Snug as a bug in my mug
By: Mikaela Collins
I am notoriously neurotic when it comes to the possibility of mold growing in my fridge, on my food, and in my various food containers that I typically tote from place to place. COVID-19 has made this easier to manage, since I’m always at home and able to clean things, but it has presented me with a new food fear: bugs.
I like to take my laptop to the park to work from home, and while doing so I have had ants swarm my lunch, bees land on my salad, and spiders crawl inside the lid of my travel mug. Not through the lid into my coffee, but inside the lid, ready to crawl out onto my face at the first unguarded sip. I know people eat insects, but I’m simply not ready to have an open-mouth policy for any crawly critters that wander into my lunch. The thought of accidentally eating a bug makes me itchy all over, but I love being outside, so I guess I must live in fear of these tiny terrors touching my teeth — and accept that other park-goers will see me frantically shooing them away with all the grace of an electrocuted gibbon.
Pop goes the timeline
By:Jessica Barclay
There is a highly unscientific yet extremely compelling conspiracy theory that we were thrown into an alternate timeline in 2016 when an animal caused the temporary shutdown of the Large Hadron Collider. The animal (a weasel, probably, or possibly a marten, according to those on site) disrupted the collider by chewing through a number of very important wires, getting quite singed in the process.
It does make sense at first glance. Only months later Donald Trump, arguably the worst president in American history and overall a miserable failure, was voted into power. Since then, Britain has left the European Union (EU), the weather went berserk, Trump did various nonsensical things too numerous to list, locusts are eating Africa and the Middle East, and the world was hit with a massive and devastating pandemic. That the Queen of England has thousands in offshore tax havens was barely a sub-point in the recent turmoil.
Sadly, it appears that there is absolutely, unequivocally, no evidence to support that we are in an alternative timeline or that the Large Hadron Collider is in any way, shape, or form able to divert reality. It looks like we can’t weasel out of this one; sorry world, this chaos is our own.
Insta filters are a capitalist marketing scheme
By: Darien Johnsen
I love Instagram story filters. And no, I’m not talking about the hilarious “What Ikea furniture are you” or “What Peppa Pig character are you” roulette filters; I’m talking about the ones that make you look like a Kardashian. These filters smooth out your skin, puff up your lips, and give you the false lashes you’ve always dreamed about. Looking at myself through these filters gives me hope for myself, until I realize it must be a secret, capitalist marketing ploy to get me to buy lip injections, false lashes, microdermabrasion treatments, and tattooed freckles — yet it’s kind of working (even though I’m fiercely against marketing ploys). I’m actually fearing that they might be bad for my mental health — it’s so heartbreaking when I tilt my head just a little too far and the filter slips, and I’m left with the acne-scarred, flat-lipped, freckle-less “real me” that’s, frankly, pretty disappointing. But do I tilt the filter back to its rightful angle and take the selfie anyway? You better believe it. I mean, does it really matter? The real world doesn’t even exist anymore, and we’re all morphing into Facebook avatars anyways.
When consuming raw eggs
By: Carissa Wiens
Yesterday evening I made Bon Appetit’s classic Caesar dressing. I whisked the ingredients together, tossed it with some greens, and enjoyed my dinner. It was only later that night when it hit me that I had consumed raw eggs (which I mixed into the dressing, as the recipe called for). Born from an over-cautious mother who warned me to never eat such things, I freaked out a little — Am I going to get food poisoning? Is it raw eggs that can give someone salmonella, or is that just raw chicken?* When making the dressing I didn’t think much of it — eggs get tossed into many of the things I eat, but I usually cook them. Of course this time was different.
It turns out that eating raw eggs isn’t as uncommon as I thought it was. What do you think mayonnaise is? Raw eggs and oil. How about eggnog? Raw. Eggs. People even toss them into smoothies too.
Apparently the risk of getting food poisoning from eating raw eggs is pretty low as long as you keep them refrigerated. I’ve calmed down now, and hopefully my mom will someday too.
Illustrations: Rain Neeposh/The Cascade
Darien Johnsen is a UFV alumni who obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree with double extended minors in Global Development Studies and Sociology in 2020. She started writing for The Cascade in 2018, taking on the role of features editor shortly after. She’s passionate about justice, sustainable development, and education.
