The power of “the finger”

Last week, I got into an altercation in the Whole Foods parking lot. I am not too proud to admit that. I arrived at the three-way stop in my 1996 Toyota Tercel with the missing driver’s side door handle and shortly after, a white, middle-aged, wealthy man in a brand new Cadillac SUV rolled up across from me. I knew immediately he was going to try something, and it being the week of Thanksgiving, I had already dealt with a Charlie Foxtrot situation both in the store and maneuvering through that hellscape of a parking lot and my patience had run out long ago. As I (lawfully) made my left turn, he started to go and nearly hit my car, then slammed on his (fortunately) brand new brakes and laid on his horn. I flipped him off naturally, and I could feel the laser beam of rage from his eyes penetrating my soul. He pulled up alongside me, completely losing his mind, hanging out of his SUV window, gesticulating wildly and screaming profanities. I kept my window rolled up, turned up my radio and just laughed heartily, all while holding that finger high and proud in the air. I emerged triumphant as he was forced to proceed as traffic piled up behind him.

I win.

And this got me thinking about the power of the hand gesture. My one finger had more power than the stupid words coming out of his mouth. Nothing enrages a person more than “the bird.” This Motor City strip club owner knew it and so bought the mansion next to his cheating ex-wife and her new husband and erected a 12-foot-tall middle finger statue on the back deck.

Impressively offensive

He even has a spotlight on it at night! This is true dedication to being an asshole.

So why is this gesture so delightfully effective? The finger is, of course, not innately offensive. Meaning had to be assigned to that otherwise neutral finger. Oddly, the finger has been offensive for centuries, but never has really had any distinctive meaning, save for the idea that it may resemble male genitalia and is a symbolic substitute for waving that stuff around in people’s faces (and available to the ladies as well)! Long ago called the digitus impudicus or digitus infamis (meaning, respectively, indecent or infamous digit), it was a popular offensive mechanism for the Romans and medieval Europeans. It was a favorite of the famed asshole Caligula, who adored to have his enemies kiss his digitus impudicus, which is probably what eventually got him killed.

“That’s the LAST time you flip me off, CaligulASS!”

While the gesture has no specific meaning, it universally pisses off Americans. And I love the simplicity of raising that finger out of my fist to convey what a million words never could.

Professionally offensive

Some thoughts on carpet

A friend of mine recently shared an article with all of his cyber friends on Facebook (a site that generally is there to disrupt your life and make you feel horrible about the three hours you just spent watching cat videos or wittily responding to that one super conservative guy’s post about “Obamacare”). But occasionally it is worthwhile when your smart friends post things like this. And with a title like 16 People On Things They Couldn’t Believe About America Until They Moved Here, I thought, what an excellent opportunity to find ridiculous fodder for that silly blog I’m writing.

While I laughed hardily at foreigners’ reactions to things like our obsession with running, our penchant for gigantic cars, and the popularity of going to class in pajamas (take note, freshmen ladies), the thing that really resonated with me was “wall-to-wall carpeting.”

Just one of the many disgusting things that can happen in a carpeted situation.

Carpeting your home is a foul practice and one that should have gone out of style with shag carpet (there’s a reason they call it that, you know). What happens on the carpet, stays on the carpet until your broke ass can afford a steam clean. Everyone is aware of the superiority of hardwood floors; even linoleum would get more likes on Facebook than carpet!

Just look at how happy and clean these people look, enjoying those shiny hardwood floors.

So really, I had to wonder, who was the jerk who decided carpeting in the bathroom was a good idea? Or who thought little girls would love to see wolf spiders disappear into those impossibly tall strands of shag carpet? So naturally, I did a little research and was incredibly pleased to find there is an actual all-things-carpet website. This website’s sole purpose is to bring you the facts you need to know about carpet and rugs; I’m talking history, careers, even frequently asked questions!

Man, I cannot wait to start my career in the carpet industry! Just look at how fulfilled this guy is!

But more importantly, I learned from this amazing fact-filled website that carpet weavings were excavated and dated to be from the second to third century BC in the Middle East! Apparently they were originally woven for special ceremonies and later used by nomads to shield them from the hard cold things they often slept upon. Eventually, that one jerk was like “Let’s carpet all the things!” (probably before people had any decent understanding of epidemiology) and so there I sat in 1995, cutting red nail polish out of our shag carpet with dull scissors cursing the nomadic tribes of the Middle East.

On jack-o’-lanterns, the drunken Irish and squirrels

The date today is October 29th, which means my favorite holiday is just around the corner. Sadly, my evil university overlords are not allowing me to celebrate it this year, as they do not understand the true importance of Halloween. Rather, they believe that torturous amounts of homework and jumping through endless academic hoops like a trick pony are much more important to my future. So, unable to don my costume of unparalleled amazingness I had planned for this year’s festivities, I am banished to my room (dungeon), staring at a computer screen and clinging desperately to my dwindling inspiration. Here’s where I stop complaining and get to the point.

How I am feeling tonight

I know you have already read about Halloween here. You must realize by now that it is the best holiday celebrated in the world and worth blogging about repeatedly. And tonight I want to talk about ye ole jack-o’-lantern and why we are so obsessed with crafting these meticulous creations out of something as impermanent as a gourd. Do not get me wrong, I love to decorate squirrel food as much as the next guy; leaving rotting fruit on my front porch to disappear slowly through a series of tiny teeth marks is a really worthwhile task.

Just look at this jerk.

Honestly, before I started writing this blog, I never really considered how utterly strange this custom is. It is so ritualistic – cheap plastic orange-handled utensils, newspaper spread across the kitchen table, a strainer for seeds. It’s like a murder scene from Dexter. The pumpkin killer slices open the skull, scoops out the stringy brains, carves out some macabre image on its skin and sets the thing aglow as a warning to all future pumpkin victims. There is something already ghoulish in the act of creating these things. So, besides getting us in the spirit to celebrate Halloween (i.e. to go buy unhealthy amounts of candy), why do we do this thing?

Obviously a professional. Note the star-shaped incision.

Anticlimactically, it is rather unclear how this all started but there are some creative theories. According to one interesting source I perused, these creations originated in Irish mythology with a man named Stingy Jack. Well, Stingy Jack got in over his head with the devil (easy to do; trust me I know) and ended up in purgatory with only a carved out turnip lantern to light his way, thus deeming him Jack of the Lantern, later shortened to Jack-o’-lantern. I’m not convinced, but I enjoy the story. The same source told me that people in Ireland and Scotland began the tradition with carving scary faces into turnips and potatoes to scare away ole Jack. I’m guessing the Irish were too drunk to realize that turnips are too small to be scary and that two squirrels could easily carry off a potato. It’s okay, I’m Irish enough to stereotype them.

We are a disgraceful lot.

A slightly more convincing text told me that the whole tradition started with the Celtic version of Halloween, Samhain (good luck pronouncing that one, mwahaha), and started with large bonfires aimed to ward off evil spirits. When this tradition moved across Ireland and the drunks kept burning down the village, they placed the fires instead into turnips and gourds (more fire-safe containers, if you will). So, much like many diseases, Halloween came to America on a boat from Europe. When the Irish realized we were short on turnips and other preferred spirit-dispelling gourds, they found pumpkins (and everyone knows pumpkins are way creepier than turnips). So the Irish shouted, “Jack pot-o’-gold!” (or some other Irishey exclamation) and pumpkins became our norm.

Whatever the explanation, I advise you, go find your Halloween spirit, carve a pumpkin for me and thank an Irishman. Happy Halloween! Mwahahahahaha!

Halloweird

With autumn’s arrival come squash soups, crispy leaves, cozy sweaters and my favorite celebration – the incredibly strange custom we call Halloween. As this tradition has been celebrated in America for hundreds of years, we tend to take its oddity for granted.

image credit: Kidzclix.net

There are many strange things about this holiday, but there are a few I find particularly odd. For instance, it is a well-known fact that parents in this country are paranoid (which is why I will avoid the whole reproduction debacle). We are told throughout our youth “Don’t talk to strangers.” “Never accept anything from a stranger.” “Be home before dark.” Thanks to the culture of fear produced by our mass media, many parents today believe everyone is a predator and out to get their child. This has created even more paranoia and strict rules imposed by parents on their children. However, on Halloween? Anything goes! Parents happily send their children out into the streets well past dark to beg for candy from strangers. In the parents’ defense it is probably wise to prime their children for begging on the streets before they graduate college $50,000 in debt. So on one day of the year, parents let go of all their inhibitions concerning their child’s safety in the name of tradition.

image credit: popehat.com

Another odd thing about Halloween is how we go about asking for the candy. As a child this phrase was given to me with little explanation. “Trick or treat” gets you candy in the bag, which for years I understood as “tricker treat.” While it made no sense, the phrase seemed to have magical and wonderful results. It was not until someone said “trick” and the candy did not appear that I had to rethink my whole approach.

A simple search yielded satisfactory results as to why we say “trick or treat” and not “I would like some candy, please.” According to this article, the practice of trick or treating came over with European immigrants. The ancestor of this tradition comes from “guising” wherein “children performed small entertainments before being given gifts.” Now, in our very own American version of this tradition, “sweets [are] expected without the party piece.” Leave it to the Americans to expect something for nothing, am I right?.

As a side note, I found it interesting how the French have interpreted our trick or treating tradition. I read a book on French culture for a course I followed last semester. In one passage, the authors explained how the French have adopted our weird tradition of trick or treating. As the French love to protest (manifester), their children take to the streets in this tradition shouting, “Nous voulons des bonbons!” (“We want candy!”) You probably find this weird. I know I chuckled in class when we discussed this. What a bunch of brats running around the streets impolitely demanding candy. Aren’t the French supposed to be sophisticated?

But this is exactly why I want to step outside of our own subjective view of American culture and look at our traditions for what they are – totally bizarre from a foreigner’s perspective. In fact, the French may have it right as they will never experience that moment of disappointment and confusion when the possessor of the candy replies, “Trick.”

image credit: boston.com