Tolerance

I would like to take this time to advocate tolerance for all people.

We should all promote tolerance, acceptance, and equality for people of different races, sizes, sexual orientations, economic class, intelligence, handicaps, retardations, deformations, sex, etc.

There is one exception to this idea of mutual acceptance:

If you stink, you have no excuse, so be prepared to be treated differently.

Size 1 Jeans

America is the world's fattest nation. Let's just face it. We hear about it all the time in the media, in our daily lives, in the products available to us. It's easier in America to be heavy than it is to be thin. However, for those of us who are comfortable with our bodies or, heaven forbid!, are skinny, a lot of heat is actually directed at us.

Let me give you a couple examples:

My mother and I are not only skinny, but short, so we look extra petite. We were shopping one day, as is quite often our habit, in Kohl's. Another mother/daughter pair was shopping in the same section. The mother turned to her daughter and said, "Ooo I wish I could fit into some of these clothes. Not everyone can be skinny like them." I kid you not, there was accusation in her tone. She was angry with us for being skinny. Angry! We pretended we didn't hear and moved on, though griped about it to each other later.

Every time anyone sees me eat ice cream or cookies or anything with sugar, I hear, "Must be nice to be able to eat whatever you want. Some people are just lucky."

Sorry, but I'm not going to apologize for taking good care of my body. What most people don't know about me is that on both sides of my family, I would appear to be genetically destined for an average body size. I suppose arguably both of my parents are fit, so that looks like genetics, but I'm more convinced that it's lifestyle, not genetics, that play the largest factor in weight. I won't deny that I have a lot of sugar in my diet, but I also have a lot of fruits and vegetables. Not just that, but I'm constantly eating small quantities of food; this means that my metabolism is constantly working. Did you know that if you go more than 6 hours without eating, your metablism slows down? True fact. That's not to say I never eat meals, but the meals I do eat are very small, and I am very adament about usually leaving at least one bite on my plate. I also try to do 25 sit ups every day, 10 push ups, and maybe go running for 30 minutes a couple times a week.

I've told that to several people who try to make me feel guilty for being in shape, and they've always been surprised. Suddenly it's like they can't legitimately blame me for having won some kind of genetic lottery.

So for the record, if you're happy with your shape, no matter what size you are, more power to you! If not, not my problem if you don't do anything about it.

Bless You!

Maybe it's just me, but I always thought that after someone sneezes, it's good manners to say, "Bless you."

You know.

"Achoo!"

"Bless you!"

"Thanks."

I always thought this wasn't just a ritual; it was manners. Like 'please' and 'thank you.' Apparently not everyone feels the same way.

On Waiting Tables

I've got about ten minutes before I have to head off to work for the day. For the record, I love my job. My coworkers make every day a good day to be at work, customers are, for the most part, very pleasant, and of course the food is delicious. What I'd like to talk about though is my qualifying statement "for the most part."

It takes a whole lot to get under my skin. I'm very easygoing and few people have really seen my angry. That being said, I would like to tell you how absolutely livid I was last night. It was a pretty typical Friday night: the restaurant was full, everyone had something to do. In short, we were rather busy. One table, table number 112, had just sat down and I'd brought their drinks out, put in their order, and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Yet for some reason the man (it was an older couple) was very short and irritated with me. When you've worked in a restaurant long enough, you come to accept the fact that some people go out to eat expecting the service to be poor. Annoying, yes, but just something we all deal with.

Okay, granted, I did forget their straws when I brought their drinks out and had to make an extra trip.

After I apologized and brought their straws to the table, I went to one of my other tables and started my usual speech, "Hi, how are you two doing tonight? I'm Rachel, and I'm going to be taking care of you. Can I get you started with something to drink?"

However, before I'd gotten to their drink order, this other table, table 112, whistled at me to get my attention. The same kind of whistle dog owners use to command their dogs. Shocked, I looked over at them and the guy motioned with his finger for me to come over.

They wanted their cornbread out before the meal.

For the record, I have been that angry on very few occasions. For one, whistling to get my attention is unacceptable. For two, it is especially unacceptable to interrupt a server who is talking to another table.

I didn't spit in their food, but darn it I was tempted to.

Observations on Mid-Life Crises, Babies, and Sportscars

Last year my dad came home and announced he'd bought a Mustang. My mother rolled her eyes and mouthed the words "mid life crisis" at me from across the room. After a statement like that, of course neither of us could refrain from laughing. My dad, suddenly defensive, told us that, "It is NOT a mid life crisis. I bought this car with Thomas in mind." Right, he bought a gas-guzzling muscle car for my brother, who was not yet sixteen at the time, because that is of course COMPLETELY PRACTICAL. However, Dad kept insisting that this was Thomas's car and that it had not ever crossed his mind once that it was a Mustang and he would like to own one because he never had before. Especially despite the fact that his twin brother has had Mustangs for years.

We at first pretended to believe him. That is, we pretended to believe him until it came time for my car and my mother's car to need oil changes. To his credit, Dad is great with cars. If he had the desire to, he could easily be a car mechanic and has saved our family thousands of dollars by working on cars himself instead of taking them into shops. So naturally Mom and I assumed he would be the one changing our oil and that it would take precedence over other projects.

Apparently though, installing an expensive radio in "Thomas's" Mustang was more important than our humble cars' oil changes. Mom ended up taking hers to the shop, and my car's oil was changed after I continued to bother Dad about it 1000 miles after the required 3000 mile oil change.

I would now like to change directions and say a bit in my Dad's behalf. he and my mom have done a tremendous job as parents. Even when Dad was out of work, we never really were hurting. They have always been very money conscious and frugal, putting their children before themselves. So by the time Thomas and I both had jobs, the house was paid off, and they were both working full time, Dad was in his mid-forties. Had he really ever had a chance to buy a Mustang before? He did have a sports car when he started driving, which he had saved up for and bought himself.

Therefore, is it really fair to call it a mid-life crisis? If he'd bought the car twenty years ago, no one would have said a word. The radio insident not withstanding, he can't help that he's in his mid-life before he could really buy whatever car he wanted. And even still, now that my brother is sixteen, he is the primary driver of the car. I would say that this same principal applies to the majority of men going through their "mid life crises." Had they not had children, they would have been able to afford their toy cars much earlier in life. So the next time you judge a man pulling up to a stop light in an expensive sports car, maybe cut him a little slack.

And that's why my family will consist of dogs and sports cars BEFORE the babies.

On Writer's Block

Here I am, a writer, using the cliche fallback of penning a piece concerning the terrible state of not quite knowing what to write about. When I had the idea for this blog as I was sipping my classic coffee frappuccino from Starbucks (with whipped cream on top, of course), I very clearly remember having something specific to write about. It was witty and insightful and was definitely something everyone would enjoy reading. However, interruptions to the train of thought do take their toll. It's hard to decide though whether I really would have given up my "interruptions" in favor of simply remember what it was I was going to write about.

After I had sucked dry the last delicious bits of my coffee confection, I headed to the library to take up my proverbial pen-in-keyboard-form to spell out my grand thoughts. As soon as I sat down, but before I could log into my computer, "Love Story" by Taylor Swift cut through the calm, library atmosphere announcing that my boyfriend was trying to get my attention. I, of course, answered immediately and, though I didn't realize it at the time, blew a farewell kiss to whatever great idea I had fabricated, for which the world so desperately needed my commentary on.

Here's the rub: I could lament the loss of my great idea, or I could lament the loss of time spent with the man I'm in love with. Arguably, good ideas may come only once. Then again, how often does true love come around? Well for me, I come home to true love every night, wake up to true love every morning, and frequently communicate with true love throughout the day. One might go so far as to say I am an addict. But is it really fruitful for us to weigh productiveness against happiness? I could have ignored true love's (quite literal) call and penned my semi-great work of art, or I could (and did) enjoy a brief respite from the toils of daily life by escaping briefly with true love. We didn't do much, in all honesty, walked around a bit, bought new computer parts since his died rather dramatically this morning, and generally just enjoyed one another's company.

So farewell to my captivating literary work, aborted before it could be born. Good ideas come and go, but time stands still for no man.