for an example of rudeness.
Thanks for the nod, Jennifer. Notice I didn't add a smiley face? Just finished reading your post and all the comments. I liked the idea behind your piece, Jennifer. It's set up to give vent to the daily annoyances we all choke on at times. I especially enjoyed the paragraph on boys and their boxer-butts; some trends really do need to fade away. I can appreciate what John says about continuing with barb-worthy topics as well as your Andy Rooney style. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this.
ReplyDelete