I Had Nary a Clue

The little snippets below represent some misconceptions on my part as well as weird things I’ve encountered.

Warning: even though I have claimed that this blog is about biking- there is NOTHING about biking in this post.  I am a liar.  But there is a lot about thinking…albeit erroneously…

• I think I was about 6 years old – my mom was trying to explain to me, because I couldn’t understand, that “Miami” was a place in Florida. Ok- fine, but I wanted to know where “MY Ami” was located because that was HER Ami. I’m sure, from her point of view, it was the kind of conversation that could take the rest of her life and still get nowhere. I don’t remember any kind of “ah-ha!” moment during that conversation at all.

• When I was around 5 or 6, it came as a complete surprise that my Aunt, Uncles, Grandparents and Cousins had last names.  I was even more confused that some of those last names were the same as MINE.

• When I was about 10 or so, I heard my father tell my mother about being ‘debriefed’ before he left one company for another. I was curious as to why people at his work would take his underwear.

• I thought it was pretty harsh of the city to “pound” your car (in my mind it was a nice solid square of metal) if you parked illegally.

• When I was 12, I was REALLY, REALLY, REALLY excited. My father was coming home with a RABBIT!!  A RABBIT!!!!  I was completely dismayed when he came home with a car. Damn Volkswagen for messing with my gullible young mind.

• I was very disappointed to learn that my Poppy (Grandfather) did not sell hot dogs for his job when my Mom was growing up.  His hot dog stand, right off of Route 25A on the Long Island Expressway, was a dream come true for my brother and I. He had the coolest job EVER!

• In my early days of working with computers (circa 1997), I had no idea of what “copy & paste” meant.  I was trying to learn HTML and asked someone via email how to code something or other – he sent me about 100 lines of HTML…I laboriously hand copied them to some paper and then laboriously typed it into notepad.   Several months later, I’m taking a walk and just thinking about stuff and all of a sudden I had an “AH-HA!” moment – I realized what Miami was…no, wait…I sussed out copy & paste and felt like a complete moron.

• I was stunned to find out that pork rinds, in North Carolina, can come in enough flavors to fill almost an entire isle in the chip department.  It was even more horrifying to see that they were sold in a microwavable ‘format’ – it looked just like the bags of microwavable popcorn that were relegated to about 5 inches of shelf space in the chip aisle. The microwavable pork rinds were featured on an end cap.  That’s what you get when you’re at the Piggly Wiggly.

• In one “Italian” restaurant, despite the first ingredient listed as pork stock in their marinara sauce, the wait staff will still tell you it’s vegetarian.  And when you ask, how could it be vegetarian when it’s made with pork stock, they will tell you it is vegetarian because “they take the meat chunks out”.

• I was at an upscale farmer’s market in Raleigh with my mother. We were eating breakfast at a restaurant there and they had no honey for the biscuits (sob)…however, my mother noted that there was an abundance of “Fried Baloney & Brains” to be had.

• I had no idea that I could throw up EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE for 9 months and still manage to gain 35 lbs during my pregnancy.

• I would never have thought that when I told someone how DELICIOUS syrup is on Cheerios cereal, that I needed to specify that you use syrup like sugar NOT like milk.