So I'm sitting in the lecture hall before our biodiversity test, minding everyone else's business, when I notice that the woman in front of me has on her desk—along with her No. 2 pencil, eraser, and coffee—an oddity: a yellow bell pepper. Surely this isn't a snack? I wonder. Maybe it's some sort of pre-test ritual; or perhaps she has Salad 101 right after this class. Anyhoo. The exam is distributed, I get to work and forget about the produce until—CRUNCH—Pepper Gal starts chomping away, eating the stir fry ingredient as though it were a ripe juicy apple. I want to remain the open-minded, easygoing guy you've come to know and love, but is this what passes for snack food nowadays? Is she normal? Am I?
4.07.2009
Veggie tale
So I'm sitting in the lecture hall before our biodiversity test, minding everyone else's business, when I notice that the woman in front of me has on her desk—along with her No. 2 pencil, eraser, and coffee—an oddity: a yellow bell pepper. Surely this isn't a snack? I wonder. Maybe it's some sort of pre-test ritual; or perhaps she has Salad 101 right after this class. Anyhoo. The exam is distributed, I get to work and forget about the produce until—CRUNCH—Pepper Gal starts chomping away, eating the stir fry ingredient as though it were a ripe juicy apple. I want to remain the open-minded, easygoing guy you've come to know and love, but is this what passes for snack food nowadays? Is she normal? Am I?
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14 comments:
Maybe she stole your boyfriend's lunch...
I think she has a crush on The Chairman from Iron Chef.
Karen
Scott queries: ". . . is this what passes for snack food nowadays?"
Deb (and all other sentient beings) responds: NO!! No more than chomping on a raw onion is normal. If we have a readership demographic that belongs to a FB group called I EAT RAW ONIONS AND PEPPERS LIKE YOU EAT APPLES AND I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD, that group should look elsewhere for peer support.
Scott queries: "Is she normal?"
Deb replies: No. Let me count the ways. No.
Scott (thinking he already knows the right answer) queries (ironically): "Am I normal?"
Deb pauses to collect her thoughts, shifts gears slightly, then launches into an unsurprising diatribe.
People, we have a much larger issue here, and that is Audible Mouth Noises.
I think we can all agree that the social contract is violated by crunching, slurping, smacking, and schlucking, gulping. Also, all rattling, crinkling, and unwrapping of food containers. Also all noises made by a straw, for any reason, including but not limited to sliding the straw up and down in the lid of the beverage container as you keep time to the music in your head.
In academia, I think part of the syllabus could/should be absolutely no audible food or beverage noises, ever. Period.
(Prof K? Thoughts?)
While I have the floor, can I ask when it became OK to chew with the mouth open? I didn't get that memo. I don't think we voted on that. Surely we can agree here that beyond a certain age (maybe 4? maybe 10?) all people can chew with closed mouth. If you have bad sinuses and can't comply, go eat in the other room.
Let's discuss the specific problem of popcorn in theaters. Why on earth is popcorn (noisiest food of all) in paper bags (noisiest container of all) the official food of movies? I think the problem of our noisy theater-going peer group is the biggest reason for the success of Netflix.
Toward the end of counselor college we had to take a big four-hour comprehensive exam. (This was in the olden days of blue books and scribing tools.) (The Sony Walkman had not yet been invented.) There were eight of us in a small class room. As the proctor said Start, one of my "peers" took out a large bag of Nacho Doritos and began working her way through it. With her mouth open.
The proctor left almost immediately. We were on the honor system.
I tried staring at the chomper with eyes of hatred, but she was impervious to my powers. (Why I didn't use my words is a topic for another time.) I finally took my papers, got up, and went to the main lobby, where I proctored myself for the next 3.5 hours. It raised some questions, and I had to explain why what I did wasn't about cheating on the big test.
Whew. I feel better.
Back to you.
Nice pepper picture.
Wasn't this a Sex and the City episode--Carrie's on jury duty and there's that weird fruit guy, and there's that happy moment with Berger in the end?
Eric likes a happy ending, doesn't he?
I think she was trying to psych you out. Or pushing the diversity thing ...
I personally think sucking on M&Ms would be far more respectful of her test-taking peers.
phil
She washed it down with some kombucha, didn't she?
p.s. props on the rant Deb
My favorite student snack food is (drum roll)...
Oranges.
I know, messy, sticky, etc.
I don't care.
One of my advisory students peels and eats an orange almost every day. It's a decent time for a snack, 10:00, and she's a healthy gal. The best part is when I come back in from hall monitoring after the TA/3rd hour passing time and my room smells all citrusy fresh, instead of leftover-smoke-from-lighting-up-in-the-car-on-the-way-to-school-because-I'm-so-cool staleness or 12th grade boy.
PS For now, we shall keep the exact contents of the bottom left hand drawer of my teacher desk private. There is a national health code for food in public schools now, you know. Since it reduces stress, some people might be counting an emergency bag full of individually foil wrapped yumminesses as a health food. I'm just saying.
Ann - the orange can be an entirely silent nutrient delivery system, if eaten properly. Sticky is still silent.
And, as for that lower left drawer, you and I both know that we can remove chocolate from foil with 100% stealthitude.
Yeah, I'm psychic. :-)
In high school, I once watched a German exchange student eat a green bell pepper as part of her bag lunch (it may even have been at the end, indicating that she considered it dessert-like). Is the woman in your Biodiversity class German? Perhaps this is considered normal behavior there.
In any case, I definitely think that eating a green bell pepper is MUCH more abnormal than eating a yellow (or red or orange) bell pepper, since green bell peppers are icky no matter how you prepare them.
I am quite fascinated, however, by Deb's sudden revelation of her own personal realm of Particularity: eating noises! Who knew?
I knew.
phil
A lot of talk, when, aside from the disturbing crunch, the only issue I see is Did she eat the seeds too? Ish (eeeeeuuu?)
I agree with Deb. [Other people's] Food sounds are bad. There's nothing like crunching and slurping to make me completely annoyed. Perturbed, even. Irrational, I know. Many an irritated glare has passed from me to my wife over late night Doritos. Or my college roommate.
In my classes, I REQUIRE collective eating of red bell peppers, followed by group consumption of raw garlic (small peer groups 1, 3, and 5) and raw onion (groups 2, 4, and 6), subsequently crowned by straw pulling/slurping concert.
I can't believe Scott already forgot; he used to relish in the first two and conduct the last. Sometimes he'd even bring in a crate of Doritos (the bar-b-q flavor) from the local SA. Those were the days.
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