I was hungry and there was some strange kink in my stomach that hurt. All I wanted at that moment was to eat a fresh bagel with a little butter and wash it down with stomach-friendly Sprite. Cranky, I threw my school bag haphazardly under my desk where I maintain residency as Office Wench for some Jews. Mammoth books that compete with Middlemarch in size tumbled out of the stuffed bag, landing askew amongst twisted staples and microscopic paperclips. I ran into the kitchen- the kosher kitchen- and saw a paper Noah’s Bagels bag that tantalized me with the promised fulfillment of my desires. At that moment, I wanted a bagel, I craved a bagel, I needed a bagel. I wasn’t going to be choosy. Bring on the overpowering “everything” bagels, I cried to the Bagel Gods. Bring on the mutant salt bagels, I roared to the Bagel Gods. Hell, give me your deformed cock-sized bread loaves stuffed with every nut and fruit in existence. I don’t give a damn, but give me something to eat, I screamed, shaking a fist.

I dashed eagerly to the bag, peered over the fine-toothed edge and examined the two and a half bagels that had survived a prior onslaught of hungry students. They were… my god… they were good bagels. Good, fresh bagels that weren’t dry and hard or loaded with strange toppings. I plucked one up, salivating with eagerness. I then laid it on a paper plate. Pulling open the knife drawer, I gasped in horror at it�s emptiness. All carving knives, all butcher knives, all serrated tomato knives- all the random mismatched knives we used to prepare Friday night dinners were gone. How could this happen? Why would they vanish without a trace when we, the workers of the Jewish Center, still need them to cut our bagels? I looked around in a panic, realizing during my quick survey of the kitchen that there were boxes packed with random kitchen supplies- no doubt ready to be moved from our temporary facility and into our new facility. If I couldn’t use a real knife, I reasoned, I could certainly use a fake knife, and we had plenty of those. The next two minutes found me desperately hacking at my fresh, flexible bagel with a plastic knife, crumbs and chunks of bread sprinkling the counter. But it didn’t matter, because it was Wednesday.

Wednesday is Bagel Day for the students affiliated with my work. Every Wednesday, there might be bagels leftover that I can eat. Some days, there aren’t. Other days, they are donated from Noah’s Bagels and stale. But today, there was one fresh bagel waiting for me and my pained stomach. Satisfied with my prize, I crammed the uneven slices of bagel into the kosher Jewish Center toaster and leaned back against a wall to watch coils redden with heat. Now, all I needed to do was scavenge for some Sprite.

It has either happened or will happen to everyone who puts their photos on the web. Someone, somewhere decides that they either want to “borrow” your photo and steal it without your knowing, hotlink it without your permission, or- if they are a really good person- ask for your permission to borrow your photo for whatever reason.

I can’t speak for everyone who has experienced this, but whenever I find that someone hotlinked to a photo of mine- especially without permission- a red haze consumes my sight and my stomach knots up. I then spend the next hour or so changing the file name of my image, tweaking various lines of coding, and hunting for a suitable image to replace the stolen one with. I have yet to find any of my images actually stolen rather than hotlinked, but I’m sure my reaction would be even stronger if I were to discover someone took credit for an image of mine. “What’s the big deal?” hotlink perpetrators have asked me. Well, you’re fuckin’ stealing my photos, you assholes. That’s the big deal. And in most cases, you are stealing someone’s bandwidth and costing them more money. Really, at least link back to my website so that I can get a little more traffic.

It angers me to no end that people think it’s okay to just link your photo to their site and not even give you proper credit or spend the energy to click their mouse a couple of times and type out a quick e-mail asking for permission. It angers me even more when I find a hotlinked photo and read comments from others about how beautiful the photo in question is. I imagine the photo-thief basking in the congratulatory glow of their monitor while I quiver in the dank shadows of my apartment with a cloud of rage chilling the room. Is their need for attention so immediate that they can’t find a camera and take some of their own photos? One of the bastards was even a student at my school- the University of Washington- where there so happen to be numerous scanners available for free. Something about the internet gives people a false sense of “take now for free, suffer no consequences later”. It’s the same thing as pirating music, but different. When pirating music, it’s easy to brush it off by saying, “CDs cost too much. The music industry is ripping consumers off.” Even though we’re told piracy is a bad thing, it’s true- CDs do cost too much and the music industry is ripping consumers off and not giving artists a fair share of the profits. However, when stealing an image from a personal website, that justification doesn’t work. It may not damage the creator’s revenue since they aren’t a corporation, but the damage is far worse; it’s an insult on a personal level.

I’ve had at least one person hotlink one of my photos, and I’ve had many more ask for permission. I make it a point to grant permission to all those who ask- especially since every person who’s asked so far has wanted to use a photo for noncommercial reasons. For the hotlinkers, the first time I posted a HUGE nude picture that consumed a mass amount of screen space on the bulletin board where my picture had been hotlinked. The second time, I created this nifty little image. Thank whatever deity is listening to me right now that I didn’t use a porno or other offensive image, because the second perpetrator was a person who had asked for permission. Through a lack of information and really confusing circumstances (i.e. using a blog site rather than UW webspace, no name on their site, etc.), he had appeared to be yet another hotlinker.

I think I’ll make it into a poster- the image, that is. I seem to get pissed off at such stupid things so easily and then rant about them on this website that it only seems fitting to have a poster of this hanging next to my desk.

While I mostly love my job, there is a downside to answering the phones. Sometimes, we get crazy people who try and tell us that pig shit is falling from the sky and want us to do something about it. Two years ago, I hung up on a rude telemarketer who had the nerve to call me back and bitch me out for hanging up on him while he was in mid-sentence (as if telemarketers deserve any respect for selling their souls). When I told him he better watch out or I’ll send Bun Bun after him, he said to me, “Fuck off you fucking BITCH. I don’t want to sell you anything but my ass. You deserve to eat the shit out of my toilet.”

We also had a marathon ordeal with one lunatic who called herself Liba (after her sign, Libra). She needed us to give her a free trip to Israel so she could move there and fulfill the mission her spirit guides assigned to her: setting up an electrolysis business that would offer palmistry and other psychic advice while hairy Israeli women were waiting for their appointments (or maybe it was during their electrolysis sessions- we never did piece together the story from all of her babblings).

But more often than I would like, we get really bitchy people who have no manners. Sometimes they’re hoary Orthodox Jews who are pissed at me because they believe it’s my fault there aren’t enough kosher eateries in Seattle. Other times, it’s people who are just generally condescending and rude, such as today:

It started off like any typical hour during work. The phone started to ring and one of our five lines lit up. With the phone answering reflexes one develops over time, I snatched up the receiver and answered with my typical, “Good afternoon, Place of Work“

“Hi, is this Mindy?” a middle-aged woman asked.

“Yes, this is her.”

“Hi Mindy, how are you doing?” she said, rather than asked, with a condescending tone to her voice.

“I’m good, and you?”

“It’s ‘I’m doing well’, not ‘I’m good’.” She followed this immediately with raucous laughter that left me staring at the wall blankly wishing she was talking to me in person so I could deliver one of my perfected Ice Queen stares of doom.

“Excuse me?” I had to settle with an Ice Queen tone of doom.

She then stopped laughing and launched into a lecture on phone grammar. “Proper grammar is important when answering phones,” she said. I agreed with her, but I also didn’t want a condescending lecture by someone I didn’t know. Angered and insulted, I stopped listening at this point as she went on to explain the details of her phone etiquette and some nonsensical reasoning why I was in the wrong.

I decided to cut her off and try the even angrier Ice Queen tone of instant death. “Excuse me?” I repeated, sending waves of ice shards through the receiver.“You said that already.”I realized this woman was a tough bitch who probably possessed Ice Queen immunity based on her already shocking display of rudeness. I changed tactics, this time following the fight fire with fire philosophy. “Just who are you?” I asked her in my best mimic of the condescending tone possessed by rich people who think their importance to the world is directly related to the digits of their available sum at the bank.“Oh, I’m Sharon F. This is Mindy G., right?”“No, it’s not.” I said curtly.“But you said you were Mindy.”

“I am Mindy. The Mindy you’re looking for is a volunteer for Place of Work, but I’m employed here.” At this point, she had activated the “Mega Bitch” mode of my self-defense mood system. I couldn’t hold back any longer. “If you’re just going to ask for ‘Mindy’ then everyone will to assume you’re asking for me. Do you understand that there is more than one person by the name of Mindy in this world?”

“Well, we’re working on a program together, may I speak with her?” I was astounded.- it was as if she was immune to everything I attacked her with. How could a foe withstand my Ice Queen attacks and Mega Bitch vibes?

I decided a rapid bombardment of my special combo attack, MEGA BITCHY ICE QUEEN, would weaken her defenses and possibly leave a lingering and undetectable side effect that would ruin the rest of her work day, and hopefully last into the rush hour drive home, resulting in an accident which would hopefully severely damage the exterior of her car and result in substantial insurance hikes. “No, you may not. I can take a message for you.”

“Why can’t I speak with her?”

“Because she’s not here right now.” I said, continuing the bombardment of my special combo attack.

“Well, when will she be in?”

“Since she doesn’t work here, I have no idea when she’ll be around.” It was a direct hit!

“May I have her cell phone number?”

“I’m not allowed to give out student information, so no.” Another direct hit!

“Well that’s a dumb rule. Did you create that just because you don’t like me?” She was showing her emotions, indicating that I had penetrated her defense systems and all that was left was taking her out all the way.

“Ma’am, I can take down your name and number and contact her for you.” That would surely ruin the rest of her day. Ma’am. The horrible, most insulting term for a middle aged woman, especially if used in conjunction with the MEGA BITCHY ICE QUEEN attack. She gave me her number, clearly defeated by the tone of her voice. But I wasn’t satisfied, the defense system not fully deactivated. “Good bye,” I said, “and have a nice day.”

While we�re on lists:

1. Non-elderly people who walk really slow in the middle of a narrow sidewalk, thus hindering oncoming pedestrians and those wishing to pass.
2. People who walk in a large gaggle, consuming the entire sidewalk and forcing everyone else to walk through mud. Hey, just because you wear Prada shoes doesn’t mean that everyone else has to ruin their shoes and pants, you cancer-ridden, wrinkle-infested sorority whores.
3. People who walk shoulder-to-shoulder with two or three others and expect anyone walking towards them to jump in the bushes/mud. I grew up with five tortuous boys and survived an overcrowded high school with hallways thinner than a sidewalk, so don’t think I can’t and won’t shoulder by just because you can shove innocent old ladies and lost Japanese tourists out of your way.
4. People who dart around someone and jump into the path of an oncoming pedestrian. As in driving, wait until oncoming traffic is clear before passing.
5. People who shoulder someone while passing from behind, especially if they are carrying shopping bags stuffed with hardback books or other equally sturdy wares that tend to leave bruises.

Each summer, the full-time staff members where I work leave me to run the office while they go on a retreat somewhere nice, quiet and relaxing. During that time, they relax and have fun, but also do a bunch of boring team-building projects such as making shrinky-dink mobiles depicting objects and words that they feel define them. They also do other kindergarten-related projects such as creating a recipe for the workplace that contains a cup of respect and a tablespoon of good humor, etc. Meanwhile, I sit in a deserted building, drumming my fingers and cursing the internet for it’s inability to entertain me longer than an hour. Between curses, I answer phone calls from orthodox Jews planning a visit to Seattle from New York who expect me to be their travel agent and find the nearest synagogue within walking distance to their hotel downtown (there are none) and to also create a day-by-day itinerary of kosher eateries within walking distance from their downtown hotel (there are none). No, I’m not the least bit bitter that I don’t get to join spend two days in a quiet and relaxing vacation area such as Palm Springs and get paid to cut watermelons artistically and swim in a pool.

When the staff returns from their two days of peace, quiet, and camp activities, I inevitably end up with a large stack of paper scraps with encrypted short-term and long-term goals for each staff member. I am then expected to decrypt handwriting worse than a doctor’s and neatly type and organize various goals in a word document which I then save in each staff member’s respective folder on our shared network. It sounds like boring drudge work, but it’s much more interesting than sitting around for two eight hour days and finding that the only entertainment is scraping a year’s worth of dust from my computer- dust that started collecting after the last staff retreat. Besides, I get to pry into not only the career goals of my fellow workers, but also their personal goals. There ain’t nothin’ better about learning such juicy tidbits as who is planning to move, how many kids they plan on having and when, and the fact that So-and-so’s goal is to learn to relax and take more personal time off in the next few years.

I’m not really a goal setting person, and I didn’t learn the true business-clogged meaning of the words “Goal” and “Value” until the later years of Junior High when, much like a pop-quiz I wasn’t prepared for, I was expected to make a word cluster of my “Goals” and “Values”. When the teacher presented the class with this task, I went numb, caught in the headlights of confusion. Given the blank stares directed at the teacher and the overall silence of a typically obnoxious class, my fellow students apparently felt the same way. “Goal” was an easy word- it was like the goal line in tag soccer. But “Value” presented another problem. It was a word we were expected to know and comprehend, and although most of us knew the dictionary definition, the application into business terminology was on an entirely unattainable level. To make things worse, our Junior High was particularly vicious, and not knowing something so basic- something we all knew must be basic- was a death sentence. “Psst. What’s a ‘value’?” someone whispered nearby, not wanting to ask the teacher such a stupid question. Lucky for her, she was popular and was safe from loosing any shred of reputation by asking The Question. “Ummm… I think it’s- uh- like, things you care about. Religious things, and shit like that,” was the answer from a less popular student. It was then, for the first time in my life, that I learned what a “Value” was.

val-ue n.: something one cares about, often religious, or other important shit like that.

The words I would have chosen for my cluster would have been generic things like: family, friends, health and so on under “Values”. Improving my skill as a violinist, getting better grades, and surviving Junior High were probably what I had for goals. These days, my goals are much more obscure. Sometimes, especially when thinking about the general goals that most of the people around me seem to express (graduating college, going to graduate school or finding a job, getting married, having children), I realize that my goals are quite absurd. So, in case you cared, here’s a list of a few of my short-term goals.

• Know not only the locations of all photo booths in Seattle, but also the quickest way to drive to each one and what buses to ride lest I need one more god-damned photo to “affix for identification purposes” on various visa/health insurance/affidavit paperwork
• Survive the bureaucratic fire hoops of hell required to study in Rome
• Survive Rome without having to curse at and chase after pickpockets
• Survive Rome as a Vegetarian (and not eating only gelato for nutrition)
• Become an editor for a literary erotica journal
• Maintain the quality and integrity of said literary erotica journal
• Read the thirty books on my “to-read” list
• Obtain a Bartending license
• Become the hottest female Bartender in Seattle
• Start a bar brawl because someone grabbed my ass in my bar (“No Sex on the Beach for you, mister.” Bash. Crash. Crunch)
• Become a Master Gardener and offend rich lawnophiles when I suggest environmentally friendly alternatives to a “greener and healthier lawn” ™
• Drive on the remnants of Route 66 until my car can’t make it any farther
• While driving on remnants of Route 66, make a detour to Dublin, TX and visit the only Dr. Pepper plant that still uses real cane sugar
• Should car die, remove all paperwork and both license plates before pushing off a cliff
• Should car make it back to Seattle, plan road trip to Moose Factory
• Should car still make it back to Seattle, sell it to a desperate UW student for $100

The other day, he asked me, “What’s her writing like?” And without hesitation, I said, “She’s hyper-poetic.” Then he replied with, “Yeah, she’s like that. She is a poet, after all.” The two of us then fell into silence, reading manuscripts written by people who don’t have the talent of patience and revision- people who flock to writing believing it is the easiest way to fulfill the American Dream of wealth and fame.

She’s hyper-poetic, I said, mainly because it’s true, but partly because I don’t like her and he knows. I don’t like her, but I don’t hate her. She irritates me with her bad attitude towards men. Her reverse sexism drives me crazy. Her intolerance for other’s ideas and pleasures are fingernails sharpened to a point, clawing down a chalkboard.

She irritates me with her bad attitude towards men. Her reverse sexism drives me crazy. I still run into her at times, and she’s nice and we talk about classes and suggest different books to one another. And then one of us laughs and says, “Maybe I’ll get to that book this summer- I don’t have a lot of time to read, what with all the reading I have to do.” It’s funny- the plight of the English major, we both realize.

I still run into her at times, and she’s nice and we talk about classes. I said she was hyper-poetic partly because I don’t like her and he knows. I said it to be non-committal, rather than negatively criticize her work and appear petty and insolent. I said it because she’s had a couple of months to grow, and I have no right to criticize her since I have not seen her stories lately. I said it because I’m growing and learning, just like her.

I said it to be non-committal. I wanted it to be a neutral comment, one that was neither bad nor good but also filled with truth. I wanted it to be a comment that wouldn’t offend her. But then, today, I realized that I hate hyper-poetic New Yorkeresque drivel. It’s not all bad, like Baxter’s The Feast of Love, but most of the works infused with hyper-poetry have a boring read-that-seen-that style that increases the more it’s done.

I hate hyper-poetic writing. It leaves a bad taste in my brain. I love poetry. I love short and long fiction. I even love the Germanic texts I’ve had to read in my tortuous German courses. I hate hyper-poetic short stories and novels.

Hyper-poetic writing leaves a bad taste in my brain. In my mind, I have James Joyce and H.D. – modernist authors who can hardly compare to the hyper-poetic writers of today- on one side of the rink, and Faulkner and Hemmingway on the other side. Faulkner and Hemmingway win every time because their works are honest and clear, not bogged down with poetically pretentious writing styles that confuse, irritate, and remove emotions from the readers.

James Joyce and H.D. both are poetically pretentious in their works. But they knew what they were doing- they had a purpose in mind when writing the way they did. The New Yorker endorsed writers of today don’t have a purpose in mind- other than being endorsed by The New Yorker and hopefully selling millions of copies of their latest hyper-poetic drivel of a novel. The non-endorsed hyper-poetic writers of today are lost. They write it because it sounds intelligent to a culture that believes The New Yorker is art, is hip, is talent.

The non-endorsed hyper-poetic writers want to be endorsed. They want The New Yorker to say to its subscibers, “Read this, buy millions of copies. It’s hyper-poetic, and therefore you should read it.”

Sometimes, as you live your life, you find yourself waiting, standing around or in the car/on the bus and you drink in your suroundings- sweet and tangy like a malt beverage you would never admit to having tried, much less enjoyed. And then you notice the surreal depth of sunset painted clourds, or the way a tall beige skyscraper washes living, dimensional things in siepia tones. You are striken with the beauty of the moment and think it’s like a painting. But in reality, a painting is like it.

Some People claim that Seattleites go so far as to wear sunglasses when the skies are overcast, but I’ve only seen the Californians posing as Seattleites do this. You know a real Seattleite because we’ve become accustomed to the glare from overcast skies. Ask any native to Western Washington if they have ever thought of wearing sunglasses when it’s overcast and they’ll laugh harder than if you asked why they weren’t carrying an umbrella on any given day.

For thirteen years of my life, I never owned a pair of sunglasses. Having grown up in Western Washington (Eastern Wa is far different), I understand the seasons “Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn” and “Winter” to really mean “nine months of gray skies” and “three months of sun”. So, given that I would have only worn a pair of sunglasses every now and then during the three months known as “The Not-Rainy Season”, owning them was less important than a cheap and expendable coat. They were nice to have around if one wanted to look cool in a scrawny
nymphet way, but I was never a nymphet nor cool and had found that squinting against the sun on the rare times it appeared worked out well.

My first pair of sunglasses were BluBlockers. I still have them laying around, but I rarely wear them as the world turns into a saccharine Technicolor land aged with shades of brown. The lenses have a circumference larger than coke bottle glasses and the frame was coated with a cheap gold foil that has recently started to chip off at a rate faster than the paint on my moss-covered Oldsmobile. But when I first acquired my sunglasses, I thought I was really cool and nothing could take me down from my pedestal. For the next two summers, anytime I left the house I would pull my glasses out of their soft maroon case and coyly cover my eyes. Sometimes, I even lowered my face and pulled my glasses down my nose slightly to give someone that “I’m cooler than you” look. I even mastered the art of walking in shopping centers with my glasses on. My friends humored me, saying nothing to dash my image of coolness. But then, maybe even they felt cool in the presence of my “As Seen On TV” BluBlockers. This was long before Men In Black hit the theaters and I learned that one had to have sleek black sunglasses to look cool, not a pair of brown BluBlockers with gold foil rims.

After my two summers of disillusioned cool, I moved out of the world of Junior High and into High School. With the instantaneous wisdom of a high school student, I knew that my sunglasses weren’t cool, but I continued to wear them when the need arose. After all, they were supposed to block harmful UV rays from my eyes. It wasn’t until I graduated high school and was visiting LA with some friends for our graduation hurrah when I rediscovered that sunglasses could be more than just a tool to keep the glare of sun out of my face.

The three of us were walking along Venice Beach when I pulled out my trusty BluBlockers to block the brilliant glare of sun off white sands. “Oh fuck, those are ugly,” J, my pink, black and leopard print-wearing fashionista friend informed me. “We really need to get you a pair of glasses that compliment your face more,” K, my other friend, agreed. They hurried me into a sunglass booth tucked amidst artisans and palm readers. My friends immediately began selecting pairs of cheap glasses that would highlight or refine various features of my face, handing one pair after another and having me examine each one carefully in a small, hanging mirror tacked to a pole. “Here, this pair belongs to you,” J told me, triumphantly holding it out after only ten minutes of arguing with K about whether a pair of small rectangle lenses would be better for my face or a pair of elongated ovals. I tentatively tried on my pair of trusty BluBlockers and looked in the mirror, examining how they dwarfed me eyes and somehow managed to make my nose appear more angular and beak-like than it really was. I then tried on J’s pair of rectangular glasses, and followed it with K’s pair of oval glasses. I put J’s pair back on, and then removed it and tried on K’s once more. Sometime during my indecisive period, I had the sudden thought that the girl whose glasses were rejected might become offended. It would have been rather silly, should this have happened, but both J and K were equally dear friends and the glasses were so cheap that I managed to buy both pairs for under $12 without having to haggle with the vendor.

Location:
4553 University Way NE (the Ave)
Seattle, WA 98105

Hours:
1PM-12AM Daily

Cost:
$3.01 for basic iced tea with tapioca (Like Pochi’s, they didn’t charge me for the penny)

First off, let me try and explain to you the concept of WOW. This is rather hard to explain, mind you, as numerous web searches turned up miniscule information. However, some of my devote Christian sources have explained to me that WOW stands for Wonder of Worship. Unfortunately, my sources both said they were unfamiliar with WOW and had only heard mention of it. All of my web searches returned information about music cds and concerts for WOW, but there was nothing about the organizations mission. So, until I find their mission statement, I am going to describe them as capitalistic Christians who want to take over the world with their music. So how, exactly, does bubble tea fit into this?

I’m not quite sure, other than a bubble tea café on the Ave attracts more attention than a new generic café that must compete with the plethora of much more established haunts like Solstice or Perkengrüven. Having a bigger consumer draw and less competition also means that one can install a massive collection of TVs stacked atop one another with brilliant decorative skill and play a constant barrage of Christian soft rock music videos at a noise level where the sound of shitty music isn�t grating, but can still brainwash customers.

But really, the overall ambience of WOW is nicer than most of the gritty restaurants on the Ave. The interior design consists of simple, stark modern lines without sacrificing comfort. Everything is white, clean, and uncluttered with fancy glass tables set between large over-stuffed booth-style chairs. With the whiteness and cleanliness of everything, I couldn’t help but think they were going for the standard “purity” motif, which I found to be unsettling. The TVs bothered me as they were the focal point of the café and incredibly hard to ignore. I also didn’t see the requisite board games anywhere, but they could have been hiding behind the TVs. The staff was friendly- as Christians should be- and the music was at a soft level that my Muzak trained ears could ignore.

As for the actual drink I ordered, they did offer my control flavor (lemon iced tea with a jasmine base). However, the jasmine base wasn’t really jasmine tea, but more a blend of jasmine and black tea. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting when I chose jasmine instead of green tea or black tea. The flavoring was rather strong, as well as the tea, so the overall drink had a funky taste since the tea and powder competed rather than complimented each other. WOW also cooked their tapioca balls almost too long so that they had a deteriorative squish and were almost too big to be sucked up the straw.

The Rating
Ambience: 8 out of 10 (the TVs and music were a little too much)
Tapioca Texture: 9 out of 10
Drink Quality: 8 out of 10
Recommendation: If Christians, capitalistic Christians or Christian soft-rock scare you, stay away.

This is an ongoing series of bubble tea reviews in Seattle. The control tea for each review is a basic lemon iced tea with a jasmine base (when available). Clearly, the ideas expressed here are my personal opinions and thus are not the end of your world should you disagree.

A couple of days ago, Tyler and I spotted a pair of pudgy Girl Scouts sagely set-up near the coffee/WiFi lounge at the U-Village QFC. I approached them with purpose, knowing that I was going to buy one box of Tagalongs and one box of Thin Mints and hand them exactly six dollars and no change. As we reached the table, the girls wrung their hands anxiously like pygmy flea marketeers. “Would you like some Girl Scout cookies?” the pudgiest one asked when I had already pulled my wallet out and was leafing through my one dollar bills.

Would I like some Girl Scout cookies? It’s been so many years since I’ve last had Girl Scout cookies. Since I can remember, I’ve had an internal Girl Scout Cookie Clock. But I suppose it was broken for the first three years of college as the alarm would sound mere weeks after the sale. I would be left with the insatiable and unfulfilled craving for Thin Mints and Tagalongs that nothing else could appease (not even the Grasshoppers). Trembling from desire, my stomach would churn and growl for days on end, leaving me to gaze mournfully at the silken chocolaty portraits of my yearnings on www.girlscoutcookiesabc.com until classes got the better of me and I reset my gimp cookie alarm for next year.

An hour after securing my first Thin Mints and Tagalongs in years, I was reclining in my “executive leather” computer chair, relishing the superior peanut-buttery goodness of ecstasy.

“Would you want your kids to be in Girl Scouts?” Tyler randomly asked from his throne of pillows piled at the head of the bed.

“Sure. If they want to be Girl Scouts, why not? Wouldn’t you?”

“Nah, I’d encourage them to play at least one sport, like soccer. They wouldn’t really benefit from Girl Scouts.”

Horrified, I exclaimed, “It’s fuckin’ Girl Scouts! They gain valuable social skills by being able to interact with other girls who won’t pick on them or make fun of them. Besides, I was never in Girl Scouts and to this day I wonder what it was all about. It’s a national icon, you know?”

“Isn’t that Boy Scouts?” he inquired.

“No-oo,” I answered rather indignantly. “Who gives a shit about them? They don’t sell cookies every year.”