Cream and Sugar?

Remember when we chose our friends according to whether they liked the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC? Barbies or Pollypockets, Furbies or Giga Pets? These preferences were not inconsequential, the answers spelling either the doom or success of your friendship. Now that we are a little older, there is just as important a compatibility test for today’s twenty-somethings, and that is whether you favor real or fake sugar. (Fake sugar being Splenda, because no one likes any of that other crap).

Now we all know that Splenda “causes cancer.” But it’s so hard to care about that when it makes my Starbucks latte go from an A to an A+ on the Richter scale of close to godliness. And besides, the science behind that has yet to be fully embraced by us humble bourgeois, so until I see the hard facts, I will embrace my sparkling little yellow packets of happiness.

Plus, real talk: it takes like four times the amount of real sugar to make something nearly as sweet and delicious as one little innocent packet of Splenda. So in the rat race of sugar choices, I think I’m winning.

But apparently, fake sugar is not en vogue. Fake sugar shows that you do not care about your health, are not savvy about the latest scientific research, that you are a heathen that does not read the New York Times, drive a Prius or care about the rainforests.

Let’s be adult about this. I’m sure we can find some common ground upon which to build a friendship other than our sweetener preferences. But a word to those who look down upon my fake sugar choices: stop holding mini interventions every time we hit the coffee bar. I respect your choice to eat undelicious, bland, normal sugar, but I can’t be friends with someone who does the eyebrow raise when I pour myself a little coffee with my cream and Splenda.

Oh and just for the record? Lance Bass was my boy. 

Fumble on the Play

I’m not going to pretend like I understand sports. Or even like them. (Tetherball being the only exception) But what keeps me entertained when I watch a football game are the interviews, and the commentators. Because both of them have absolutely nothing to say.

A perky blonde shoves a microphone into the face of a sweaty, dejected quarterback whose game plan just went to hell in a hand basket: “What’s your plan for making a comeback in the next quarter?” “Um, well, we just need to, uh, pull together, and uh, get the ball back.”

I can give the guy a break because WHAT ELSE ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SAY TO SUCH AN INANE QUESTION.

Or, in the case of a sweaty, triumphant quarterback, “You sure did a great job out there today. What’s your secret?” “Uh, well, we just worked really hard as a team, and uh, we played a great game.”

What earthshattering insight. What hard-hitting journalism. The heavens have been opened. I will henceforth commit myself to the worship of the gods of the pigskin!

NOT.

As a disinterested viewer of this great American sport, these interviews are doing nothing to increase my understanding or appreciation of the game. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard to come up with some original questions that would really draw the audience into the drama. But I’m not feeling drawn. I’m feeling like I want to go get a refill on my nachos.   

Equally uninspiring are the well-dressed sports commentators with big smiles, swanky voices and pastel-colored ties who get paid the big bucks to make elementary-level observations about how the game is going.

“Well Robert, it certainly looks like Johnson has a big opportunity to prove himself today. What does he need to do to pull a win for the team?”

“Well Bob, it all comes down to the basics. Play a clean game, keep the technique sharp and be a team player. That’s what Johnson is known for, and I expect we’ll see it on the field today.”

How about stepping it up a little in the originality department and asking dejected quarterback number 47 if that fourth quarter blunder represents the pain and rejection of his troubled love life?!

Or, you know. Something along those lines.

Pin Guilt

Let’s talk about Pinterest. I love it, but it makes me feel guilty. Kind of like cheesecake. Correction. Kind of like eating half a wheel of cheesecake, like I have done before, in a moment of emotional upheaval.

I love Pinterest because 1. There are dazzling, colorful pictures of inspiring makeup techniques that, if I mastered, could change my life forever and 2. There are pictures of grooms sobbing as they see their brides walking down the aisle, and that gives me hope that I too will one day make a grown man cry like that and 3. It makes me appear as if I am a stylist, comedian, sommelier, event planner, civil rights activist and a stellar housekeeper (that’s the joke of the century).

My feelings of guilt arise from the fact that, despite having wiled away hours of my life pinning mesmerizing pin after mesmerizing pin, I have used a grand total of 1 Recipe idea and 2 Workouts, visited only 3 of the places I have on my “Wanderlust” board, can afford about 4 of my Wedding ideas, and have taken zero, absolutely zero, suggestions on how to be the next Martha Stewart whilst cleaning my house.

Given, that last one I feel pretty ok about.

You can witness this guilt corporately by attending a ‘Pinterest Party’, where women who feel just as embarrassed as you do about pinning ideas they will never use gather together to make an attempt to try at least one idea that they have pinned while at work, school, and dare I say, church. The existence of these parties holds an irony of its own, as there are pins on Pinterest about how to…throw a Pinterest Party.

Not to mention the fact that an entire generation of brides now feels the pressure to outdo one another by Pinterestifying the heck out of their weddings, it now being considered a compliment to tell a stressed out bride: “Your wedding looks like Pinterest exploded! I’m going to Instagram it to death!”

I am convinced Pinterest is a frivolous exercise in futility.

But oh look! My new favorite cheesecake recipe! There has got to be a recovery group for this...

Sit Back, Relax, and be Rude to the Person Next to You

On a recent journey to Arizona, I experienced the cringe-worthy phenomenon that is finding a seat on an airplane. Southwest, I know you’re trying to help us out by giving us the freedom to sit where we want, but in reality, you’re giving our American individualism and entitlement to personal space a serious panic attack.

Even my most charming, Grace Kelly-esque “Is this seat taken?” and toothpaste-commercial smile is met with this startled glare of “How dare you presume you can sit so close to me and breathe my air?!” I’m sorry, but you were the one who decided to inconvenience us all by sitting in the aisle seat when there is nothing stopping you from *GASP* moving all the way to the window, or taking the bullet for us all and sitting in the middle.

Mr. Businessman with Gucci suit, Italian shoes and glossy briefcase, please resist the urge to act as if I am making your life the most miserable it has ever been when you get up in a huff to let me into the middle seat.  This is the adult equivalent of Suzie giving Charlotte the stink eye on the playground for taking the swing she wanted Ashley to have.

These trials, too, shall pass.

Once, just to shake things up a little, I decided to take the middle seat next to an elderly gentleman who was sitting next to the window, leaving the aisle free. He peered at me from behind his spectacles in shock and I kid you not, the first words out of his mouth to me are not “Hello, how are you? Lovely day, isn’t it? Cute cardigan. Want some gum? What are you reading? Business or vacation?” All of these nice things, he could have said. But no. Instead, he demanded to know the reason behind my insolence: “Why aren’t you sitting in the aisle?”

I can read between the lines. Apparently my close proximity was making him uncomfortable.

“Because I wanted someone else to be able to sit down easily. And because you looked like a nice person to talk to.”

I took from his silence that he was not, in fact, going to be a nice person to talk to.

This is what Southwest has brought us to. Forcing us to have awkward encounters with rude strangers wedged into tiny seats and fighting over who gets the armrest. Just make sure to carry a suitcase the size of Africa aboard, and turn your music up loud and don’t worry, you’ll be the darling of the skies.