Pita Pit? More like STUPID Pit!

I walked into a Pita Pit recently, a fast food chain whose motto is "Healthy Thinking, Healthy Eating." I saw the sign and thought to myself "Well, I do think. And I do eat. So I guess this is appropriate." I gained entry through the double doors and was welcomed by a vast menu of options. I was a little bewildered by the fact that Pita Pit's corporate office enforces certain rules that keep the company from living up to its motto. One in particular is making all their employees wear an idiot cap emblazoned with their green and red logo.

I glance over the menu and turned to the blondie behind the cash register. (Her locks were peeking through her cap.) I proudly say "I'll have a Baba Ganoush Pita, please." She gives me an inquisitive look, raising an eyebrow. "Do you know what Baba Ganoush EVEN is? It's EGGPLANT, okay. Do you like EGGPLANT?"

OH MY GOD. WHAT A BITCH! First of all, considering that I have been mistaken for reigning from every 3rd world country spanning the globe (and Italy), I would've preferred that she just assumed that I was Arab like everyone else in this god damn city and gave me my damn pita. Second of all, and please excuse my racism, but what the hell is up with white people's aversion to vegetables!? I always grew up watching Full House and other wholesome family shows where in every episode some stupid Troll-like kid is sitting at the dinner table, being forced to eat brussel sprouts and broccoli by their parents and the audience laughs. Excuse me, but I always liked broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, kale, and yes, even EGGPLANT you dumb blonde bitch.

It was the end of the day. I was tired. I just looked back at the idiot cap and was like "Just give me my pita." She was shocked by my bluntness and nervously put it together. I took my pita and left. I will not be going to Pita Pit again.

ATTN: White Coats Cause Racial Blindness

Some men have a cherried up Mustang that they keep polished in their garage, waiting for that one special day to take it out for a spin. Some women have that special pair of stilettos that they only dust off when they really want to wow. Me, I have a white coat that I got for $20 from Kohls that I only wear when I'm feeling like not sitting or leaning on walls and walk around with my hands stretched out to the sides because I don't want to get it dirty. I call this signature move "The Show Stopper," and boy does it impress.

At first, I thought it was The Show Stopper that caused all the stares that I received today. I don't blame people for staring. I'd stare too if I saw someone appear as if they wished they were a bird and wanted to fly away. In other instances, I stopped traffic as I was crossing streets. I guess its some kind of traffic signal?

After my arms got tired, and a becoming a little meek from the attention, I decided to just hold my breath and walk like a normal person. Worst comes to worse, I can always get it dry-cleaned, right? But the stares just kept coming. I was confused. Then people started asking questions... all day. Random men just flocked to me like vultures with sights out for the next kill. Not men I'd normally want to talk to, but men nonetheless. I was riding on the bus on the way home tonight, with probably a big goofy grin on my face because I was recalling something funny, when this Toadstool sat next to me. My grin instantly disappeared.

"Hi my name is Warren." We shook hands. I then went into my backpack and used my antibacterial gel. (I wish that amongst all the crap they taught me in grade school, that they actually could've taught us something useful like not shaking hands with strangers. I'll be sure to teach my kids that.)
"Hi, I'm Meera," I replied, annoyingly.
"What's that?" He drew in closer, with one hand to his ear. "You said Maryanne?" He pretended to lean in to better hear me but instead took a gaping look at my breast region.
"Yea sure. Lets go with that." I'm buttoning up my coat as I'm saying that. Beginning to pack my things. I checked my pockets to make sure he didn't have magical fingers that could've stolen the five bucks in my wallet. (Another thing to teach the kids.) I press the stop button.
"So what's your nationality if I don't mind you asking."
"Indian."
"Oh, I find you stunning. Absolutely stunning..." His voice trailed off as the bus stopped, where I proceeded to get off 15 blocks too early to get away from the breast monger.

As I'm walking these 15 blocks with a 20 lb backpack and a gym bag over my shoulder. A couple of skateboarders passed by, during which time one of them asked me "Yo you Native or somethin'?" "No," I said. I kept walking. A couple blocks later, I pass a bar. All the fart (oops I mean frat) boys outside with their beers almost instantaneously waved and shouted "Hola!" (No surprise there as a group of 10 couldn't possibly make up a complete brain quite yet.) I kept walking.

Granted it was dark, but damn. It must be the coat. The whiteness of it visually confused the onlookers somehow. Maybe it was the light reflecting off of it and into my face or something? No, that couldn't be. It was 9pm. Sun was already set. With the breadth of scientific knowledge I retain in my brain, I still cannot formulate a proper hypothesis. I think I should submit my story to Unsolved Mysteries and have them take a crack at it.

And then he kissed me

My experience tonight reminds me of a medley of old hit songs, most notably Then He Kissed Me by the Crystals & and Her Boyfriends Back by whatever band, but not necessarily in the same context.

So last week I went out to lunch with the soccer player. Yea, I know big mistake, but damn, I was hungry. After yet another hour of hearing him cry about how his ex girlfriend of 9 years had just dumped him one morning and ran away to Asia (can't make this shit up), I try to say my goodbyes because I was tired of hearing his whiney voice screeching through my ear drums. Then he did it. His sushi breath came up close to me and as he attempted to plant one on me, I ducked away and he missed the wall behind me by an inch. "Dude, WHAT are you doing?," I screamed. Not like the situation was awkward enough. People were already staring. I tried to block the embarrassment out by playing the Crystals in my head, but changing the words around to suit the current debacle: "...and then he didn't kiss me..."

Long story short. He was very apologetic, and continued to be annoyingly apologetic through text messages that interrupted every single lecture that I had during the week. On occasion, I'd say something like "Don't worry about it" or "It's cool," but his apologies would just come back with greater frequency. It was a lose-lose situation. So I just stopped replying after a couple of days.

Just as I was about the publish a simple post about this occurrence on the blog, HE WAS BACK. No seriously, he was down the hallway waiting to see the same event as I was planning on going to. Damn. I attempted to cover up my face with the laptop screen fast like a cat, but clearly I'm not a cat because eye contact was made within those microseconds. Damn. I smiled back. Damn. Then he proceeded to turn away and act like he didn't know me. OHHHH HELL NO. That asshole stole a smile from me!

I felt like a used piece of kleenex stuffed in a seat cushion somewhere. Did he just 1. make me listen to his sob stories for the last few months 2. then try to kiss me and crown me as his rebound queen 3. and then finally use me for a smile to boost his own ego? I hadn't felt this helpless since I tried to volunteer at a school for the blind. I had nothing to get back at him for stealing something so precious to me. I also left my light saber at home that day so I couldn't slice him in half with it. I was at an impasse. I know one thing for sure though. Ain't no one, I mean NO ONE ever gonna ROB a smile from me again.

Dating Criteria

Because looking back on my dating history makes me cringe, I've decided to set forth the following criteria to keep me on track with my dating goals. I've also rated the level of my preference of said criteria to give a little leeway for men that need a some tweaking but are almost a perfect 10.

Here it goes.

#1
Acceptable: Watches Cartoon Network for a minimum of 30 minutes a day.
Preferred: Doesn't watch Cartoon Network at all.

#2
Acceptable: Fitting into my size jeans, as long as there is major muffin top action going on.
Preferred: Jeans explosion! If he can even get them on that is.

#3
Acceptable: Similar-sized hands so that hand-holding is a mutual activity.
Preferred: Gorilla hands that have the capacity to manhandle.

#4
Acceptable: Walks at least five minutes a day
Preferred: Walks at least five times a day

#5
Acceptable: Boyish charm
Preferred: Manly charm

Thats all folks. Let me know if you meet someone that fits this description though I must admit that I am very stringent with my new criteria. So much so that I've gotten them tattooed... on my ass.

Failing

I hate professors that "encourage" questions in lecture. Mostly because then all those dumb morons in the class feel like they have the license to ask the most idiotic questions ever and waste class time. I used to hate this phenomenon more, but now with the advent of wireless internet and texting, I can easily be entertained within those 5 grueling minutes of idiotdom by making fun of them via modern communication tools.

Then there are those that appear to be the royal species of the idiot genus. I mean, have you ever sat in class and then that particular idiot stupidly waves his/her hand, hoping to score a few brownies points with the professor by asking a question, and it ends up being a question that basically tells everyone (including the professor) that you are going to fail (but the waving idiot doesn't realize it?). For example, today in Virology class, a class the employs advanced molecular genetics, a woman raises her hand. The professor's voice goes completely flat and dull when he sees it. "Yes, Veronica?" Not like this was a tip off to this Veronica woman already. "What is an operon?" she proudly asks. Ok for non-science people, this may not sound like a no brainer. But imagine sitting in a graduate level public health course and asking what "E coli" is, or taking a political science class and not knowing what a democracy is.

In that moment, I wanted to pour my hot McDonald's coffee over my head so that I could induce some kind of psychological trauma that would make me forget that the question was asked in the first place. Luckily, I restrained myself. All I KNOW is that I'm going to sit as far away from Veronica as possible from now on. I don't want her idiot fumes to infect me with a rare case of stupidity.

The Union of Two Lonely Souls...

There is nothing creepier than being hit on by some loser in the library. And I wasn't even doing my usual Meera shuffle amongst the stacks, trying to muster up the courage to crack open a book or two. I was actually studying, at a table, purposely BY MYSELF when some thuggish monstrosity came up to me, complete with a sideways basketball team-themed hat and a gold chain.

"Yo, whatch ya studyin'" He asked.
"Uhm, physics." I reply and turn my head back to my books. This boy clearly failed at American Sign Language (and English 101) or some shit because he took me as wanting to continue to talk.
"Whatch yoo studyin' here?"
"Don't know. You?"
"Don't know. Got mah Bachelor's though."
"Oh ok, in what?"
"Don't know like Hissstorreee or somethin'. Don't know what to do now."
::Silence::
"Listen if you got any ideas, hit me up sometime. Mah email iz acleo@pdx.edu."
I pretend to write this down and I proceed to read it back to him:
"Ok so its A-C-L-E-O at P-D-X-dot-E-D-U. Correct?"
"Yea das me. See ya later."

::Sigh::. Finally. I got him to go away. Little did he know that this is what I actually wrote in my notebook:


Listen if you're going to prey on girls at the library, at least do a little research about the school so that you can actually appear as a student rather than a deadbeat that hopes to score a little pootie tang under the romantic reading lights. I wished to email that to him, but clearly I wrote his address down wrong.

Potty Un-humor

After having an awfully large pot of coffee this morning, I had to tend to an extremely irritated intestinal tract mid-class. Which reminds me, I should never eat an entire jalapeno pizza on my own from now on. Anyhoo, as I'm sitting down to tend to my bowel duties. I found myself staring head-on to the following post-it note on the bathroom stall.

Fuck. Like this is what I want burning through my retinas as I'm taking a fabulously painful- excuse my language here- dump. No, stupid girl, I'm not beautiful "inside" and out. My actions at the moment were living proof of that. It's smelly, gross, and disgusting. I would've vomited, but the obviously, the toilet was occupied at the moment.

It's times like these when I wished I had the supernatural power to grow a penis or a beard or both so I could just use the Men's restroom. Or maybe I should just forego all those secret desires and just use the damn Men's restroom and risk getting arrested because apparently it is against the law. Men don't write dumb post-it notes. If anything, they probably write funny ones that will make my bathroom visit that much more enjoyable. Such examples may be:

"Dude, you just took a ginormous dump. Rock on!"
"That one really hurt, didn't it?"
"Do you feel 5 lbs now, man?"
Etc... etc...

These encouraging words would be written in a neutral-colored post-it note, comfortable to read but possibly illegible. Of course, I would never know. The Men's restroom is after all uncharted territory for us women. Or maybe not.