Enough to Make it Stick

I've been wondering recently why some things our parents teach us stay with us in dramatic ways while others fall by the wayside. (Note: Mom and Dad, if you are reading this, know this is by no means a critique of your instructional or parental abilities, only an assessment of my rate of absorption. I love you guys.)

My parents taught me a lot of things. They taught me to eat healthily (including to eat whole wheat bread, to limit soda drinking, and to reserve sugar cereal for special occasions). They taught me to be polite when I was someone's guest, not to use foul language and to always write thank you notes. And they taught me about a billion other things which are too numerous to list here, some of which I'm probably not even aware that they taught me.

Now, here I am, approaching 30 years old, and I can offer the following assessment of my life: I hate whole wheat bread. I do buy it and eat it because my husband (brainwashed into believing in its unique wholesomeness by his parents) demands that we have it. But I complain about it regularly, and know that if I lived on my own, it would be wonderbread and sourdough all the way. I do drink soda, a lot (diet now, I'm getting old you know), and I buy sugar cereal on non-celebratory occasions. I use foul language (although we've instituted an imaginary swear jar in our household to curb this socially-problematic habit. At this point I imaginarily owe $764, mostly due to my repeated failure to conquer Super Mario Bros Wii Level 8 Castle.)

But, I CANNOT receive ANYTHING of ANY value from ANYONE EVER without writing a thank you note. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about lists of people to whom I should write thank you notes. I worry about whether I should write thank you notes in response to gifts that were thank you gifts to me. I write notes to my immediate family and to close friends who, on some occasions, have asked me to please not write them so many thank you notes because it is weird and guilt-inducing. I write some people several notes in one week, and I write thank you notes for things that were other people's jobs to do. I cannot stop.

Which makes me wonder: Why is this the thing that stuck? Why was this aspect of my parents' teaching so influential while some other things clearly backfired in the overall scheme of forming a future person? What is the substance of things parented that makes it stick?

Sometimes

Sometimes, I really wonder how I've gotten this far in life. Mostly this is because sometimes I have complete mental lapses that transport me to an alternate universe in which really stupid things seems sensible.

For instance, this morning I woke up and sleepily opened the freezer to find only two (both problematic) coffee options: Ecuadorian Coffee Beans and Jack Daniels Flavored Coffee (from one of those liquor-flavored coffee holiday gift packs that always seem like a better idea when you receive them than when you're going to make coffee at 9 a.m. in the morning). Now you might ask why Ecuadorian Coffee Beans (hand carried from Ecuador nonetheless) fall under the category of problematic options. Well, it's because we don't own a coffee grinder. Aside: There are many challenges to living in an extremely small space, one of which is, obviously, that you don't have room for lots of stuff. So, we've decided to forgo owning a coffee grinder (and a microwave and toaster, which leads to less rubbery leftovers but a lot of burnt toast.). Anyhow, no coffee grinder for us. So what to do... (Imagine a psychedelic swooshing sound as I am transported into alternate stupid universe.)

Clearly, my alternate-universe mind told me, I should just find another way to grind the beans. I mean, Jack Daniels coffee in the morning? That's just too much. So I set about searching our kitchen for another method of coffee grinding. I thought food processor, but didn't feel like cleaning the whole thing afterward. Blender? No, not strong enough of a blade. And then I came upon the pot of gold at the end of my bimbo-rainbow: the mortar and pestal. Though I was rationally aware that we had bought this device to grind small quantities of spices, I figured, hey, why not? Without another thought, I pulled it out, poured in about a half cup of coffee and began to grind away. It was one of those instance where using primitive tools really makes you appreciate societal progress. Mortar-and-pestaling, it turns out, is hard work. But, I thought, it's working.

Now I should make clear that my life partner was, of course, not home when I chose to do this, for he usually serves as the voice of reason when this strange twilight-zone loss of intelligence moments occurs. He would have said, "Why don't you just go across the street and get some coffee if you really want some that badly?" or "That's not going to work. Why don't you just try the J.D. kind? It's not like it really has liquor in it." But alas, he was at work making money because, you know, he has a "job". Whilst I was at home, making coffee, because I have a "vocation."

After probably ten minutes of grinding when I was nearing the risk of forearm cramping, I stopped to assess. Unfortunately, the mushy substance in the mortar didn't resemble anything close to ground coffee. There were still huge chunks of the bean shells and the rest was somewhere between find powder and medium sized gravel. Now, because I can be both ridiculous and self-aware at the same time, I heard myself saying, "You know, this is probably better. I mean, the bleeding heart liberals are always talking about how our food is over-processed. But this, this is perfect. You know, we should have our coffee au natural. I think the chunks of beans will help give it depth." (If you think, I'm exaggerating, think again. This is a word-for-word account of my thought process.)

So I dumped the coffee carcasses into the french press, added some boiling water, let it set a few minutes and then filled up my mug. Yummm, I thought. My resourcefulness is so satisfying, I mused, and will certainly add to the wonderfulness of this experience.

To be perfectly honest, it was one of the most terrible cups of coffee I've ever had. Somehow (maybe because of the bean shells?) it was simultaneously watery but bitter with sandy chunks. Next time, I'll try to remind myself to take the Jack Daniels and once I'm caffeinated enough try to devise some sort of early warning system to stop me from culinary (and all other) undertakings while I'm in this state.