Print Edition: June 19, 2013
Avocados, avocados everywhere
If there were an award for ugliest and tastiest fruit in the world, I would nominate avocados. They are delicious and diseased-looking, and I would like to believe that avocados and I are fast friends.
I remember the first time I saw someone eating avocado, three or four years ago. She peeled the flesh out of the skin with a spoon and sliced layers onto bare bread. No other fixings needed; instant sandwich. It looked delicious – oily, but somehow not in a bad way.
Thus began my love affair with avocados. But now something has changed. At the risk of sounding like a vegetable hipster, it’s become popular. Diet plans have picked up on the fact that avocados are both tasty and, at least in some way, good for you, and it was all downhill from there.
Now you can get avocado on a burger at A&W. You can get it on a Subway sandwich.
I can’t blame the avocado. It was merely being delicious. Instead, I glare at the leprous ball of media, ever-hungry for the next profitable and exploitable fad. For shame! Leave the poor avocado to grow and be harvested and eaten by hippies and wanna-be health food aficionados in peace! Get your cheap, fast-food, gold-digging claws out of here!
Apartment hunting and hoop-jumping
I’m apartment hunting. And while I’d like to make this about the number of people who can’t spell the city or street name where their quiet (usually misspelled “quite”) apartment is located, I have a more pressing concern.
Many students like myself have student loans. The reason I subsist primarily on my loan instead of a near-full-time job is so that I can devote most of my time to my studies. Seems straightforward, no?
Obtaining an apartment to rent is not like it once was; you can’t just walk in, have a chat, and get a set of keys any more. You have to prove you’re worthy. They want credit checks, criminal record checks, deposits on your deposits and extra fees for pets. They want leases and contracts, and they want you to be making enough money at work that you can pay for one-and-a-half times your rent.
The trouble is, my primary source of money is my student loan, and there’s no place for that on the application. So I find myself writing out a letter to management explaining this factor in addition to my application for the one available apartment in a nice building near campus.
Sometimes it is tough to be a student.
Honk if you’re an impatient driver
My favourite thing about driving is the advanced green arrow when turning left. That and pull-through parking spots. But the left arrow, how great of an invention is that? So it would stand to reason that my least favourite thing is having to turn left without the comfort and reassurance of that flashing green light.
What could make this moment of nervousness worse? That would be the person directly behind me who believes it necessary to flash their lights or honk at me, assuming they know better than I when I should turn.
I admit that I am not the best driver but it is still my decision whether it is safe to pass through oncoming traffic, to take my chances and hope that the driver going straight isn’t speeding and that I haven’t overlooked any other cars. The fact that people behind me think it at all possible that they have a better view of the road than the person in front is completely baffling to me.
Furthermore, why do they believe that a shocking honk or blinding light in my rear-view mirror is a compelling argument and a good reason for me to make a driving decision that could put me and others in danger? Anyhow, thank you for your advice, impatient driver, but I think I will rely on my own driving skills to make decisions.
Shampooing etiquette
Can we just discuss for a moment what a person’s supposed to do when they’re getting a shampoo at a salon?
Those shampoo girls know what they’re doing and getting a head massage combined with super expensive products you would never be able to afford in your own home is a luxury, but what’s a person supposed to do?
If you close your eyes and moan, you may be asked to leave.
If you keep your eyes open, you’re forced to keep up conversation with the shampooer while staring at a specific point on the ceiling.
And if you switch between the two, you look like you’re having an episode of some kind and require medication.
There may be some kind of happy medium and I may be over-thinking it a touch, but my point still stands – what’s the etiquette for a shampoo? Would it break the moment if I ask them while their hands are scratching my scalp? Would it bring too much attention to the social faux pas of the moment to have a stranger massaging my roots? Should I maybe just stop thinking about it and hope she doesn’t even notice because her job is to shampoo strangers’ hair all day?
I could try to stop thinking about it.
But instead I’ll just close my eyes. And try not to moan.
