A weird thing happened to me at my local family-owned mom-and-pop coffeeshop, Starbucks. I ordered my usual drink, a skinny whipped mocha tazoberry blueberry chai fribble served in an ankle boot, and the guy who took my order asked my name. I told him. “I’m just going to tell them it’s for Alice,” he said. “Um, okay,” I responded because Alice is agreeable. “One grande iced coffee for Alice,” he yelled to a guy who was about four feet from him, making implausible the notion that perhaps wherever he was sending this drink order was so far away that the last syllable of my name would never survive the journey, falling off or somehow getting mangled on its little trip from idea to refreshing beverage. Maybe it would just sound like a touch tone. Like “iced grande for Alis#” So then my brain settled on the next logical explanation: he must have some kind of speech impediment which interferes with the word “son.” Obviously! But before I had a chance to test this theory by asking him a pointed question involving that very word, he handed me my receipt and said, “Here you go, Alison.” I never did find out but I bet it’s that someone in the drink making station had their heart broken by an Alison and thus the mere mention of that name—my name—is too painful. Or maybe in this heat three syllables is just pushing it?

Some delightful mayhem at the beginning.

Me on Fox & Friends on Sunday

Okay, folks! All the following are true except one. See if you can figure it out:

Things I Like to Do In The Heat (I suppose this could also be called 9 Truths and a Lie)

a) sleep
b) complain
c) nap
d) bitch
e) think about snow
f) watch TV
g) sigh
h) talk loudly about how I equate heat with death
i) talk loudly about how I equate walking around in heat like this to walking around in some kind of thick translucent soup—and not in a good way
j) make sun tea

…I think I would be more inclined to go. Then again maybe that’s like how people say that if there were a gym in their building they’d actually go. Or how my parents always said that people who have swimming pools in their backyard don’t actually use them. (I’d think they’d taken a scientific poll of themselves.)

Also, why must I make jokes when I’d be better off not? To wit:

me: got any assignments? [this wasn’t how I said it but it was the gist]
editor guy: stay tuned, might have one coming up
me: I shall don an adult diaper and sit at my computer!

I mean really. Sometimes I think I’m understimulated and so I do things to entertain myself which are ultimately kind of destructive. For example, I just shit in my sister’s shoes and ate her speakers. Now I’m jumping up on the couch.

So yesterday I’m reading this story in the NY Times about these special berries—called “miracle fruit”—that alter your taste buds for an hour or so after you eat them, making beer taste like chocolate and sour taste sweet. (It’s a story that ran May 28, apparently, so it’s not screamingly timely but that’s what happens when I read the newspaper online—I don’t know what the hell I’m clicking.)

Anyway, there are these secret roving parties where people get together and eat berries and go nuts, turning into crazed flavor slaves who drink maple syrup and rip the arms off couches to eat them or something. Well, maybe not but I’m pretty sure they ate masking tape. (note: They did not eat masking tape.)

I have a few thoughts about this:

1) I would be tickled if this turned out to be the Emperor’s New Clothes. I don’t know why, there’s just something pretentious about it that makes me want it to be revealed as mass hysteria.

2) All this talk of berries makes me think of when my sister and I were in London a zillion years ago and couldn’t stop laughing at the summaries of the porn movies offered by the hotel. This is a paraphrase, but it was something like:

When Rosalind and Alan go to a forest, they are told whatever you do, don’t eat the berries because they will make you do all kinds of sex. What do they do? Eat the berries!

3) If you’re looking to goose your taste buds, there are cheaper ways to do it than spend two dollars a berry. Herewith, some budget options:

a) If you eat really spicy food, everything will taste like spicy food for a little while!
b) If you eat glue, everything will taste sticky!
c) If you drink hot chocolate and burn the roof of your mouth, everything will taste like sandpaper!
d) well enough of my ideas which I ran out of… let’s hear yours!

Despite the fact that I mentioned them on Fox & Friends this morning, I don’t actually wear them. I don’t mess with that extremely uncomfortable shit. Not saying I wouldn’t ever, but just that I haven’t.

Also please applaud my restraint in not writing “Spanx for the memories.”

What kind of world is this when even vegetables feel pressure to lie about their age? Here is the front of the can:

Note how it says “Baby Corn.” But then you look at the ingredients and it says this: