Mozart, Girl Scouts, and Other Cheaters
It's finals week, time to reflect for a bit about what we all learned this quarter (non-Buckeyes: three quarters here, instead of two semesters). What did ol' Beef learn this quarter? I learned that I probably don't want to be a music teacher when I finally have to grow up. I learned that not only is it possible to wake up at 6:30 every morning in college, but it actually gets easier the longer you do it. I learned that waking up at 4:45 is a different story altogether. I learned how to sing Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus in English, Latin, from the soprano part, basso continuo style, starting at the beginning of any phrase, and upside down. I learned that I get to be a CILT counselor next summer at Camp T. I learned that if you get yourself into a habit, good or bad, it is incredibly powerful.
That actually doesn't count as learning, so much as realizing that what a younger Beef kept getting told was actually true. As such, Beefster endeavored to try a couple things, to varying degrees of success. Going to class worked out pretty well; giving up Sportscenter for Lent may have been a disastrous mistake; and the Beef diet was somewhere in between.
"Beef diet? That can't possibly be healthy." Put away your jump to conclusion mat for just a second, team. There was a method to this madness. The plan was: eat 19 meals a week, instead of 14. Have a nutri-grain bar for breakfast every morning, have a salad and apple for lunch, have a sandwich and apple for dinner. Don't snack between meals, don't eat after dinner, and don't drink anything other than water. Twice a week, break the routine (i.e. brunch at North Commons, pizza from the PAD, Burritos Noches, et al.).
So this was actually sailing along pretty well, for the better part of nine weeks. Unlike Hollywood marriages, there was very little cheating; the habits were working. Then my Great Uncle Clyde passed away this past weekend.
People who have tried to be on a diet before (Beef is not one of them) are probably already predicting what happened: a huge depression cycle, massive ice cream consumption, and the end of the short-lived Beef diet. Lee Corso would say, "not so fast my friend." It's sad to lose a relative, but Uncle Clyde was a heck of a guy, he lived a long and productive life, and he died in peace, at home, surrounded by family. It was less of a tragedy, and more somber and dignified end to a life well lived. The Beef diet didn't skip a beat.
Enter Beef's mom. Now, here, those with firsthand knowledge can see what is going to happen. Columbus happens to be directly between West Lafayette and the Uncle Clyde's hometown--a visit was inevitable. With it came 14 boxes of girl scout cookies (I'm not exaggerating. 14 boxes). Some people eat more when they're going through a hard time. My mom does the inverse; she feeds more.
As things stand now, they sit on the shelf above my computer, staring down ominously.
"Beef," they say to me, while I diligently write my lesson plan. "C'mon." I stare determined at my computer screen. "We have ones that aren't as bad for you." Yeah, but they taste like cardboard. "Then have one that is bad for you, but just one." That's cheating. "Beef, look at these girl scouts. Are you really going to be so selfish? You're going to let these poor little girls starve, and worse, never earn their street-crossing badge, just because of your stubbornness?" FINE. And then I eat one, and I look at the nutrition facts, and the serving size is two, so I better not cheat there either, and I eat another one.
This is not a good habit to get into, but it at least can be understood. Everybody, at some point or other, has wanted to do something, known they shouldn't, and did it anyway. It was today that things descended into ludicrosity. The Columbus sky was gray, like it is 8 months of the year, mostly because God didn't want to make the clouds scarlet and give away his true colors. It was raining, and Beef was making his way 8 blocks down High St. only to find that the one barbershop on campus capable of cutting a heterosexual man's hair is closed. On the way back up, there was--I guess they don't go door to door anymore?--a gaggle of girl scouts selling cookies. In the rain, despondent because everyone who walked by was either a college student with iPod on volume 11 or the rapping bum, each call of "girl scout cookies!" sounding less cheerful and less hopeful and more like "why can't we just go home?"
Well, I tell you what team. The part of Beef's heart that has not been clogged with "Chinese" food (dog) was pretty beat up. Final tally: 1 box of peanut butter patties and 1 box of peanut butter sandwiches.
The purchase seemed even more ridiculous when I returned to my dorm room, soaking wet, and had to try to find room for two more boxes of girl scout cookies. The longer Beef tried to diligently fill out his flute fingering chart, the more those two new boxes joined the girl scout cookie temptation choir.
My only choice to block them out was to think about a reliable distraction--economics. Now normally Beef is a pretty strong free-market proponent, "Markets work, governments don't," von Mises, and so forth. But if there is one area in which we need to do a better job, as a national economy, it is cracking down on false advertising. For example: when Paris Hilton washes a car and eats a 3 pound cheeseburger in no discernable clothing at all, there should be a big warning at the end of the commercial. "Warning: Eating that kind of garbage will make you bigger than Paris Hilton ... 's car." When I see another beer commercial, Miller or Bud, they're pretty much the same, it should say "Warning: inaccurately repeating the lines of this commercial while inebriated will make you neither funny, nor attractive to the female gender. Also no real woman looks like the girls we put in beer commercials." And for heaven's sakes, you cannot put cute kids in your commercials unless it is actually a product for children. The aforementioned mother will buy anything with a baby in the advertisement. If Phillip Morris was allowed to show babies smoking, she would buy a carton of cigarettes.
And the more I thought about this, the more I thought about just how crafty those girl scouts are. Standing in the rain, pouting, watching oblivious passerby after oblivious passerby passby until they reel in the latest sucker, trying to keep from smiling while he buys peanut butter cookies that he doesn't need.
Ols: Freaking Girl Scouts.
the rest of the thoughts 3.11.06