Why are blankets shaped like rectangles?

That awkward kick thing you have to do to get your blanket back the “right way”.

While I was growing up and learning about the world around me, the strangest thing to understand had to do with my shoes. No, it wasn’t how to tie them, or even understanding why certain people owned hundreds of pairs; it was that there was one shoe specifically designed for one foot. Why didn’t the left shoe fit well on the right foot? What if I wanted the design to be facing the other way? Nope, it wasn’t going to happen. Eventually, I gave it up and started thinking about other things.. and later I realized that some things take time to get used to. Even if they don’t make sense.

For one, beds are usually shaped like rectangles. Longer from one side and shorter on the other. Why must sheets and blankets be shaped this way too? I guess it looks better… But I really think that blanket designers have to think that the blanket should be made to benefit the person, not so much benefit the look of the bed. I’ll tell you what I mean:

Suppose it is a cold winter night and you are woken up by your legs being cold. What do you do? You try to adjust the blanket over you in order to cover your whole body.. but it doesn’t work! What the heck is going on? The blanket is turned on its side. Now you must do a weird kick-thing and get the blanket to turn to the “correct” way. You didn’t only become more awake because of this, but also you must deal with the cold areas of the blanket. The point is that it would be less of a problem if the blankets were shaped like squares, or even circles (this is the part where you go “Yeah! Circles!”). Yeah, the bed would look a little different with a circular blanket, but I think it would be worth it.

Other things took some time to get used to:

• Why was the Game Boy called that? It wasn’t a boy. Walk Man? Same thing, only awkwarder. Then again, Playboy.. hmm.. anyway, its just wrong.
• I always felt younger than I actually was. I thought of this: When I was a 3rd grader, the 5th graders seemed a lot bigger and older; but as soon as I got to be that age, I felt like I wasn’t old enough to be a 5th grader. In high school, I saw college students as adults; now that I’m in college, I don’t feel so old.
• Women. Well just interaction between genders in general. You probably know what I mean.

All I can say now is: Oh well. I wouldn’t know what to answer if a child asked me why blankets are shaped that way, or even why the name “watermelon” fits the fruit so perfectly.

Can anybody think of any answers, or bring up other things that take time to get used to?

Are you a loud eater? Find out!

116. When someone is chewing loudly and they don’t realize it

Have you ever tried to eat an apple at work? Do you try to not act annoyed by somebody chewing loudly next to you? Do your friends think you’re stingy because you refuse to offer them chips or pretzels but the only reason you don’t do so is because you don’t want to hear them chew?

Let’s face it, sometimes we do things that others find annoying, like licking our fingers before flipping a page of a book, missing when we pee, or letting one rip in front of your in-laws. But do you do one of the top 124,234 things that most annoy people? That’s right, I’m talking about chewing loudly; let us find out by answering the following questions truthfully:

Do people invite you out to lunch often? Eating is a highly social event, people enjoy food and they think that the joy will spread and they can actually get to like someone by eating with them, but sometimes things don’t work that way.

Does your dog stop begging for food once you start eating? The poor guy might think you’re eating gravel and dried twigs, can you blame him?

While you’re eating, do people seem to get mad at you for no reason? Aha! Well now it makes sense, right? You’re welcome.

If you think you are the only one that can hear yourself chewing, you are probably wrong.

I used to pack an apple to take to work every day. I’d take one bite out of it, let it sit there,  and watch it get brown until the end of the day. Don’t get me wrong, I love those things! I like the yellow ones. Just to be clear, I don’t judge based on the color of its skin, origin, or maturity.. I eat them all. I sometimes wonder if I was a horse in a past life; what else could explain it? Anyway, I would let it sit there because the people on the cubicles around me would hear the CRUNCH! CRUNCH CRUNCH… of the delicious apple.

They’re not like crackers, you see.. with crackers you can just leave them in your mouth and eventually they get soggy and they get eerily quiet. Apples don’t! They’re straight up legitimate noise-makers.

As comical as it can be, this can be a very big issue for some. There are groups on Facebook titled “I hate loud eaters!!!” and “I hate people that chew loud!”, seriously.

I’ll let you guys in on a personal story:

In Spanish, they are called chicharrones. In English, we call them pork rinds. The skin of a pig is ripped into tiny squares and then fried in pig fat and served with seasoning or hot sauce. As healthy and appetizing as it sounds, I am not a big fan of them. Some dude had a bag of these (Hot Cheeto-style) and was sitting behind me during a lecture on flux and electric fields. The bag was sealed when I got there, so when I heard the package being opened, I gripped my pencil tight and mentally prepared myself for what was about to happen.

The first bite wasn’t too bad, it had the intensity of the sound of an apple x10 (I think that will be our standard of measurement, 10 apple intensity), but then it got bad. Horrible. Ok, we’re all adults, I’ll just say it: it was torture.

CRUNCH!

No.

It was way worse than that. More like:

CRAKKKKK-INSERT-FINGERNAILS-SCRATCHING-AGAINST-A-BLACKBOARD-SOUND-HERE – UNCH-UNCH -MOIST-MOIST-MOIST-MOIST- SOUND-OF-A-MICROPHONE-GOING-“EEEEEE”- FEET- FEET- UNCH, CRUNCH, THAT-SOUND-THAT-COMES-OUT-AT-THE-END-OF-A-YAWN-SOMETIMES- SQUEAK!!

I’m saying like a 1.23X10^34 apple intensity.

Just when it was about to be over, and I could hear the sound getting softer, a new pork rind would enter his mouth and start it all over again. People were turning around, some people angrily put their hands next to their ears and discreetly pulled out their hair. After six pieces (yes, I remember), I turned around and said:

“Dude.”

He pointed at himself with a confused face. Everyone’s eyes were on us. I couldn’t let everyone down.. it was the moment of truth. Was I going to speak up and be a hero? Was I going to give up and ask for some pork rinds and then choke on them intentionally?

He sank in his chair and looked around at everybody.

I turned away.

He got it.

He put the bag away.

Poor guy, he was embarrassed in front of the whole class because he didn’t realize how annoying he was being. Sure, sometimes closing your mouth while chewing helps, but sometimes the muffled sound makes it resonate with the annoyous nervosious, a made up nerve located between our shoulder blades, next to the thing that causes chills.

Half way through the lecture, we heard another bag of chips being opened from the left side of the classroom. Heads turned in that direction immediately, followed by some awkward chuckles and laughter.. I guess we became a little paranoid.

Happy chewing! Ooh, and Happy Pi Day!

-Edwin

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When fat people call themselves fat

We all know about it, we see news reports all over the place about how fat America is getting. Hmm.. I know there are readers out there from other countries, so here is a question for you: Do you see news reports on fat America in your area?

Here in the U.S. we see them all the time! They’re always like “We are fat! Obesity is a problem. It can lead to diabetes, high cholesterol, sudden death, heart attack, depression..” the list goes on and on (and on and on). These things appear on the news so often, you’d think people aren’t actually noticing this stuff on their own. We see big people out on the street all the time, but for some reason, the news people think its an awesome idea to show clips of fat people walking around on the street.

I drew up that thing in like 10 seconds, sorry for the quality, but the whole missing-people’s-heads part is totally accurate. They news people go around filming the bellies and big butts of people walking by, and they probably feel super proud of themselves when they score a fat person holding a bag of McDonald’s or a fat dude walking around with an overweight child. Can you imagine seeing yourself on one of those reports?

“Look, I’m on TV!”

Not.

It is a horrible thing. According to kidshealth.org, one in three children are overweight or obese.But when I go pick up my little cousin from school, I see maybe one overweight kid out of a class of 20. I’m not sure if they took a survey outside of a food court or something, but it seems a bit exaggerated. I guess it makes sense though, don’t television network news channels get a kick out of scaring the crap out of everyone?

DEATH! VIRUS! WAR! MOTHER-IN-LAWS!

It’s like, dude c’mon!

Well since I’m not here to lecture on obesity, and we probably get enough of it elsewhere anyway, lets talk about the awkward moment when a fat people call themselves fat.

What are you supposed to do when a person calls himself/herself fat and they actually are?

I’ve tried to come up with something to say given the many opportunities I’ve had in this exact situation over the years, but I still cannot come up with a solid way out.. Hmm..

Let us look at our options:

• “No you’re not!”- You just lied. That’s awkward, and now they’re probably going to defend their statement and you’ll be forced to say “Ok, yeah you are.. sorry.”
• “Haha! No, I am!” – This might make you look like a jerk if you’re slim. Have you ever heard a person say something like that? They call themselves fat around a person that is actually overweight? Ugh.
• “Yeah, you are.. haha!” -Whoa, you did NOT just do that! Even though it was probably supposed to come off as a joke, its an awkward one because its true. Now you both have to pretend like it was actually funny and play it cool.
• “… … …” – You stay silent. According to the Code of Awkwardness, this qualifies as an Awkward Silence. If the topic doesn’t get changed immediately, it gets worse exponentially. So pretend to tie your shoe, act like your phone just vibrated, or say “I have hairy elbows” for instant relief.

OK, let’s hear it. What would you say?

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More awkward:

• Getting pulled over
• Forgetting why you went into the room
• When the voice does not match the person