Life’s subtler pleasures are the most rewarding
What’s the antonym for "point"? Because this column doesn’t have
one. Just a little caveat.
My dad used to interrupt me midsentence and say, "So what’s your
point?" He always told me that I should be able to summarize a
whole movie in a sentence. Two sentences, max. And then I’d try to,
but I’d get all flustered because there were so many things I would
be forced to leave out, important things, and I usually would end
up walking away from him, kind of pissed off.
Then he’d go, "Come back here, where are you going" kind of
chuckling, maybe more like smirking, which would irk me even more.
It used to make me so mad that he’d do that but I think that dads
are allowed to do that. Parents should be given lots of allowances
for the shit they put up with. At least my parents should.
My editor told me that good columns often take an incident,
event or current issue that many people are aware of and then
relate to the reader a personal perspective on it, often through
the use of anecdotes.
So while driving around, I try to think of things I have a
strong opinion about, but all I could think about were things that
annoyed me like when you go to a public restroom and the toilet
paper doesn’t roll out smoothly and every time you try to take
some, you end up getting one sheet, one little square.
Or when you’re driving around with a friend who talks a lot and
a really cool song comes on the radio and you’re like, "This is
such a cool song" and you turn it up, kind of like a hint for him
to shut up for a minute and he turns the radio down and keeps on
talking. My friend Steve does that all the time and it used to
really bug me, but I’m used to it now. I guess that’s an allowance
I give him for all the awesome qualities he has.
I tried to write a "good" column for this issue but what comes
out just comes out, if you catch my drift. My friend J.P. told me,
"You can’t just ramble on about nothing and if you think you’re
gonna get anywhere writing like that you’ve got a lot to learn." I
guess I haven’t learned much from J.P. or my dad because here I go,
rambling on again.
I had a craving for pancakes the other day and it was all
because of Pulp Fiction. The first time I saw Pulp Fiction I walked
out of the theater thinking, "Wow." And I had a mad craving for
pancakes. Blueberry pancakes. You know the kind that the French
chick talks about. She’s the one who wanted a pot belly like
Madonna’s in the Lucky Star video.
The second time I saw Pulp Fiction I walked out of the theater
with a lot of admiration for Quentin Tarantino and another damn
pancake craving. I guess I’m just susceptible.
So I went to John O’Groats, this awesome little breakfast place
on Pico and Patricia, over the weekend. I sat myself at the counter
practically gaunt because I starved myself in anticipation of this
moment, and the waitress approached me.
"I’ll have the blueberry buckwheat pancakes and a large O.J.,
uh, orange juice." Ever since the whole O.J. Simpson thing, I can’t
say O.J. I just don’t want to hear it any more than I have to, let
alone hear myself saying it.
She looked at me funny and said, "A short stack, right" trying
to clarify the situation with this expression like "you didn’t mean
you were going to eat a whole full stack all by yourself now,"
which I was. I hesitated for a moment and replied, "uh, yeah."
But I really wanted the big order. I wanted to eat ’til I
couldn’t eat any more and still have pancakes on my plate. This was
getting off to a bad start, but that’s … okay. I could deal.
When I got my pancakes I was pretty happy. I’d be damned if some
waitress was going to kill this highly anticipated indulgence. I
spread some more butter on those cakes, put a little pat in between
to let it melt there and drizzled some hot maple syrup all over
them and made a nice messy bite of cholesterol oblivion.
I was sitting there going at it, health conscience aside, and
two older women came and sat down next to me and ordered coffee
"with non-fat milk, please." So she’s on a diet, I thought to
myself. I’m not. As I fork-lifted the bite I just made, half-melted
butter on top, the lady sitting next to me looked over and smiled.
"You know you can only eat that way because you’re still
young."
I looked over at her, looked really hard. She was saying to her
friend, "Well I called Shelly about bridge and … "So I must’ve
imagined it. It’s my guilty conscience going haywire. My super ego
is projecting its higher principles onto my breakfast counter
neighbor trying to tell my id to stop pigging out. Or something
like that.
Now I had a complex because nobody else seemed to be eating as
much as me and the waitress had to start it all by asking if I
wanted a short stack with one eyebrow raised up the way some people
can do that.
I just ignored it all and finished. I kind of felt bad about
pigging out, but later on that morning I replaced the headlight on
my car all by myself which made me feel good. I just wish I could
tune it up and all the other auto servicing so I don’t have to get
reamed once a year by the mechanics at the auto shop. Something to
work towards.
So what was the point of all that? I don’t know, but as an
English major I could make one out of it all. When you have a lot
of expectations, it’s easy to be disappointed, and there are good
qualities and bad qualities about everything, in friends and even
in a day. You just have to deal. Also, it’s good to have something
to work towards, so next time I’ll try to write a "good" Viewpoint
column. See ya.
Chung is a senior English student. Her column runs on alternate
Mondays.