Nothing deep today, but I wanted to point out one reason why I'm deliciously evil.
When people complain about some headache they have, they are always looking for sympathy. If it's someone whom I don't love, like a stranger or a coworker, I mess with them like this.
I tell them that headaches don't bother me, because I have a high threshold for pain. Then sit back and watch them try to convey how enormous their pain tolerance is without sounding contradictory. You can't have it both ways, either your headache hurts and you have a normal tolerance for pain, or it doesn't because you're tough.
That's one thing about Americans that I don't get. Most of us take some kind of strange pride in certain things. Pain threshold is just one of them. Ask someone if they are any good with chopsticks. Holy crap! I have YET to find an American that will own up to sucking at chopsticks. It's like we have some desire to appear all sorts of cultured, and chopsticks are the litmus test. I can use chopsticks, and I can eat an entire meal with them. But I know my skills pale in comparison to what a 4 year old Japanese kid must have.
So, my question for this post: What other crazy things do we take pride in when maybe we shouldn't?
6 comments:
I can hammer a six-inch spike through a board with my penis.
Ok, not what I had in mind. I was being a bit more literal.
-Everyone thinks they are an excellent driver, yet that is obviously wrong. Someone has to be the sucky dork going 58 mph in the carpool lane.
-Pride in finding a band first. I suffer from this one.
-I don't know if guys have this one, but girls love to out "busy" each other. Oh, you have three kids, a full time job and are working on your bachelors degree? Well I have FOUR kids, TWO full time jobs, I'm finishing my DOCTORATE! AND I still find time to donate blood once a month and make fliers for Relief Society. Oh, and I grow all my own food. Top that beyatch.
Are you doing this to get me to say how sucky I am at using chopsticks? I so do. I'm not trying to be a story-topper or a contradictor or a FIRST PERSON YOU MET who sucks at them. I also have no threshold for pain although I do despise people who use migraine and headache interchangably. Migraines make you vomit and go blind or at the very least, they are incapacitating. I have never had one by the way.
It's all I can do not to actually follow Eggbert's link.
Very good points Marianne. The out-busy is something I've seen, but didn't think of. It can be simplified down to people wanting pity, but the pride they have in their sad predicament is universal.
Kir, I think chopsticks are retarded for us Americans. Western utensils are superior in every sense. The only reason I ever use chopsticks is when I go out for sushi with others. I don't want to be the one person there that's different, because then you look like you're making a statement. And really, a sit-down dinner is not the place to make a statement about chopstick usage in contemporary America.
But when you go to Panda Express with a friend, and they request chopsticks? Seriously people, does that immerse you in the deep eastern experience that $6.45 of fast food Asian provides? It goes superb with Diet Pepsi, doesn't it? Just like in central Shanghai.
Eggberts link is to a list of movie quotes. No pictures, just text.
I was paraphrasing a quote from the movie REAL GENIUS starring Val Kilmer and William Atherton. The link goes to the movie's quote page on IMDB.com.
As for my own horn-honking: I suppose I pride myself in pulling random movie quotes from my posterior.
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