I had to descend at least nine circles before I found closure for my taxes last year, but this year was refreshingly different. There were no circles to negotiate! Not a one. I rounded up all my documentation yesterday evening, tracked down a coupon for TurboTax, and then knocked it out, from login to e-filing, in under 20 minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever submitted anything this early, taxes or otherwise, and honestly it feels a little eerie.
Taxes, however, are the last thing I want to discuss tonight. Instead, I’d like to conclude Food Week by bringing bland, boring oatmeal to the table. There’s history here, if you recall. A gambit gone wrong. The official count was 716 packets when we spoke about the matter last August and now, 18 months later, there are precisely 180 bags of–ugh–Maple & Brown Sugar left. It’s a prodigious number, and thinking about it with any appreciable frequency could drive a man insane.
What is arguably the most important meal of the day becomes an ordeal, some mornings. I think a lot about that night at Target, when I made a poor life decision. I have flashbacks. Flashforwards, too, to the day when I finally crack open the final box. Maybe I never left the Island, if you know what I mean. I’ve found some relief in adding cranberries to the stuff, but even as I type this, I’m not entirely sure whom I’m trying to convince. And that’s precisely why I’m grabbing a sausage, egg, and cheese on a bagel tomorrow morning.
Food isn’t something we normally discuss here, but we’ve been on a tear recently, and rather than stare blankly at Word for 20 to 30 minutes, scrabbling for something remotely interesting that happened in the past five days, I figured, “Fuck it. Let’s just ride the momentum to the ground.” I submit to you, then, cookies.
I’m not just talking about any cookies. I have a very specific kind in mind: chocolate chip cookies from Chicago, Purple Line, baked right under the Foster L stop. Every year, I make it a point to buy a few dozen from the proprietor, and it’s a tradition driven by nostalgia, then verified by cold, empirical deliciousness. The first time I had these cookies was in college. They were sold in the student union, individually wrapped and stamped with a strange rhino.
But then the cookies disappeared one day, which prompted some sleuthing. Honestly, it was probably the only substantive research I conducted during my undergraduate tenure. And when I finally found the bakery, I may as well have found the Seven Cities of Gold. I loved the ambiance. Entrance secreted away on the side of a building, no real storefront, drawings all over the kitchen walls, and the credit card reader buried under papers on a desk in the back office.
My fondest memory, though, was when the owner made a house call. It was my first Bible study, and I wanted to do it up right by plying everybody with earthly riches in the form of baked goods. I called the bakery and she picked up. Mentioned she was headed home anyway, so swinging by would be a no-brainer. It was a chilly night. I remember dashing down the dorm stairs to the lakeside entrance and there she was, still in bakery attire, with a bag full of cookies. It was a different era, a bygone time when I actually had the wherewithal to lead Bible study. Only worried about the curriculum, with no thought for the vitae part. World economies weren’t constantly on the brink of something, every other week. And cookie flavor, above all else, would be my most pressing decision for the evening.
When I called Verizon to disable texting, back in the day, I did so with a singular purpose, my conviction tempered by one too many unsolicited texts. The very notion that I had to pay to receive spam, even if it was only pennies per message, was an affront to my senses. Up to this point, spam had been traditionally free to receive, even in its corporeal form. There wouldn’t be, like, any postage due if a credit card application landed in your mailbox.
But this was exactly what it was like for text spam, and I was incensed to the utmost. Now, in an era where plans allow for an infinite number of texts in any given month, this objection simply doesn’t hold water anymore. In its place, instead, is the freedom I’ve come to appreciate from a phone that doesn’t regularly bleep in accordance with other people’s streams of consciousness. Ridiculous as this may sound, I like the barriers to entry involved in calling, rather than thumbing, because it hints at a higher level of commitment. That’s about the shape of it.
I’m in the market for a new phone, though, and the draw of smartphones is certainly there. There are external exhortations, too–no fewer than four verbal requests this past year to get with the times, one of which was heartfelt and possibly rehearsed. But if I’m being truly honest with myself, I know the probability of heeding any of these entreaties is low. The freedom is simply too sweet. You will notice that interacting with smartphones typically requires a pose of supplication–and I will bow to no phone.
The instant I logged onto Gmail today, I could feel it–the dull, pervasive specter of not caring. My hope is a return to normalcy when I wake up tomorrow, but even as I type this, part of me is surprised it took so long for this wave of apathy to hit. I thought it would’ve happened a lot sooner, frankly, because an equation with exponentially increased sociability felt too unbalanced. A correction had to happen, somehow. That old surliness couldn’t have just disappeared, after all.
To be clear, I wasn’t in a foul mood. That would’ve been arguably better, because you still feel the fire when you’re mad. It’s just a darker fire. No, apathy means a total absence of fire. In the usual course of a good conversation, whether electronic or face-to-face, there is a healthy give-and-take, an appreciation for both the text and the subtext, what is said and unsaid. But when you don’t care, you either flat out ignore the talk or you cut straight to the subtext, with little personal capital invested in niceties.
“Join my network on LinkedIn” isn’t an avenue of opportunity, so much as a prelude to an awkward cold call. “How was your week?” translates to “Ask me about mine.” “Know anybody interested in this job opening?” is a coy way of asking “Are you interested?” Like I said, no room for niceties. I’m digging for the punchline as if it were a truffle.
And “Happy New Year’s! The alumni association is gearing up for the following events, and I’ve done so and so…” really means “It’s time for you to do some pro bono work.” Some bright news on that front is I’ve managed to stop the phone solicitations for donations. Previously I had attempted to replace my phone number with some random digits, but the goddamn database would keep restoring my real number. So I had to wean it off my legitimate contact info, one number at a time, until I found satisfaction. Now, those fresh-faced eager beavers are simply routed to a local Papa John’s, where any mention of Big Ten would merely elicit the response that, no, the $10 special for a large cheese pizza expired a long time ago.
Achewood
Clark and Michael
Consumerist
Fark
FlickFool
Homestar Runner
Newsmap
Onion
PBF Comics
Penny Arcade
Red vs. Blue
Salon
Snopes
Something Awful
Urban Dictionary