Lesson Learned…don’t give cake to strangers

It was my second year in the big bad city. I met some cool chicks who became my, to use that horrible term, BFFs until the growing realization of our mutual differences turned everything sour. Some remain a friend, some I want to slap really hard across the face, and some who I want to dump slushie all over and say “chill out!” 

It was a cool, crisp December evening and my gal pals and I decided to get a cake for one of our friend’s birthday, but since we were still in the middle of exams and therefore technically anti-social for a couple of weeks, we held an impromptu mini-birthday party in the student commons area on campus – super lame I know, but I thought it was cute at the time.

We got an Oreo cake from the grocery store. 

I can’t remember why but no one ate the cake and we ended up just chatting instead. Anyways, for some reason, and again I can’t remember why, the uneaten cake ended up in my hands because no one, including myself, wanted it but couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away a whole uneaten Oreo cake. 

On my way to the subway, I ran into a strange woman (possibly panhandler/homeless) who asked for spare change. I told her that I honestly didn’t have any money on me because I’m a broke student. At that stage in my life I still felt guilty about not giving people money if they asked for it, be they strangers, best friends, colleagues, siblings, or whomever.

She didn’t look disappointed or heartbroken or anything, and yet I still felt guilty. I decided to offer alternative to money: OREO CAKE!

Have you ever experienced the overwhelming feeling of goodness when you perform a single act of charity? It’s powerful shit man! There are people out there who are truly selfless, and bless their heart for trying to fix our crappy world. And then there are people, like myself, average Joes and Joeeanas, whose heads swell with self-righteousness, narcissism, and arrogance but at the time are blind to it happening.

If I can describe it accurately, the homeless woman’s facial expression was similar to someone who might’ve noticed the pungent smell of fart in a crowded elevator. She had the “oh god someone tooted” look. The untouched cake I offered was perhaps equivalent to a box of farts, which is maybe understandable. The homeless woman looked at me, looked at the cake, looked at me again and screamed “I don’t like chocolate!” then walked away. 

I was left there in the middle of a crowded street absolutely horrified with onlookers staring at the dumbass who offered a homeless person cake. Lesson learned.

Dear Dove people...you suck!

For those who have been following my blog - all one of you it would seem - you probably read an entry posted earlier this month, a poorly written and barely coherent entry I might add, about eavesdropping on locker room conversations. Most memorable part is when I dismiss the Dove commercials for failing to do what it set out to in the first place. Despite my bitter and nonsensical ramblings, I will admit here that I am actually an avid and satisfied user of Dove products, especially their cleanser and moisturizing day cream. Occasionally I'll buy a Nivea or Nutrogena cleanser if it's on sale, however I strictly stick to using Dove day cream for my visage, and I may sound like a wide-eyed, trippy Stepford wife by saying this but honestly, I swear by Dove day cream - it's the only one that I'll ever use (*sound of a few pennies falling into the deep pockets of the Dove corporation). To borrow a phrase from the brilliant Tracy Jordon of 30 Rock, I love it so much I wanna take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant! *Cue applause.

I feel sad for my life just now, and it's not only because Jake Gyllenhaal has refused to write back to any of my fan letters, for you see I found out today that Dove discontinued the day cream line from its short list of manufactured beauty products. The thoughtless and very disengaged drugstore employee who delivered the bad news to me seemed not to notice the pain she caused. Not to seem flippant and incredibly rude, but I curse that employee now; she can go eat my poo!

Ahhm...so I'm taking my grief to the blog-o-sphere in the hopes that maybe writing it out will help me deal with this gaping black hole of loneliness and despair. So how am I living now without a moisturizing day cream that also had spf 15 right IN THE CREAM?! Well, not well I can tell you that much, it's been a rough couple of hours. The Olay moisturizing cream that I begrudgingly bought as second choice feels like - and I hope I'm not exaggerating here - a thousand rusty razor blades scraping against my skin. 

Oh Dove company! Please bring back my moisturizing day cream with spf 15! I don't know how else to live!

:

Oh why oh why must camel toe ruin my entire day??

Millions of women around the world have at some point in their lives been personally affected by the dreaded camel toe. Once only an unfortunate repercussion of tight pants choice, camel toe has spread like a herpes epidemic amongst young women aged 15-30, mostly due to members of this group’s propensity for wearing leggings as pants. There have been breakthroughs in fashion-science in coming up with a workable, wearable, and playable type of leggings that’s just a little bit more casual. The good people at mega-retail conglomerates like Walmart and Target have thankfully come up with something called jeggings - you’ve probably seen Coco strutting a pair on TV:

But will there ever be a solution for the dreaded camel toe? Well ladies, I have good news! The brilliants minds of Saturday Night Live have patented an anti-camel toe device that I think will revolutionize the way we live. Just check out their commercial: SNL Commercial Camel Tame

 

Still unconvinced that Camel Tame is the answer to all our prayers? Then I guess you are an evil, splay-footed gremlin and no one likes you!!

A lesson in altruism

Those who know me also know about my bad habit of striking up conversations with random people I happen to meet, who 9 times out of 10 always turn out to be completely batty or go ape shit crazy on me. Many have said that this is a serious problem, much like alcoholism and sex addiction, which are totally legitimate diseases by the way despite what normal people may tell you. This weekend I again succumbed to my disease by falling into a long conversation with a woman I met in a coffee shop. She was super nice and super polite and after 5 minutes into the conversation I found her really irritating. 

Looking every inch the flower child, she had embraced bohemianism back in the 70s and never looked back. She loved everybody – or at least she tried her best to love everybody. This woman, we’ll call her Sheila, apparently also loved giving her money away to charities and homeless people, leaving her with “just enough to live on”. When asked how she survives with little money – cuz I certainly can’t – Sheila replied that she was a fighter*gag*She also encouraged me to give money to homeless people because in her mind it does a lot of good for the soul. 

Without meaning to offend her, I told her very politely that I don’t live by that same philosophy and in fact refuse to give pan handlers any money because there was no point it if most of them just spent it on cigarettes, drugs, and booze/Listerine. Does this make me an evil person? Well, to Sheila it meant that I am a serial killer who loves drowning cute little kittens and give poisoned apples to children. She didn’t really say all this out loud but her look did. She subsequently went on a high-pitched tirade about why my outlook is the product of the selfish generation, of which I am apparently a member. 

I honestly didn’t mean to put a pin in her helium balloon full of sunshine and rainbows but what can one do when a hippie shoves mad hard altruism down your throat and makes you feel like Osama Bin Laden just because you don’t like people. I didn’t know what else to say after her long soap-box speech except politely excuse myself and get the fuck out of there as fast as I can with my tail tucked between my legs.

Sheila The Hippie, if you are out there somewhere in the blogosphere and you’ve run into this little confession, please know that you were right to chastise me for not giving my hard-earned money to homeless people. If our little tete-a-tete has taught me anything it’s that instead of wasting whatever money left over from paying rent and bills, I now put it all in my TFSA because God help me but I do not want to end up like you.

The purple banana's Mother's Day Special!

It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday, and unlike Family Day, Secretaries Day, and the Annual Gift-giving-exchanging Day (formerly known as Christmas) this is one made up holiday that actually means something to me.

I love my mother, in my own way, and every year when my Outlook calendar reminds me that it’s mom’s special day I become very excited because that’s the day when we see all of her sarcastic, cynical, tired expressions come out at once. Although growing up my brothers, sister and I had this idea of my mom being a robot, I am proud to say that I no longer think of her that way. My mom is a tough cookie to crack but we still like her.  

I’ll tell you a little bit about my mother. She’s a sweet ol’ lass who hails from the emerald hills of Bangladesh by way of Calcutta. She married very young and had her first kid when she was a teenager. Whoa! a teenager you say? Yup, in an age before reality TV took over the pregnant teen market, my mom had her first kid without any cameras following her around – she’s old school.

Having never finished the 8^th grade my mother was adamant, after moving to Canada, that all her children go to university and become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer – the only three options afforded to South Asian kids. So you can just imagine her joy when one of her children, moi, graduated with a liberal arts degree (none of her children became a doctor, lawyer, or engineer by the way). I remember the day when I told my mom I was switching my major. She just stared at me with her trademark look that reads something like “I don’t understand why you want to throw your life away, I am disappointed with your choices, wipe your feet on the mat before you step inside the house.” It was magnificent by any “mom look” standards. To this day I have never seen anyone recreate the depth and complexity of that expression. Would even give Meryl Streep a run for her money.

Every year my siblings and I will try to arrange something grand and special for Mother’s Day, like a spa session, pedicure/manicure, facial or a message, you know something which will make my mom sit and relax. And every year she scolds us for wasting our money on something that will last only one day. This is how this woman thinks! But I know that she’s secretly smiling inside when we give her flowers, hug and kiss her, and rub her feet (we don’t actually do that).

My mom didn’t go out of her way to shower us with affection till we came out overly confident college drop outs. But she did make sure that we learned the tough lessons in life and for that I have to give the woman credit for raising me into the successful bitter pill junkie that I am today. So this Mother’s Day don’t just rub your mom’s feet and tell her how special she is. Look her straight in the eyes and say “You are a hard-hearted old thing but I love you just the same, and now let’s eat cake.”

 
 

copy right of the purple banana, thaz moi!

Eavesdropping on conversations in the locker room

From reading the above dear blog-reader/time-waster you may be thinking a couple of things right now. First of all, no I am not a creepy weirdo. I pay my taxes regularly. And second, I’m not the only one who eavesdrops on juicy locker room convos, EVERYONE does it!! Except I do it with more finesse. Dare I call myself brave for having the courage to come out with this secret? Yes, I think I shall. 

Maybe I should clarify a couple of things about this whole eavesdropping thing first. The brave purple banana does not go looking for convos in the locker room, but let me kick you a scenario: if I’m changing in an area where there happens to be a very obnoxious person talking loudly on their cell phone or two clucking hens chatting away as if they're the only people in the entire place, then can you really blame my ears for picking up on their conversation. And it just so happens I take a great interest in people, I’m a people person dammit! 

Ahhm...anyway, believe that locker room conversations reveal so much more about the human condition than a psychology text book or an episode of Dr. Phil’s “House of Hatred.” More often than not, however, it can make you completely look at people in a whole other light – I’m taking like under black light when you see their freakishly glowing teeth. 

I have compiled a list of a few overheard locker room conversations, and they're all generalized so as to avoid potential embarrassment:

• Woman who is probably no more than 130lbs super excited about getting her liposuction. I mean c’mon! Seriously? It’s as if those Dove commercials never happened!
• Woman making an appointment over the phone to wax her downstairs, then going into graphic details about which parts she’d like to be smooth as an egg (I added the simile but you get the point). BTW, the word vulva came up more than once
• Woman discussing piercing her nipples *ouch*
• Two women very loudly making fun of another woman who was within earshot

That’s all the ones I can remember for now. Here, I copied an inspirational, strategically advertised, billion dollar-revenue generating marketing ploy for you:

Aww, look how happy they are! They probably got free Dove samples after the photo shoot

 Copy right of the purple banana, thaz moi!