traumatic experiences

I told some of the following story to Alfonso a few days ago, and as nothing interesting has happened yet this week nor have I met any weirdos, I'll re-use it for its entertainment value. Ready set go! Anybody who knows me really well knows that I can't eat spaghetti. I prefer noodles. I will specifically ask in restaurants to substitute the pasta shape. Ziti, shells, elbows... frankly anything that squirts out tomato sauce when you bite it makes me a happy eater. When I'm at home, my mom will pull out a box of spaghetti to make for dinner... then she'll realize that I'm there on one of my prodigal daughter visits and proceeds to return the box to the cabinet from which it came, opting instead for one of the aforementioned noodle varieties. Ahh that Bern-Bern is a quick learner (except apparently not on the ski slopes these days... whaddup broken ankle 3 weeks before Madrid!).

For years I wondered why I was so extremely anti-spaghetti... I mean, those stringy noodles haven't done anything for me, its rather fun to twirl it on one's fork, and the image of spaghetti and meatballs being served to you by a jolly Italian man in a chef's hat and a big ole Mario and Luigi moustache is just so classic! And, while we're at it, the scene from Lady and the Tramp, although sickeningly sweet, adds even more to spaghetti's charm. However, a few years ago I realized why I had this strange and seemingly instinctive dislike of spaghetti... and while somewhat embarassing and apparently quite traumatic, I will share.

Once upon a time in, let's say, 2nd grade, Cliff Orvedal had a Halloween party. There were fun games (the one I most remember was the one where you had to eat a donut hanging on a string without using your hands), fun 'crafted by our moms' costumes (I'm pretty sure Mark was a vampire. I was a witch... ahhh if only it had been my Statue of Libery year the whole fiasco would have been avoided...), and the inevitable array of party snacks. PLUS, it was at Cliff's house, which provided us with 10-15 years of fun... starting with innocent childhood birthday and halloween parties up by/in the barn and then evolving into bonfire parties in which we (primarily the same group of people as 10-15 years earlier..) .... sang kumbaya in a circle. Psych! I'm pretty sure alcohol was usually involved... although the details are mysteriously fuzzy...

So back to the party. An adorable 2nd grader dressed as a witch, who coincidentally was named Betsey, was given a cupcake by Mrs. Orvedal. Betsey, never one to turn down a yummy treat (example: one of the reason that I dropped out of Girl Scouts a year earlier than all my friends was because the snacks that they made us eat sucked en el sentido ingles), took a cupcake, peeled off the paper liner, and began to eat it. While watching one of the games, she didn't notice that a bunch of the hair from the witch wig she was so stylishly sporting had gotten stuck to the cupcake frosting. She took a bite. Half of that bite was composed of synthetic hair. All of a sudden, Betsey realizes what has happened and panics. There is trapped hair in her throat... one end is attached to the wig on her head, and the other end has been swallowed. She can't get it out. Let's not forget this was a very long wig. Poor little Betsey thought that she was going to die choking.

So Betsey, now 18 years old, thought the scene in which she was gagging and trying with all her power to yank hair out of her throat had either a) not been noticed by her peers, or b) been forgotten by those who did happen to see. This naive belief lasted until senior year of high school when, after the last day of school, Betsey reads the message that Cliff had written in her yearbook. The last line of the note went a lil somethin' a-like a-dis: "Hey remember that time that you swallowed your wig and my mom had to yank it out of your throat? I do. That was funny."

And that is basically the origin of the spaghetti issue. It doesn't take a rocket scientist nor an Italian chef to see the similarity between these two throat assaulters (hair and spaghetti noodles... I mean helloooo there is a variety called 'angel hair'... that's not a coincidence!), and after continuing to eat spaghetti and every once in awhile running into having that same sensation of something being trapped in your throat with one end in your mouth and the other already stomach-bound, Betsey subconsciously swore off spaghetti.

The end.




Final thought (how very Jerry Springer-ish of me):
Spanish potato chips are amazing. Susan and I love them and talked about them for a good while this afternoon over a bag of the crispy delights. The only chips I like better are Cape Cod potato chips... whose factory I still want to tour and I suspect it might even end up being better than the Jelly Belly factory outside of San Francisco..