Screw You, Optimus Prime!

I like to think I'm moderately intelligent. A few years ago, I had my IQ tested somewhere in the 130s, but I believe it's more in the 120s, which is where it was when I had it tested in Junior High, when IQ tests are typically more accurate. My strengths tend to lie in analyzing human behavior and applying logic to philosophic situations. I'm good at recognizing patterns. I'm pretty evenly divided between being detail and concept oriented, although if I had to choose one, I'd prefer to look at something as a whole. I gravitate toward politics, the study of interpersonal relations, and love examining the world in a sociocultural context. My weaknesses? The mechanical stuff, such as spatial reasoning, math, and other activities that require me to apply my analytical skills to physical objects like mind-benders and Rubix Cubes. I'll never be able to build the bridge, but I could provide a hundred and one reasons why one should be built.

My latest mental conundrum? Transformers.

Yeah, that's right. Transformers, and since I am the mother of a precocious little boy who has recently celebrated his fifth birthday, I have been reminded that there is no shortage of ways in which a mother can be reminded that she is not necessarily the smartest person in the parent-child relationship. I can't stand these toys. It's not that I think they are inappropriate or because I have a problem with robots in general. It's that Transformers have a way of making me regress to having the mental prowess of a tree stump.

Elias received an Optimus Prime Transformer toy for his birthday. I looked, or rather glared, at the piece of articulated plastic secured behind the clear bubble of its box (which proclaimed rather prominently to be appropriate for kids aged 5 and up), and I said a little prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that my son had a father who could show him the way.

But I am not always one to back down from a challenge, so when I saw Ken taking ol' Oppy out of his cardboard shelter today with all of the vigor of a die hard nerd aching to relive a chunk of his childhood, I knew that I too must finally prove myself. I took glances at him over the ten minutes or so it took for him to figure out the toy's bewildering multitude of bending joints that would turn it from a semi-truck into a fearsome robot, and I began to get a little discouraged. Undoubtedly, when it comes to my weaknesses as a thinker, Ken, the guy who spends his days looking at specs for gigantic motherboards, has them as strengths. If it was taking him that long to figure out how to transform this thing, then I would bound to be like the ape before the monolith for over an hour, and would likely give up in disgust in half that time.

When I finally got my hands on it, I was determined to turn it back into a truck. But where to begin? Curses ranging in vulgarity from "What the effing h?" to "Shit on toast in a bucket" flew from my mouth at a record pace as I managed to nearly break the toy in two spots and then hand it back to Ken in a fit of desperate stupidity. I was heartened by the fact that it more resembled a truck than something shat out of the asshole of a robot-eating troll, but given the fact that this is a toy for children of single-digit age, I felt more retarded than accomplished.

Tonight I took a gander at doing the reverse--transforming it from truck to robot. That was even harder, and my IQ took another opportunity to remind me that I was perhaps operating out of bounds. I managed to finish the job, but if I'd been graded on it, I would have likely received a B for my efforts. It was the best I could hope for under such brain-melting circumstances.

I have waged that perhaps I'm bad at manipulating these toys because I have a vagina. Undoubtedly, if one peruses the predominantly pink and purple aisles of the neighborhood Toys R Us, one will find nary a Transformer. Not to say that a person couldn't traverse the store to procure an Optimus Prime for their little girl, but I'd say it's pretty fair to assume that these toys are generally not marketed toward the female segment of the population. No, today's little ladies are busy creating mental conundrums for their parents by squeezing tiny dolls into polyurethane outfits the size of a thumbnail. Those are Polly Pockets, but those deal more in the issues of fine motor skills than sheer intelligence, which is another blog for another day.

Twinkie

It was 9:30am. I had been awake for nearly two hours, and I was starving. It wasn't just "any" kind of starving, either. It was the sort where one's metabolic functions look like a steadily plummeting barometer before one bitch kitty of a thunderstorm, except instead of atmospheric pressure dropping, it was my bloodsugar. I was on the road when the shakes started to kick in, and my stomach was staging a massive revolt whereby upon the absence of actual sustenance, it was beginning to consume itself while saying: "Feed me NOW, bitch!" I was determined to wait it out, to will away the demands of my most wayward organ, but there was no more waiting. It was either divert off the road to the nearest convenience store to grab something to hold me over, or vomit steaming bile in my lap. Not a good idea. I don't know why I let myself get to such a point of ravenous hunger. Call it thoughtlessness. Call it thinking (perhaps erroneously) that a girl of my size can perhaps stand to skip a few meals every once in awhile. There is also a bit of arrogance mixed in there. I'm "tough," dammit. There are full-grown adults who weigh eighty pounds who are still breathing. I think I can go 12 hours without a meal. Well, not this morning.

As I staggered through the doors of the neighborhood junkfood haven, I didn't really have a plan in mind. Actually there was nothing in my mind. I can't even tell you that I remembered parking the car. All I knew was I needed sugar or I was going to pass out. As is the case with any junkfood haven, sucrose, fructose, and every other compound ending in "ose" is available in outrageous supply, and I need not walk more than four steps before encountering some. So here is my big "Ah-HA" moment, for as I glance near the cash register (what I think of as the honey spot for all things fattening), I spy an array of Hostess snacks, you know, those things that are more a feat of engineering than actual food. I feel the back part of my mind groan at the sight of them. I've been culturally and scientifically engrained. As much as I love food that is bad for me, even I have a limit. But that back part of my mind also knows that it's not in charge at the moment. The feral little weasel in my gut is, and it needs to be assuaged forthwith. I step up to the counter and grab the first object it lands on: a package of Twinkies. I fumble my buck and a quarter out of my pocket and without even waiting for the change, I make for the exit, hoping that I'm staggering, and also hoping (needlessly so, thanks to the bitch that resides in the self-flagellating part of my brain) that the store clerk didn't think that the fat chick was having the physiologic meltdown that she clearly was having.

I tore into the package before I even got to my car and took my first bite of a Twinkie in at least half a decade. I had forgotten what they tasted like. The first Twinkie, I didn't even notice the flavor. I was more consumed with fixing the faltering machine otherwise known as my body. In fact, I think I nearly swallowed the thing whole while thinking to myself that this ought to do the trick. I should be able to make it home without fainting from a rare hypoglycemic spell.

And then the real taste kicked in as I started working on the second Twinkie, and the only word I could muster was "gack." Memories flooded me, ones that I were shocked were still a part of my internal hard drive. Memories of remarking to myself years ago that Twinkies are perhaps one of the most disgusting foods on the planet, those rare ingestible things that should fall under the category of: "Things People Eat When They Hate Themselves." Other players on the list would include Big Macs, Easy Cheese, Wonder Bread, and Dinty Moore Beef Stew.

There is just something so inherently "wrong" about a Twinkie. It's pure science. There is not a single ingredient in a Twinkie that by itself would allow you to survive in the wild, and in many cases would actually kill you on the spot if you ate too much of it. The overall texture and flavor of the "cake" is reminiscent of a Scotch Brite sponge soaked in anti-freeze. The filling tastes and feels like sugary lard with a metallic tinge that likely came from the machine that extruded it, and it coated the roof of my mouth like Vaseline. The overwhelmingly saccharine experience of it all burnt the back of my throat, and attempts at flushing it out with water were futile, as the greasy fat that was now lining my mouth acted like a water-tight barrier, barring my tastebuds from salvation.

To put it bluntly, my soul felt like it was raped after I ate a Twinkie, and I was left with the inalienable certainty that I was summarily subtracted two years from my life, one for each Toxic Deathcake I ingested in an attempt to recover my bloodsugar to an operable level.

And the kicker, as I now sit here comfortably in my home, thankfully not feeling the shakes but more like the shadow of death has moved ever closer to eclipsing my being (at least in the larger sense. I'm sure I've got some years left), I am hungry again. It's almost like in eating the worst food known to (and created by) man, I actually haven't eaten anything at all. It's like a cruel illusion, for I know the fetid residue remains.

"Playdate" and Other Abominations of the Parental Playbook

I never realized, when I opted to have children, that I would be handed a membership card to an incredibly competitive culture of child-rearing. Those of you who don't have kids now, or do but who haven't been online (or on the right websites) or picked up a book on parenting in the last ten years might not realize this, but it's war out there, and for those who are currently enlisted to fight in it, these are but a few of the battlefronts from which you can choose:

Breastfeeding or Formula? To Circumcise or Not to Circumcise? Spanking or No Spanking? Vaccines or No Vaccines? Electronic Toys or Old-fashioned? Cribs or Family Beds? Attachment Parenting or Babywise? Cloth diapers or Disposables? Television or No Television?

And whichever side you choose, you are fighting for the ultimate objective: The Perfect Child.

What is The Perfect Child, exactly?

That would be one who always says "please and thank you," who will grow up loving his mother and father, be the star of his or her class, go to Harvard on a scholarship, and become a respected member of whatever career he or she chooses (hopefully a doctor). In other words, a child who will validate the choices we agonized over for months and years while raising him, a child who will be the living example of everything we did right, who will be the one that will make us look down our noses at in disgust those who did differently and suffered different outcomes. "Well obviously Johnny is a little miscreant. He was formula fed!"

I can't tell you how many times I've seen examples of such arrogance in fellow parents. These are parents who treat their children like leather-bound day planners in which they write their best intentions, hopes, and dreams. These are people who raise their children not like dynamic, organic human beings, but more like high-performance vehicles. Machines, in other words. Just like a Mercedes Benz requires an oil change every 3000 miles, Johnny requires his allotment of social interaction three times a week in the form of a "playdate."

A friend of mine asked why I abhor that word. Why it makes me want to vomit every time I hear someone use it. I'll break down everything that the word "playdate" implies for me about modern parenthood and the parents who use it:

1. It is a term that brings corporate sloganeering to parenthood. We've replaced "having a beer after work" with "team-building exercise." And now "getting the kids together" has become "playdate." This is because:

2. Given the changing family dynamic with a typical household requiring two working parents, something as simple and free-form as "play" has to be "penciled in." And we had to give it a cute little name like "playdate." Because it's like a date, isn't it? It's a social scenario where parents have to meet and put their assets (in this case, their children) on display like a status symbol, against which their worth as a caregiver will be measured. If little Johnny has a meltdown, then you have failed a little bit, haven't you? Clearly this is a result of you not letting Johnny sleep in your bed. He's expressing his angst at feeling detached from his mother.

3. The use of "playdate" also implies that you wear really high-cut jeans, embroidered vests, and likely drive a mini-van with little soccer stickers on the back. It implies that whatever hotness you once had that attracted your mate to you and got you pregnant in the first place has morphed into a Stepford-like sterility that is devoid of any and all human appeal. It implies that you have become a Mombot, and that your husband will likely be banging his secretary within three years because your vagina feels cold and metallic. Like an unused sink drain. Again, that's what it implies. If you are not a high-waisted jeans wearer with a sink drain vagina and you use the word "playdate" as part of your daily parental vernacular, you are part of a special minority.

But all that aside, I have noticed a trend in parenting, not only during my tenure as one, but also in the years preceding that. At some point, we forgot about our instincts. At some point, we became convinced that whatever we once thought was right was wrong, and we turned to books written by "experts" to show us the way. At some point, we said to ourselves that we weren't good enough or smart enough to figure out on our own whether we should pick up our babies when they cried, and from that point we looked at every choice we made for them the choice between whether we were raising angels or devils.

I stepped off that particular battlefield long ago, when I realized that even the best choices can produce even the worst results, and I don't merely mean bad children. I mean parents who are douchebags.

"The Secret" to Being a Prick

Human beings can be incredibly pathetic creatures. When it comes down to it, we're miserable. We know we're miserable, and we will do next to ANYTHING in order to not be miserable anymore. Those things include (but are not limited to): drinking excessively, abusing drugs, compulsive shopping, compulsive sex, compulsive gambling, lighting things on fire, kicking people in the nuts, primal scream therapy, and finally: clinging to the latest version of recycled self-help mantras that have been on the market for the last thirty years, but have now been modernized to appeal to your attraction to The Da Vinci Code.

What was that last one, you ask? Oh please, like you really NEED to. If none of you have heard of the latest self-help craze The Secret by now, you have probably been too busy being happy of your own accord.

According to the authors of this system, it basically boils down to something like this: If you think about something you want long and hard enough, it will eventually just happen!

Now, I know what some of you are already going to say. "There is nothing wrong with that approach, Allie!" Or some of you die-hard optimists out there are going to tell me that I am being too negative, that I will never get anywhere in life if I don't start thinking more positively about things, and by and large, I will agree with you. But here is my problem with programs that over-sell the concept of positive thinking, and it will be illustrated by a really sucky metahpor that I've come up with basically on the fly:

There are three types of vehicles you can choose to drive through life. One of them is a piece of shit that always breaks down and uses your soul for fuel. Listen to the song "Piece of Shit Car" by Adam Sandler, and you will get what I'm saying. You drive this car, and you begin to resent every other driver on the road for having something better than you.

The next type of vehicle is a luxury land yacht that runs on sunshine, children's laughter, and butterfly kisses. The interior is gingerbread and gumdrops. It makes you so happy, that you pretty much forget about the people in the shitty car, and you turn into a pretentious dickhole.

And then there is the "car" that people drive. It's the middle of the line vehicle that might have a crack or two in the windshield and might stall from time to time, but it will get you where you're going, provided you keep the oil changed, have a decent set of tires, and enough money for good old-fashioned gasoline.

In other words, there is nothing wrong with harboring occasional feelings of negativity, so long as you're still GOING somewhere or DOING something. You have to keep "driving," and remember that although you could be driving the Sunshine Land Yacht of Happiness, things could be considerably worse. You won't get there in the lap of luxury, but you'll get there.

How does this apply to The Secret? For starters, it's ridiculous in the way that it treats the concept of optimism like something that people haven't heard of, and that the Land Yacht is your only option. Second, it presents this idea of "visualizing your goal" as something almost mystic in nature. If you want a 15 carat diamond ring, you need do nothing more than cut out a picture of that ring, hang it up on your refrigerator, and think about it really, really hard. But this doesn't apply to only material things. Got cancer? Paralyzed from the neck down? Forget about that nasty medical crap, and just think positive! According to The Secret, Christopher Reeve was not positive enough, because if he had been, he would have been running the Boston Marathon instead of dying from an infected bedsore.

Think that last sentence sounds bitter? That's called "blaming the victim," a concept that is highly recommend in "The Secret." It goes so far as to advocate not only avoiding negativity, but completely shunning it, because it can seriously interrupt the positive thought process it might take for you to get your shiny red bicycle. Bad things happen to people simply because they weren't thinking positively enough! You must separate yourself from people who are having hardships. Only then will you succeed in claiming what is yours!

In other words, be a detached psychopath, and you will be rich!

And they call this shit a "Secret?"

So what does this boil down to? The Secret is nothing more than a tool to turn people into complete and utter... tools. It insists that you eschew things like reality, empathy, and compassion and turns you into a materialistic asshole whose eyes are focused on nothing more than the self-serving prize.

I think the world has enough of these types of people, don't you?

The only thing that should be shunned is this kind of "program," that at its core is ugly in the most transparent way in its attempts to lure people with the promise of happiness by bringing out what is one of the worst things about human nature: its selfish vanity.

In making you think that you are on the road to happiness, The Secret has done nothing more than encourage you to line the pockets of the only person who is truly benefitting from your transformation into a smilingly deluded imbecile-- Rhonda Byrne, the creator of The Secret.

Killing Me Sweetly Part II- Sugary Tooth Extractors

There are some things in this world that even when they are not all that good, they are still somewhat enjoyable. Examples would include pizza and sex. Even less-than stellar intercourse that does not result in multiple orgasms is still better than no sex. At least that's the way I feel. You would think candy should fall into this category. After all, it contains sugar, which is the universal feel-good compound that makes all the right chemicals surge through our beleaguered brains. Unfortunately, there are items in the candy world that take us down the road to saccharine perdition, and often times, that road is paved with the expensive dental work or cavity-laden molars of their victims.

The Gouda today will chastise the candies that try hardest to keep the world's dentists in business:

Milk Duds and/or Riesen
JuJubes, Starburst, Now & Later

I mean... what the fuck? Where does the joy lie in rigid, sweet clumps of misery adhering to the cracks and crevices of one's chompers? These virulent rogues of the confectionary world violate the one rule I have for the enjoyment of any foodstuff:

If more time trying to get the crap out of my teeth or out of its natural encasement must be spent than actually chewing, swallowing, and enjoying said foods, it's not worth eating. Life is short, people. I'd rather spend it living off the nourishment I'm putting into my body than fighting with it before ingesting it. Other foods falling under this category include sunflower seeds in the shell, shellfish that has not been cracked open in advance, ribs, and corn on the cob. It's not that I don't eat these things, it's just not something toward which I tend to gravitate first. But let's save those offenders for another post and focus on the sweet stuff.

It's not that the above-mentioned candies don't taste good. I love the combination of caramel and chocolate. No- check that- I want to drown myself in it. I also enjoy the fruity fakeness of the Jujubes and Starbursts, although they don't really trigger in me the "I'm going to die from the sheer lust I'm experiencing from eating this" vibe.

So even if it tastes alright, the act of eating a piece of Riesen, for instance, is akin to using a pair of hedgeclippers to trim my fingernails. Why go to all that trouble and potentially disasterous result by eating that when I could so much more easily swoon myself into the titillating utopia of sucrose saturation by eating one or two (okay, a dozen) of something like, say, a Hershey's Kiss?

I do have a grudging admission, though. Maybe one good thing about candies like this is that by their very irritatingly laborious nature, they halt the tendency to binge. Of course, my tendency to binge (or eat, period) would also be halted if I had to make an emergency trip to the dentist to have the amalgam shoved back into my upper-right bicuspid. I'd rather just not go there.

I almost convinced myself to concede defeat on my own point, but not now!

No... no... Molar-adhering candies are officially dead to me, and I'm sticking to it, dammit!

Now... where are my Kisses?

An Annoyance of Apocalyptic Proportions...

Getting goods from Point A to Point B often involves some kind of insulation from the shock of transport, be it a bumpy ride in a truck or the rough hands (or boots) of a disgruntled shipping clerk. There is an array of options at our disposal, from bubblewrap to these little strung together bags of air I've been seeing more recently. Those are all well and good. Bubblewrap can be rolled up and stored away for later use. Or popped during one of those fits of boredom that seems to require a form of repetitious stress relief. There is something particularly pleasing about that latter activity. So pleasing, in fact, that bubblewrap might be considered a Talisman.

But there is one packing substance that causes me to go through convulsions of disgust, frustration, and downright irritation from the tips of my toes to the ends of my eyelashes every time I open a freshly shipped box:

Ah yes, the stryofoam peanut. You know, maybe I am just having mental issues with things that pretend to be peanuts that really aren't, but there is something so inherently disturbing to me about these viscious little vittles that makes me want to scrape my throat raw with screams of outrage. I wouldn't call it a phobia so much as a source of unending irritation at their lack of practicality, their considerable bulk in that they cannot be stored compactly, their tendency to break apart and stick to your clothes when you're rooting through them, and worst of all- that squeaky rustling sound they make when the kernels rub together that produces needly little vibrations that worm their way in through my ear drums, tickling the little hairs of my inner-ear, making me writhe in revulsion.

Seems kind of extreme, I guess. I'm certain that this is a little quirk of mine that many people do not share. All I know is that any joy I feel when I receive a long-awaited package is drained away like a plug pulled too soon from a warm bath when I see the goods swimming in a sea of styrofoam. In fact, clouds of wrath gather across my sunny psyche while tiny, silver little blades of fury shoot from my pupils. I am even hesitant to reach in and pull the item out of the box because I know the fucking little pellets are going to go spilling out everywhere, and then I have to wonder how in the hell I'm going to get rid of them.

So I really really dislike these Nuts of The Apocalypse. In fact, I absolutely loathe them. I appeal to all those who have to ship a package to my house to please have mercy on me now that you know how I truly feel about them. I know I can probably do something creative with them. Some goofy craft project with the kids, or maybe break them apart and cover my lawn in fake snow. I can probably even drop them off at the UPS store or some other place that deals in domestic styrofoam terrorism, but I'm just saying that I don't even want it to get to that point. At the risk of sounding like one of those crazy people on Maury Povich who belts shrieks of terror at the sight of a cotton ball, I'd rather not have to be forced to touch them.

Go ahead and laugh. Just... go ahead!

Killing Me Sweetly Part 1: Circus Peanuts

Is that title not confusing enough?

I figured that there are several candies out there that need to die a painful death, and there are too many to fit in a single post. So Memoirs of a Gouda is pledged to do a multi-part investigation on Friday's Leave it Dead column on the legion of tooth-rotting gastronimic nightmares from our childhood. As opposed to the tooth-rotting, gastro-orgasmic treats of love that we want to keep.

What inspired me to go down this path, you ask? Well, as I was swooning through a mental climax that can only be inspired by creamy mashmallow covered with chocolate and cashews, otherwise known as a Rocky Road Bar, I found myself wondering what could possibly kill this moment.

And out of nowhere, a Circus Peanut popped into my head. You know what they are- the fake, foamy, formidably funknacious, fucking GROSS candies that look like this:


I know they aren't "dead" in the sense that my regular Friday entry typically requires, but I think I need to work this bit of mental anguish out. To not "leave it dead", but to once and for all make them "dead to me". I saw some of these disgusting capsules of evil dangling in a cellophane bag in the corner gas station just last night, and I had my typical flashback involving my first bite of the pugnacious puffy peanut. It was in the third grade, and the girl at the desk next to me asked if I wanted a piece of candy. Upon my eager nodding, as any healthy child in elementary school is wont to do, I accepted in my hand the finger-like, flesh-colored morsel and took my first bite, whereupon the dire urge to vomit assailed upon me like a pair of rough cops on Rodney King. I remember looking at my friend, grinning sheepishly, placing the entire peanut in my mouth, and feigning joyful chewing with all of the skill of a taster on the Iron Chef who has just sampled a spoonful of salmon roe ice cream. When she looked away, I immediately removed said peanut, now tacky with sucrose-laden juvenile saliva and tried to figure out what to do with it. In a fit of ingenuity that would only befit an 8-year-old, I plastered it to the underside of my desk, where I promptly squashed it with my fingertips, like a giant piece of chewed bubblegum. I flattened it as much as I could, and there it stayed for the remainder of the school year, and as far as I know, for years after that.

I imagine that desk now lies rotting in the bottom of some landfill, but that mutilated, petrified circus peanut remains as intact as ever, holding my DNA like a solid piece of amber, only it's been avoided by every specimen of bug, mold, and vermin that exists in such places. Nature will not reclaim what is not of this planet, I am convinced. And I'm also convinced that the Circus Peanut should forever reside in the Hall of What Should Never Have Been and What Never Again Will Be.

Stay tuned next week when The Gouda investigates another conspiracy likely cooked up by evil dentists. The Easy Tooth Extractors known as Ju-Ju-Bees and Milk Duds.