SAND, man!

Do you ever wish you could go back and change the past? Tell your girlfriend that she looked beautiful, not bountiful? Enthusiastically ensure your boss his idea was cataclysmic, not catatonic? Rhapsodize, not repulsorize, your friend’s wedding dress? (Fine, that last one was stretching it.)

Well my friends, we’re only human. We’re not perfect. We all wish we could take back events from our past. Redo them. I know I had many moments just this summer I would like a do-over for.

Indeedy, just like that bone-chilling, boom-boom-cracking last night (was that unbelievable or what?), specific momentitos are crashing and flashing before my eyes.

(You are going to judge the shit out of me in exactly five seconds...yep, I counted how long it takes to read the next sentence.)

Yes, yes my dearest comrades. There were dozens upon dozens of times this summer that...that...that...I wished there was such a thing as a sandless beach. And, sad face, those are expired experiences that I cannot redo nor relive. Sigh.
If given the chance, though, I promise I’d be better about bitching. I promise I’d be perfectly perfect and not whine or complain or go bonkers one bit. If only I could have a do-over, if only I could go back to Nauset Light or Craigville or Misquamicut or Longport or Sullivan’s Island, I promise, Girl Scout’s Honor, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-pinky-swear that I wouldn’t utter a peep about the sand all over my bags n’ bod. 

I can’t tell you many seconds, minutes, wasted breaths, senseless air time with an imaginary mike in my hands I’ve spent grumbling, bellyaching, and cursing about how stupid sand gets everywhere. This summer especially! (Maybe that’s just because I’ve beached up up a whole lot more than I have in a long, long time. I know – I’m a brat.)
Seriously though. Sand is like air the way it encompasses you, coats you, cloaks you in a fine mist; how those finely granulated rock and mineral particles infiltrate your bags, your hair, your bathing suit; how, like birdseed on honey, those teeny tiny grits glue themselves to your wet, sunscreened, oiled up skin.

And don’t let go.

But I must say that perhaps my hatred is only on the surface – albeit a sand-encrusted-skin surface.

You see, last week when I was on my nightmare train trek back to the city, I opened my book and out fell – can you guess? – particles of Cape Cod beachness. And I smiled.

If sand granules could make me smile in the midst of a miserable Metro North experience, I guess life really is a beach.

Stinky Sidewalk Soup

Hallelujah. Amen. Color me happy. Omfgees. Shit yo! It’s actually been NICE for more than two days together!!

Is that you, summer?

Yes. Yes I do believe it is.

I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say we’ve all been wishing and hoping and thinking and praying for beautiful, warm weather. And yet...and yet.

Ignorance is bliss. Fo sho. That is to say, we were all ignorant of the stench that descends upon this lovely little city of ours when it’s hot. And that was certainly blissful.

But apparently we cannot have our cake and eat it too.

No, no. Apparently we have to make do with the stinky street soup that inundates our nostrils when heat and humidity settle upon us.

One whiff of that virulent pottage and I want to faint. Or maybe I just want to faint because I’m asphyxiating myself with breath-holding.

Ugh.

Let’s take a look at what this street n’ sidewalk stew consists of, shall we? What makes up the bouquet, if you will.

The top note is comprised of a plethora of cheap beers. Namely Bud, Bud Light, and Miller Light. These somehow end up coating (layer upon layer) the sidewalk. So much so that if I was blindfolded, I'd think I was at a college frat party.

Then of course there’s the rancid reek of urine - human and canine, obvi. There’s no excuse for those crazies pissing in phone booths! Dogs, fine. It’s not their fault their selfish owners force them into apartments the size of closets.

And then there's the occasional poop...adds some color and some texture to the soup.

Let’s not forget our proteins now, shall we? There’s plenty of dead rats and mice and pigeons and birds and bugs to go around for everyone.

Pepper in some cigarette butts and ashes, a few gnawed off pizza crusts, a McD's cup or two, and couple of loogies for flavor and you got yourself some nice ingredients for the stew!

But really, that's all just the beginning. As if all this littering and dumping wasn’t bad enough, store owners decide to up and wash the sidewalk.

The crème de la crème, the crowning glory, the goddamn consommé that pulls this foul concoction together is the soap and the water.

Why do store front owners insist on scrubbing the sidewalk? It’s a sidewalk. It’s concrete. It’s not a floor in a house.


So gross! It sends ripples of disgust through my entire body when I see someone with a hose.
Generally it’s first thing in the morning. When I’m actually clean and fresh looking, ready for work. But, oh, wait - let me just walk through a few toxic eddies and some rank, rancid puddles.

I hate hate hate that my toes get wet and I, inevitably, splash the mixture up the backs of my legs.

Please store owners, PLEASE: Stop the scrubbing, Put an end to the stinky sidewalk soup. Because I certainly am NOT ready for this gorgeous weather to end!

Not-So-Smooth Move

For a very long time, I thought there was nothing worse in the entire world than moving.

My first experience with this phenomenon, this exchanging of a home for a house, happened the summer before 7th grade. My parents sold the farm I grew up on and bought a house a couple of miles away.

Though we were simply moving from Sharon Valley to Sharon Mountain, I felt like the balloon that was my life had burst brutally open. My barn, my swamp, my hundreds of acres of wide open playground were downsized, overnight, to an odd five.
I was a mess. An absolute mess. I wrote my parents threatening letters: How dare you take me from the only house I’ve ever known! The house that I grew up in, was taken home from the hospital to! I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!
I nicknamed it The Goodly House and glared at anyone who dared refer to it as The Old House.

It took me a few years to get over the move. Talking about The Goodly House was a very, very sensitive subject. I couldn’t even drive past it without a sinking, sentimental feeling of homesickness yanking at my heartstrings.

But, sure enough, life goes on. I survived that earth-shattering experience, and have inhabited numerous abodes since. I’m on my 6th (excluding dormitories), so I’ve obviously experienced many a move-in day.

Some moves were fairly easy...others were quite frightening. Nuclear bomb scary. Great White attack scary. Baby panda sneezing scary (you’re welcome).


(Let me just take a moment to say that I think the
crème de la crème of horrendific big-schlep nightmares was my move last year from one West Village apartment to another. And I think I can safely say all eight of us who participated in that catastrophic-doomsday-tornado agree.)

Anyway, so my buddies Ri and Michelle found themselves a mansion of a place on 11th Street. Amazing, yes. Bravo lassies! But heavy lifting + four flights of never-ending stairs + 95 degrees = holy shit. Major no dankies!
My memory-failure-of-a-mind had forgotten what moving is really like. Not so luckily, though, I was instantly reacquainted with my dormant disdain for the act of relocating.

Remembering back to that 7th grade move, I was stricken with envy for my eleven-year-old self. She had nothing to contend with but nostalgia and hurt feelings. Emotional burdens have got nothing on physical ones when it comes to changing one’s address. I can’t believe I was so upset by the idea of moving. If only my twenty-six-year-old self could have told that little girl to dry her eyes, to quit being a baby...that there are far, far worse things when it comes to Moving Day...like, say, the actual move.

The packing, the PACKING! I, apparently, am no good at that game. I never have anything packed and ready to go. But that But Michelle Carberry was an absolute pro. I mean, she should quit teaching and start her own TV show on how to pack up a house (yes that's her old room...crazy, right?)

You would think, because these lady-friends-o-mine were sooooo organized, that the loading of the truck, the unloading, and the carrying of boxes up those incessant stairs, would happen somewhat quickly.

But no. We friends, and hired movers included, were all sloths made lethargic by heat and humidity.

The heat, the heat! Those weather wardens were quite unkind. It was hot. Scorching. Sweltering. Boiling. Blistering. We’re talking a Mastiff-day-of-summer hot. Hot, hot, hot. It was one for the record books.

You could have filled a kiddie pool with our combined sweat. We were snatching up Gatorade’s like dolla bills on a New York City sidewalk.

The stairs, the STAIRS! Trip after trip after trip up unrelenting steps.

I think I can safely say that it's a truth universally acknowledged: moving suuuuuuuuuucks.

But at least I can count my lucky stars that, this time, I didn't have to unpack and set up shop.

G'luck girls!

Glamping Ain't Always Glamorous

For those of you who have never heard the term “glamping” – I say to you: Where have you BEEN? And to those who have never experienced what it is to glamp, I say: Dude...that sucks.

We are NOT talking pitched tents and fire roasted weenies here. No, no. We’re talking about glamorous camping. It does sound like quite an oxymoron, but seriously. Why pitch a tent when there’s a memory foam mattress at your beck and call?

Yes sirree, I’m talking about a bona-fide, state of the line Dynamax motorhome – outfitted with a dedicated bedroom, two flatscreens, Bose surround sound, and a pull out couch. And of course the amenities de rigueur: bathroom, shower, fridge, stove, microwave, etc.

Oh yes. I was l-i-v-i-n it up fo sho. But, per usual, that shoulda been my sign that something bad was going to happen.

Indeed. There was to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad bug attack.

Perhaps it was my inner city-dweller side rearing it’s fancy schmance face. Or maybe it was simply because I detest the residue it leaves. Or the fact that I always end up getting it in my eyes and mouth. Or that I hate the stink of it.

Or maybe I was just pretending, like those people who don’t wear sunblock to the beach thinking they won’t get burned (gad those people are so irritating!), that I was invisible to bugs.


Alas, I am not.

And boy oh boy, those mother suckers are annoying!! I can’t believe I’d forgotten what a sweet girl I am! Mosquitoes have always loved my blood. But the skyscraper-lined alleys of Manhattan certainly have got nothing on the shoreline backwoods of Rhode Island.

Eventually, after about eight or so sucking-of-the-blood encounters, I caved. (And, of course, got bug spray in my mouth. That shit tastes baaaad!)

I hate mosquitoes! What horrific little creatures they are! How dare they suck human blood! I mean, if they were vampires I would consider allowing them a taste. Especially if their name was Edward Cullen or Bill Compton.

However, those selfish little buggers are good for nothing but swollen-ass bites that itch for days on end!

Not to MENTION the fact that they carry diseases. Anyone for a little West Nile? How about some malaria? Yellow fever? Elephantiasis? No? Didn’t think so. Maybe I shoulda just donned the bee-keeper-esque mask à la Trissi.

Other than this not-so-glamorous aspect of glamping (no matter how many stars you wish upon, I think there’ll always be mosquitoes) – oh, and the fact that my parents locked the keys in the RV while the engine was running (thanks AAA!) – I would say it was a pretty amazing time.

Especially, espeeeeecially because of the gourmet food we ate. Delicious (delicious, delicious ) clam chowder, homemade on a campsite travel stove before my very eyes, baked clams, a ridiculous Vietnamese chicken dish, an even more absurdly lip-smacking marinated grilled steak, shrimp and bacon quesadillas, shrimp fra diavlo...


...the menu goes on an on. All thanks to my magnificent Uncle Chris, Chef Extraordinaire (and good sport! We made him model the bug mask and he acquiesced). I seriously did not think it was possible to gain ten pounds in just two days, but guess what? It is.

Even though my first few bites of food tasted depressingly of DEET, sacrifices gotta be made to save your hide. Mosquito bites are no fun. Especially when they're on your feet and face and arms and legs and – aw hell, anywhere you get em, they suck. 

I suppose, just because you’re glamping, ya can’t skip the spray. Them there skeeters don’t know they’re meant to stay away. They’re vapid, ignorant little creatures who don’t know right from wrong.
Till next time, over and OFF!®

Nail Clipping Nastiness

Personal grooming is a precarious pursuit.

On one hand, it’s disgusting if you do not comply with the unspoken guidelines outlining personal hygiene.

Those acts that must be done on a very regular basis include, but are not limited to: plucking, shaving, brushing (teeth and hair), clipping, cutting, washing, and filing.

However – and this is where it gets tricky – the aforementioned acts of grooming are not – I repeat, NOT – to be executed in public.

Alas, for the sake of this entry, I shall focus on the one particular personal act that drives me up the wall when done in public.

Dat iz de clippingz of ze nailz.

Mega no dankes!

I’m not a particularly skittish person. I watch Nip/Tuck without grimacing. Screeching subway cars, no prob. Bratastic kiddies squealing on the sidewalks piss me off, yeah, but I can handle it.

Clip your fingernails in front of me, though, and I’ll rip you a new one.

OK well I won’t really – I’m far too passive aggressive for that. But I will be quite cheesed off. And extremely grossed out.

Perhaps my disdain for public nail clipping began when I first moved here. My very first New York City boss used to sit at his desk (he was a pretty pig-headed a-hole) and cut his nails.

Really buddy? You’re really going to do that AT WORK?

I don’t care if you’re the boss of an eight person company or the President of a huge corporation: it’s simply not permissible to do that at your desk (or in public), PERIOD.

It’s unsanitary. Fingernails are filthy. It’s unprofessional. “Oh, let me see that report, please...um...is that a fingernail?” It’s the shrillest sound around – the dull snapping of dead keratin. It definitely makes me cringe.

Please, yo. Take a hint from everyone else’s favorite lady, Carrie Bradshaw, and clip that shit in your own Secret Single Behavior time! Not on the subway, nor the bus, not the street, or Starbucks, and especially not in your office.

"Dress Up!" - From Innocent to Indecent

I never think it’s cute when people teach little girls the “Dress Up!” trick. In fact, I find it quite tasteless. 


Yes, they’re adorable, what with their rhotacistic little voices - “DWWWESS UP!”

But seriously moms, why you teaching your baby girl to show off her little lady parts? It’s an endearing joke for about two minutes, then it simply goes south. (Umm and hello, what if child molesters are stalking the playground??)

I can’t remember ever playing this game when I was a toddler. But fast forward twenty-something years...New York City...the West Village...and I’m pretty much an old pro.

The Scene: Traveling to Connecticut for the weekend. Large over-the-shoulder travel bag. Walking from work from work to Magnolia Bakery to get mi madre a cumpleaños treat.

(Ugh, and if there’s a numero uno tourist magnet in the West Village, it’s Magnolia Bakery. Thanks Sex and the City!!)
I glared as obnoxious, insipid tourists pawed their way past me in the tiny, overrated bakery. Finally, cheesecake in hand, I hurried along to the subway stop on Christopher Street. 

Everyone says New Yorkers are always in a hurry. I heartily agree. We’re also programmed to ignore any and all hecklers/panhandlers/tourists. That’s why, when a man in a minivan started shouting, “Excuse me, miss!” at me, I ignored him. 

Why the hell would I pay attention to someone on a catcalling drive-by mission? “EXCUSE ME, MISS!” he yelled for a second time, a third time.
 
I turned to face his minivan, scowl on my face. (I do not appreciate the talkers.) “Your dress is tucked up a little in the back.”
I thought I misheard. I took off my sunglasses (because obviously that’s what people do when they can’t hear something). “I’m sorry?”
“Your dress is tucked up in the back.”

My heart dropped. Fell, rock-like, down to that dirty, dingy sidewalk. My white-pantied bottom has just been exposed to the entire West Village. And not one person had told me.
 
If I could have melted, Wicked-Witch-of-the-West-style, into that stinky sidewalk soup, I woulda.

It’s really quite unfortunate that there are so many innate dangers with dress-wearing. Dresses always make the best outfit. They’re simple, comfortable, flattering. No love handles, no tight-jeans marks when you sit down. One piece. Easy, peasy, Japaneasy.
 
Alas, dress-donning deserves some bright yellow caution tape. For reals. Because if you’re carrying a big bag and it gets caught up, or if that wild NYC wind whips through those street tunnels, flouncy little frocks are sure to go a-flying.

It’s the labyrinthine streets. It must be. A wind-spiracy. Because seriously, a flying up of the dress happens to me at least once every two weeks. Sometimes every week. A superpower gust will zoom through the streets and bam, my butt is front and center in the WV.

Of course I squeal like a child, make overt downward tugs, swivel my head around quicker than an owl to see if anyone is staring or giggling at me.

It’s such a common thing that, I suppose, I shouldn’t be as easily embarrassed as I am. But it’s not fair! It’s not like my dresses are exceptionally short or swirly or lightweight. They’re just regular, everyday, normal dresses.

Wamp wamp.

Fine little kiddies, fine. Show off your pretty pink pantaloons while you still can. Cause sooner than later, it won’t be cute. It will be indecent exposure.

Ice Ice Baby

There’s nothing like frosty glass of ice-cold lemonade.
At least some people think so.

I, on the other hand, prefer a sans-condensation, ice-less, cool (preferably pink) glass of the stuff.

Actually, with this bipolar summer we’ve had - faux fall temps, goddamn, never-ending rain - I truly wonder if anyone has even been craving an ice-ridden, sugary drink.

(So sad, but I don’t think I can rightfully talk about the end of summer nearing and ice-cold glasses of lemonade without sending myself into a hyperbolic depression.)
(Pausing.)
(I’m sorry, I need to take a few deep breaths.)

OK.

No more talk about summer ending. For the duration of this entry I shall restrict my ruminations to that most loathsome, clunky, clinking invention: the ice cube.

I don’t suppose I can rightly call ice an invention. It is, after all, a naturally occurring phenomenon. But if it weren’t for that sly fella Lloyd Groff Copeman (yes, I Wiki-ed), there would be no such thing as an ice cube.

Said in an I-hate-Uncle-Jamie voice: “I haaate Lloyd Groff Copeman!”

Seriously people, what is the obsession with ice? Some of yous just can’t get enough. Good thing it’s free (at most places) cause if they charged you for it, you’d all be broke.

I can’t think of one good thing to say about ice.
It’s a pain in the ass to make. Especially if you - like me - have to manually fill trays with water.

The cubes, being in your freezer amongst a plethora of dead animals, invariably end up stinky and stale.

Then there’s the noise. The noise, noise, noise, NOISE! That cracking, that twisting, that horrifying screech the cubes make when they’re popped from their tray formation.

Even the constant dumping of the automatic cube-erator is annoying!
Not to MENTION the chinking of cubes in shakers and glasses.
And those painful, crackling, hissing sounds they make when they’re hot! Ugh!

Ice is made from water (obviously). So why would you want to add additional water to, say, your coffee? All you end up with is

extremely watered down coffee. What’s the point? Who wants to drink watered down anything?

Filling glasses or plastic cups up to the brim with ice is simply a money maker for restaurants. Really, it is. More free chunks of frozen water means less of the stuff they actually charge for - fountain soda, alcoholic beverages, lattes, juice.

Alas, it’s we the people who have to suffer through the selfishness of these businesses! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten the stinkeye at Dunkin’s for saying, “Not a lot of ice, please,” in the sweetest possible voice.

Then I watch as they shove as many cubes as possible into a medium size cup - simply to spite me. I, being the passive aggressive person I am, say nothing in opposition, opting instead to skip their tip.

For reals, though. This is all child’s play compared to what irks me MOST about those solid cubes-o-agua.
Yes indeed.

If anything ever sent more shivers up my spine than an R.L. Stine book, than a Scream movie, than watching the news - it is the sound of people chomping down on ice cubes.

Seriously. I don’t understand how any levelheaded, normal human being can do such a thing. Can want to do such a thing. It’s positively grotesque, not to mention utterly chilling and cringe-inducing. Even popsicles. Even when people bite ice cream, I involuntarily shudder.
Don’t those brats have sensitive teeth?

Maybe that’s it...that’s why I hate ice so much. Because my g-d Sensodyne doesn’t work and my teeth freak out when ice cubes touch them.

Hmph.

Where Have All the ChapSticks Gone?

America is a culture built upon a slippery slope. We are a people of the addiction, for the addiction, by the addiction.

Just think about it: Alcoholics. Overeaters. Smokers. Druggies. Sex addicts. Potheads.

If there is a commodity, we will - undoubtedly - abuse it.

But there is one addiction that I fear does not get anywhere near enough attention from the media.
Chapstick.

Seriously. There are two types of people in the world - those who are addicted to Chapstick and those who will break out the Blistex only on the driest of wintry days. Only when it’s ten degrees below and their lips are cracking and bleeding and they’re on a chairlift heading up a mountain.
I, unfortunately, belong to the former group of people - the abusers. (And let me just say that it has NOTHING to do with Katy Perry and her stupid Cherry Chapstick.)

Yep, I have an asticktion. My name is Katie and I'm a ChapStickaholic.

If there is not a stick or a pot or a tube in sight, I pace around like a heroin addict waiting for my fix.
The more anxious I become about my lack of chap, the redder my lips get. They scream and burn with hatred over their owners’ stupidity. I have to resort to licking them as consolation which really only exacerbates their chapped-ness.

I’ve been an addict for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember how it started. But either you’re a member of that club or you aren’t. So many people I know never need that stick-o-crack. But for me - well, there’s just no escaping Burt’s vise (such a vice!)

I don’t particularly mind being a lip balm junkie. Unless it’s one of those rare occasions when I’ve changed bags and forgot - the horror - to throw one in.

Really, though, I’m usually quite good about remembering my chapstick. I’d give myself an A- (and that’s pretty amazing considering my forgetfulness). Before I leave my apartment, my mental checklist is something like: purse, chapstick, phone, keys.

Oh yeah, it’s numero dos on my list de importantes.

That’s why it’s so difficult to understand why I have such a poor track record with my sticks and pots and tubes-o-lube. It’s so unfair. Where do they all go???

It’s like that book The Velveteen Rabbit except all the chapsticks in my apartment come alive while I’m asleep and party the night away in true NYC style, hiding themselves by morning. 


Does anyone else have this problem?

I collect chapstick. Let’s see (now this does NOT include lipgloss or lipstick, otherwise we’d be here for hours...oh, and yes, this is my actual lip-stuff drawer. Don’t judge).
 
Four Smith’s Rosebud Salves (two orig, one bramble, one minted). Two Perfumeria Gals. Three Blistex Lip Medex. Two Kiss My Faces. One Banana Republic. One Badger Balm. Four ChapSticks (hate the ones with sunscreen but apparently I’ve got two of them). Some random Aquafina brand kind. Five Burt’s Bees. Bored? OK...I’ll stop there.

I even have a pink Labello chapstick I bought in Rome my Sophomore year of college.

The messed up thing, in my opinion, is not the fact that I have a ridiculous number of lip balms. It’s that I can never seem to find one when I’m in need. Don’t think I’m crazy or anything - even if I did just list all the ones I currently have in my drawer.

You see, like any other addict, I have a preference. A favorito. If you’re a Bud drinker, you’re not really gonna enjoy drinking a Coors Light, now, are you?

My drug of choice is Burt’s Bees.
But maybe I need to start treating my cute yellow tubes with more

R-E-S-P-E-C-T cause seriously, I have never finished one in its entirety.

It’s nuts! They just disappear on me.

Damn you chapstick and your stupid magic disappearing acts.

(Let the record show that after writing this, I cleaned under my bed/couch/butcher block and found three chapsticks in hiding. Makes me wonder. Maybe it’s not the chapstick that’s evil, but rather the apartment...

...spoken like a true addict: Everyone’s lookin’ for someone to blame.)

Bitter Cups-o-Café

I find it most unfortunate that people who have met me in my adult life know me as a sardonic, sarcastic, sneering individual. Most unfortunate indeed.

Alas, there is nothing to do but tell you that I was once a very sweet, kind, caring person (for the most part...we all have our moments). So amiable and benevolent, in fact, that I deemed it my duty to be philanthropic. At the tender age of fifteen, I gave up my Saturday’s to volunteer at my local hospital.

Yes, I would wake up at 8:30 every Saturday morning and be dropped off at the Gazebo Gift Shop where I worked the morning shift. While my peers slept the day away, I chatted amicably with my "coworkers" - women old enough to be my grandmother. And because these elderly women weren’t too quick on their feet, it fell upon me to run the snack counter in the back of the shop.

It was there, in the Gazebo Gift Shop at Sharon Hospital (over ten years ago, gah!) that I had my first encounter with coffee snobbery.

The kitchen at the gift shop was certainly no great shakes. We had the standards: bagels, sandwiches, muffins, juice…and java. I made one pot each of regular and decaf, then poured the brew into thermoses. And these thermoses lasted pretty much the whole day.

One day, just before my shift was over, a woman asked for a cup of coffee. She wanted to know how long it’d been sitting there and I shrugged. Seriously? Coffee was coffee, after all. I handed it to her, she walked away, sipped, and marched right back, demanding I make a new pot. The nerve! Begrudgingly I did so. And now I understand why.

Knowing what I know now, it’s hard to believe that was ever so naïve about a cup of café.

My relationship with joe really took off when I started high school. I’d make Dunkin’s Hazelnut at home and add International’s French Vanilla creamer. Delish! We’ve been pretty serious since then. But I, unfortunately, have become that woman in the Gazebo Gift Shop demanding fresh coffee.

OK, well not demanding. Never demanding. But most sheepishly, passive aggressively trying to get the freshest pot, for sure. I even let people go in front of me if I see that the pot it almost at bare bottom. Because there is nothing worse than old coffee, I tell ya. Nothing. (Alright, well perhaps going to the corner bodega at 3am to find they ran out of Snickers Ice Cream bars is worse.)

For reals, though, freshly brewed coffee is…there are no words. It’s splendiferously smile inducing. Love, love, love it!

By the same token, stale, bitter, burnt java is ferooooociously frown inducing. Hate, hate, hate it. Ruins my whole day. Awful! And Dunkin’s is by far the most absurd, obscene culprit of them all. I don’t understand how they get away with serving customers that watery brown sludge. It tastes like burning toxicity. Like you’re drinking poison. Oh, I’m sorry, do you have a tube running from the bathroom? Probably.

I find that the sludgiest Dunkin coffee comes from the vats. Sure, sure, this is New York City and they do get slammed with out-the-door lines every morning. But why can’t they simply make pots instead of putting it in those thermos-like vats? Trust me, I wouldn’t go to DD’s if it weren’t for their hazelnut and French vanilla hot coffee and their coconut (don’t judge) iced coffee - I hate how Starb’s has only the flavor pumps. They jade the coffee flavor even further.

Dunkin and their stale vats of dirty, flavored water aren't singularly guilty, though. Practically every coffee shop, diner, restaurant, and cart is culpable of serving burnt coffee. They all leave pots on the warmers, sizzling and frying away. Boiling and thickening down to a sepia colored slop.

All decoction delinquents - stale, bitter, and burnt - are equally virulent. They all leave a coating on my tongue, a burning in my throat, and give me a very acute case of heartburn.

Even though I detest every sip of mutilated java, I haven't the heart to dump it down the drain. Nor can I demand a fresh pot - scarred as I am by that woman demanding one of me when I was but fifteen years old.

So I beg thee, dearest coffee shops: make a fresh pot. If the consistency of the coffee is turning to stale sludge, if it has been boiling on the burner for far too long, please. Please just make a fresh pot.

Pepper Imposter

Black pepper is, without a doubt, my most favorite spice. In fact, I find it quite interesting that it’s called a “spice” – I think of it more as a staple. A necessity, really. Like water or legumes or Snickers Ice Cream bars. I do not understand how people dislike pepper. It’s practically the most perfect thing ever – not as acerbic as salt or as fiery as cayenne or as halitosis-inducing as garlic powder.

To be asked to eat something without pepper is, to me, sacrilegious. And though I could never not shake, shake, shake black pepper on a dish I’m about to devour, there is nothing worse than the counterfeit, contemptible “pepper” that adorns restaurant tables.

It’s positively blasphemous. I do not understand how eateries and fast food joints get away with serving those gray and black flakes of dandruff. Horrific! Such an imitation.

For the love of food! Please, please dear restaurants and Dunkin’s, diners and delicatessens, dives and McD’s – please. Can you just provide your devoted customers with some friggin pepper grinders?

There is nothing better than fresh ground pepper. Especially when the peppercorns are black and red and green and white. My oh my! I kiss the glass those shriveled berry balls reside in. It's so unbelievably satisfying to flip over that bottle and grind away, to shake those fresh, fresh specks over salad. Or soup. Or, as is usually the case with me, an entire plate.
Pepper really makes the dish. Every dish, every time.

So why the fjkeajfka do restaurateurs – or households, for that matter – use the imitation stuff? It gives black pepper a bad name. And those packets! Those stupid, minute little packets. Do they really deem that a SERVING? They are such a joke. This isn’t salt, people. A pinch will certainly NOT do.

The pepper found in packets and shakers is pretty much The New York Times ripped and shredded and chopped into diminutive crumbs. That’s why they want you to recycle newspapers, duh, so they can make black pepper out of them!


Lets all start a boycott, shall we? No more using those faux flakes that dining institutions call “pepper”. It really is an insult to the Piper nigrum and its most hallowed, venerable vines.

Ah. In my dreams. If only I had the strength to reject that phony black pepper. Alas, I cannot. The second food is in front of me I reach for that paltry, pathetic shaker. Perhaps it’s mental, but I suppose I would rather suffer through the imitation stuff than eat something that has not been properly peppered.

So until pepper grinders are omnipresent on both plaid, plastic tablecloths and in polished oak dining rooms ‘round the world, I suppose that shaking the bejesus out of the sports section will have to suffice.

Sigh.