My Week 183: Things That Boggle The Mind

In the great scheme of things, there’s a lot that I don’t understand, and like most people, I try to make sense of the world in the best way I can. But this week, there are five particular things that are throwing me for a loop. Here they are in order of when I thought of them:

1) Why are there so many dental floss thongs?

People litter all the time. I don’t understand why because it’s usually not hard to find a garbage can or recycling bin, but I see people tossing coffee cups onto the sidewalk, spitting out gum, and generally just being trashjerks on a regular basis. But the one thing I REALLY don’t get is that I see those little things you use to hold dental floss all over the damn place. In the last three weeks, I’ve probably seen at least five of them on the ground, either on the sidewalk outside of the grocery store, in a parking lot next to my car—you name it, a plastic dental floss holder will be there. We went on a wine tour with my dad last weekend, and there was one lying on the ground outside the winery. Which begs the question— whatever happened to flossing your teeth in the privacy of your own home? Why are so many people flossing their f*cking teeth in public? Who the hell flosses their teeth before they drink wine?! And what could possibly possess someone to throw these things on the ground instead of finding a garbage can? And if you don’t know what I’m talking about here’s a picture:

I’m a little confused as to what they’re actually called because I tried to google it, but I typed too fast, and apparently asked for “dental floos thing”, and for some reason Google thought I meant “dental floss thong” and gave me pictures of underwear, as well as a link to “Dental Floss Thong G-String Sexy Firm Bubble Butt Booty Dance”. I don’t understand that either. But now that I’ve told you about dental floss thongs, you will also be seeing these tiny pieces of mouth trash everywhere you go. Just wait.

2) Why am I cursed by the subway?

The subway hates me and I don’t understand why. I have subway incidents on a regular basis, and this week was no different. I had to go out to my brother’s because it was my nephew’s birthday, and that meant taking two different subway lines during rush hour to get there. I stood on the platform waiting, as train after train kept going straight through because they were so packed. Finally, one stopped and I got on board to travel two stations up to the next line. There was no room to move and I had my hands up under my chin. It was extremely claustrophobic and I was just barely keeping the panic from building by telling myself that there was only one more station to go when suddenly the train stopped dead, the power went off, and it stayed off for 15 minutes. The exact same thing happened to me a year ago to the day, when I was also going to my nephew’s birthday party, and just like last year, I had a full-blown panic attack, hyperventilated, and cried a little in front of about 100 people. The next day, I had to take the same train again, so I left work well before rush hour. This time, there was a man on the platform running back and forth, waving his arms and screaming, “F*ck you! F*cking subway! F*ck this!!” and I was like, “Ooh, what a coincidence—that’s exactly what I was saying to myself just yesterday.” Oddly enough, he was extremely well-dressed, which made it even more terrifying.

3) How can you think you lost your phone when you’re holding onto it?

I have done this on more than one occasion and this is a complete mystery to me. In fact, on Wednesday, I was in my office getting packed up to leave, and was completely freaked out because I couldn’t find my phone. I was turning around frantically and looking everywhere, wondering if I left it in the bathroom or something, when I realized it was IN MY HAND. And once, I was out shopping and I called K:

Me: Hey, I left you stuff for lunch.
K: OK, thanks.
Me: Hang on—oh sh*t, I can’t find my phone.
K: What phone?
Me: My cellphone.
K: You mean the cellphone you’re using to talk to me right now?
Me: Never mind. I found it.
K: Between your hand and your ear?
Me: Shut up.

Don’t tell me you’ve never done this, because you have. And if it wasn’t a cellphone, then it was your glasses. Or your keys, KEN.

4) Is it just me or is American politics incomprehensible?

I used to understand American politics but I don’t know if I do anymore, unless the following analogy is correct:

Watching American politics is like watching a hamster running really fast on one of those spinning wheels, but the wheel is spinning superfast, and then the hamster’s leg gets caught in the wheel, but the wheel keeps spinning and the hamster is being whipped around like crazy by the leg and its only choice is to die or chew its own leg off, but while its deciding, the f*cking wheel breaks and the hamster is crushed by the wheel, and no one is sure anymore whether the wheel is America and the hamster is politics or the hamster is politics and the wheel is America.

So if American politics is an extremely long, run-on sentence about a wheel murdering a hamster, then I nailed it. If not, then I don’t know what to tell you, and please feel free to add to this analogy.

5) Why are people so dumb?

I could mean this in just general terms, but in this case I’m talking specifically about people who are always banging the drum about free speech, and freedom of expression (as if you can’t say pretty much anything you want already, no matter how ridiculous it is, despite what the hysterical alt-right seems to think. Merry Christmas, by the way.). But those same people get super-pissed off when other people exercise THEIR right to free speech by protesting the other people who are saying the things that THEY want to say. You can’t have it both ways. Case in point. This past week, a sniveling grad student at a local university created a special club for people just like her who think that it’s hard being white. They invited another white power bandwagoneer to come and speak because it’s “their right to say unpopular things.” The topic of the event was “Ethnocide: Multiculturalism and European-Canadian Identity”, which sounds all fancy but it really just means “It’s sooo hard to be white because of all the non-white people.” Then they got mad when protesters came and–gasp–protested by USING WORDS. Now, I’m all for open and intellectual debate of ACTUAL issues, but come on. Racists are so boring and predictable—why bother debating someone who has nothing original to say on an indefensible position that’s based on nonsense? I mean, we live in a country where you’re ALLOWED to say stupid stuff, but don’t dress it up like it’s smart. If you want to make a name for yourself championing people’s right to be stupid, then become a lawyer and defend the idiots who throw their dental floss thongs on the ground.

 

54 thoughts on “My Week 183: Things That Boggle The Mind”

  2. Suze says:

    OMG…….I laughed so hard I snorted like a pig! Then George came in to see what I am laughing at and all I could do was point at the screen! I adore you!

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  3. The 1st Amendment thing is frustrating because it seems to amount to an argument something like this:

    “I am supposed to have free speech, but as a conservative, I don’t have free speech because whenever I say say something outrageous, others criticize me for it.”

    A related argument goes: “Society is discriminating against straight whites guys because there is a Black History Month and there are Gay Prides Parades, but where are the Straight Pride Parades and White History Month?!”

    I try to explain to them occasionally that the parades and history months exist because someone cared enough to set them up (hint hint), but no one ever buys that argument, so their argument is the equivalent of: “My neighbor had a bake sale and people came and bought cookies from him but I didn’t have a bake sale, so no one came to buy cookies from me! How is this fair?”

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  6. I loved your political analogy of America. Unfortunately it seems about correct! I love the subways when I travel to places that have them (Boston for one) but then again, I’ve never had it lose power on me for 15 minutes. I’d probably be screaming “Let me out! I’ll walk!”

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  7. Flossing before you drink wine makes sense to me because you want a clean palate. Flossing in public and throwing your floss thong on the ground makes no sense, though. The sort of wine drinkers who are concerned with clean palates should be too snooty to throw trash on the ground.
    And here’s something to think about: if you look at pictures from the civil rights movement you’ll see some white people. They weren’t excluded, and straight people aren’t kept out of LGBTQI pride events—which mostly are just an excuse to have a party. If any white straight people feel threatened by that it’s their own fear of diversity.

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    • What on earth do people have between their teeth that they need to floss in order to have a clean palate?! I hate to even contemplate it. Yeah, if you look at the Twitter feeds of any of these idiots, it’s all about fear and rage. I wish they would devote their energies to combating global warming or building space rockets so that they can go live somewhere far away from the rest of us.

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  9. 😀 The cellphone story was very funny, it happens sometimes when you have too much pressure on your head. This kind of thing never happened to me with cellphone but once I was looking for my room’s key everywhere when it was safe in my jacket’s pocket because usually I don’t keep my keys in jacket’s pocket but that day I did so.

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  11. I can relate to everything in this week’s post, except subways (which my phone autocorrects to siestas, BTW, which don’t exist in my hometown—subways don’t, that is. We should totally have siestas every day, no matter from where we hail). Anyway. . . YES, those dental thongs ARE everywhere, and I’ve gotten to a point where I feel people who litter should be maybe be sent to a firing squad. YES, I’ve lost my phone while speaking on it, and YES to the hamster analogy. Politics here pains me so. I too would welcome debate and the exchange of ideas, but for now, we just get screamed at in sound bites. At the end of the day, that hamster ends up getting flattened by some giant SUV with a rebel flag sticker on the back (you forgot that part).

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  12. First of all, I have to stop reading your weekly updates on Tuesdays; I lose an entire Monday of hysterical recollection, and Mondays need more of that. My time management/dangblog skills need improvement. Consider that a thing in the works.

    Secondly, I have been noticing those damn things everywhere, too. And I think I have your answer. A few years ago I asked everyone on Facebook if it was illegal to floss and drive. It keeps popping up in my feed. It got more play than I figured. I remember why I asked: I was late for bowling night, had eaten something super-quick, grabbed one of those floss thongs on the way out the door, and picked my teeth on the way. My friends rightfully asked me how I could floss with one hand and Facebook with the other, while driving.

    I told them it was easy; I held the beer between my legs. 😉

    But, seriously, the answer is “we’re always in a hurry.” These handy contraptions make it easy to floss on the run. Why they can’t find a garbage can has to do with hamsters. It almost always has to do with hamsters.

    Thank you, Suzanne, for making my Tuesday morning more fun, less dumb, uncursed, and shamefully American.

    Now where did I leave my keyboard?

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  15. clsooner16 says:

    I look forward to your post each week and feel sad when I forget about them in my inbox because I’ve been too lazy to open the dang thing. Sadly, I live in a house of dental floss thongs. I am old school and use regular dental floss given to me by my dentist at check-ups. My wife however discovered these horrid floss thongs and has them everywhere. I find them in the washer while taking out a load of clothes or in the lint trap in the dryer. I find them on the floor throughout the house and I’m only too happy to toss them back at her with a frown on my face letting her know how much I hate the things. I tried to hide them once from her and damn if she didn’t just buy more. They are the bane of my household. I was not aware the whole of North America was plagued by these horrid little things. Now that I have it brought to my attention I will find them everywhere I’m sure.

    As for the hamster wheel, it is only a matter of time before it falls off its hinges and careens into a crevice. It makes me sad every time I hear what is happening to our political system. I think of our forefathers and how their hard work has been flushed down the toilet. All we can do is hope and work toward change. I will keep looking forward to my favorite blog to make me smile and laugh. 🙂

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  16. Come live in Spain I’ve never seen a dental floss thingy lying around. Great post and what is the saying – ‘Many a true word was …’ Free speech has long gone and most haven’t even noticed. I am an odd minority, a live and let live, white, female, English speaking human married to a man.

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