Cereal in a Cup &
An Ode to the Shower

June 12, 2012
By J.D. Cook
 

Today I was faced with either washing a bowl to eat some cereal, or eating the cereal in a cup. I chose the path of least resistance which was making a cereal cosmopolitan of sorts. It was delightful. Before that I had been enjoying a lovely shower.

I’ve long been a fan of using metaphors in my day to day life. My experiences in my fraternity were like the show Game of Thrones, filled with political power struggles and people who were all shades of grey. My two best friends in New York are like my two best friends in Pennsylvania. My male friendships are like Shaun of the Dead and all Kevin Smith films except Chasing Amy for obvious reasons. Anyway you get the point I like me some metaphors. The shower has long been a great metaphor for cleansing far more than your body. When I find myself creatively blocked…I shower. When I find myself in the midst of an existential crisis…I shower. When I have a killer hangover from a reckless and rather stupid night…I shower. Each time a good hot shower tends to wash away the problems and allow me to think on another level. It’s as if my thinking can only go right or left outside of the shower but once I’m inside in shoots up and down as well.

I spent a large portion of this time in the shower musing about people. Until college I would say I thought humanity was a collection of mostly morally good people just trying to make their mark on the planet with what little time they had. Now I would say that I was naïve. Maybe it’s just a country versus city thing but my time in college has showed me some pretty terrible things.

1. If you are good looking, you can really get away with anything! People will do anything to get you back if you are beautiful; even if the beautiful one is the one who screwed it all up.

2. Those that live by a code are at a severe disadvantage to those who will do whatever they want. If you’ve seen the first season of Game of Thrones look at the Stark family and you will see exactly what I mean. These are the two biggest reasons the nice guy usually doesn’t win out. You see we nice guys develop our niceness and hone our brains because…well…we lack something else. Whatever that key factor of attractiveness assholes have we do not. Maybe we lack attractiveness or enough self confidence or something but we are in stark contrast with the other guys. The bad guys never have to develop morals or intelligence because they can get girls without any of it and that’s the sad irony of the matter. South Park deals with this hilariously in an episode entitled ‘The Ghost of Abraham Lincoln’. Basically he tells Kyle that attractive people lack character.

Now on a similar note; parties are kind of silly. I’ve always felt this but my time in a fraternity has made me more willing to go to them because I am around a lot of people who seem to only really have fun at them. They can be enjoyable but most of the time they just devolve into a bunch of people getting drunk and being dramatic; myself included. I am not sure when substances became a need for me to have fun but as of this day forward I am going to go cold turkey off of them all. Life’s too fun to go through it inebriated! I have had my share of fun with opiates but now I’m moving on to bigger and better things. This is not to say I ever really abused these things; I was a once in a while person but now I’m going back to my high school mentality of neverrrrrrr!!!!!

I feel like I was a better person before these things came into my life full force. I used to have the most fun just enjoying a good movie, video games, or going on an adventure with no destination! In the words of Yoda….drugs, alcohol…a Jedi craves not these things. Let’s not forget that women + men + alcohol = terrible decisions for all parties involved (note the dual meaning of parties). If I have to hear another this person took advantage of me story I am going to jump out a window. I mean really people! Are you really so pathetic that you need alcohol to get a girl? How sad is that? Of course I won’t be sexist; there are just as many girls who claim that they can only get a guy when they are drunk…self esteem issues much? (That was a Buffyism). Lastly for the first time ever I really felt myself turn into a dick when I was inebriated at the most recent party I attended. That’s never really happened to me before. Usually I just get kind of silly.

Lastly I should rant about friends for a moment. They can suck as much or more than any enemies. You let friends get close to you thinking you can trust them but when they betray or hurt you there is really nothing you can do to block the pain. Adversity shows you who your true friends are as well as which ones you can’t trust. I am an open and honest person and I decided recently I wasn’t going to associate with liars or people that I didn’t feel I could trust 100%. This has led me to believing I only have four true friends in New York and four back home in Pennsylvania. Strangely they mirror each other in many ways.

So in conclusion the shower is a great metaphor for cleansing. Within my most recent profound one I found myself musing on how attractive people get away with almost anything, while the honest and noble usually end up with their heads chopped off. Parties are looking kind of juvenile lately…and good honest friends are really hard to come by.

~
The Big Blue Bullfrog Blog is published every other Tuesday, covering subjects that are of interest to our readers and, of course, ourselves.