Brush with Bad Karma

Don’t read this post. Really. It may make you feel bad. I just feel the need to write about it so maybe I can let it go. ‘Cause I’d like to.

I went to Costco today for gas. I was pretty much out of gas. Unfortunately, a lot of people were lined up there in anticipation of gas price upswing due to Hurricane Ike. That was cool. I wasn’t in a hurry. Nowhere to be. Plenty of patience. I waited in line, turning the engine off in between forward moves.  When we were 4 or 5 cars out from the pumps, we chatted with the really nice guy who monitors the pumps, and it turned out that only the front pumps had regular gas. And we wanted regular. So I got out of the car and went to the guy in the superb car behind me and told him I wanted to wait for a forward pump, and just in case he wanted premium (he did!) I’d pull to the left (between the waiting lanes) and let him use the rearward pump to get supreme…not to hold him up. He was super nice and really grateful, and in the end, while I was pulled into the waiting lane, 2 other cars filled up with premium while I waited for the forward (regular) pump.

All good karma there, eh?!

So I finally got to pull into the forward pump and started pumping, when a “lady” in the lane next to us yelled, “Hey, Bitch! Way to cheat a bunch of people by breaking in line!!!” I tried to say that we had actually been letting people go ahead of us while we got out of the way of people who wanted premium, but she said, “This conversation is over! Bitch!!!”

What was SUPER interesting was that she was at the rear pump, but she was waiting to move up to a front pump so she could get Regular. So she was BLOCKING people from getting premium with her car, parked at the rear pump while she waited to move forward and get regular.

I couldn’t help myself, so I said to her (hey, we were standing there for 10 mins gassing up while she waited for the car in front of her to pull up), “Are you bad at physics or can you not figure out that we could not be at the front of the line any other way than HAVING WAITED IN LINE????” She yelled more obscenities at me.

Why am I upset about this? I went out of my way to be nice and smart, organizing my lane, pulling aside, and letting the premium customers go ahead of me while I waited for a regular spot, and I GOT YELLED AT! But really, in the scheme of things, this is no big deal. In fact, I was profusely thanked by the two drivers who got to get their premium gas faster b/c I pulled aside to wait for the regular.  I should be basking in the glow of that.  Instead, I can’t get past getting yelled at as a “cheater”.

Blogging about this is my way of letting it go. OK, 1, 2 3, It’s gone.

Sorry, it’s not much of a party!

Science Project: Hot and Sour Fruit Balls

I need to capture this recipe for Cooper’s science class, so typing it here saves me from doing it more than once. Plus YOU ARE REALLY GOING TO LOVE THIS ONE (if you’re 12 or 13 years old).

Cooper had to come up with a recipe for a snack that contains no wheat/gluten, contains no nuts (never did find out if was tree or peanuts, so we excluded both), does not require cooking or refrigeration, and can be consumed 2 or 3 days after you make it. I consulted our friend Cam DeBarry, who has a lot of experience cooking around food allergies. Cam had lots of good advice but in no way can be blamed for the resultant recipe.

The students will be voting on their favorite snack. We figured: everybody likes candy. Most middle schoolers really like the insanely sour candies, such as Sour Patch Kids and Warheads. I have been invited many times to “taste this!! It’s so sour you’ll spit it out!!” Cooper and I began to think of things that were sour: dried apples, lime, alum… We also toyed with the concept of a savory snack, but didn’t get much inspiration there, other than the idea of SPICY. The resulting recipe is strangely intriguing. Small balls of chopped dried fruits take your mouth on a journey in which you are struck first by the intense sourness, then soothed with the sweetness of the fruit, before it occurs to you that -Dear Baby Jesus! – your mouth is on fire. Like I said, you have to be 12. Actually it is very interesting. Like something from Willy Wonka. And we had fun.

Amounts are estimates, because we were experimenting and didn’t measure anything:

2 cups chopped dried fruit. We used pineapple, apple (this is not optional b/c it’s SOUR), cranberries, and apricots

Juice of 4 key limes, with about 1 tsp of alum dissolved in it (note: don’t eat the entire recipe by yourself b/c 1 oz of alum is toxic in humans)

1/2 to 1 tsp cayenne pepper (don’t be chicken)

Optional but recommended: 3 or 4 TB Raspberry Hot Pepper jelly (Whole Foods)

Mix all together and roll into little balls. They stay sticky and messy (sure, why not?)  I may try rolling them in confectioner’s sugar so they look like truffles.

No, I don’t know why they’re doing this in science instead of memorizing the hydrogen bonds on the DNA helix like I did when I was their age…