The only thing crunchy cookies are good for is throwing at the squirrels trying to steal food from the birds. If it isn’t borderline cookie dough coming out of the oven, I’m not interested.
Read More...We have all had an unpleasant encounter with someone who is just irrationally angry, at some point. You know, the people who call you up, or (even worse) are face-to-face with you, and have this need to tell you exactly how they feel in the most offensive and hurtful way possible? These people make me sad. For one, I had no part in whatever it is you’re upset about – I don’t even work here. But mainly, how unhappy are you in life that you feel a need to blow something trivial way out of proportion? Are you trying to ruin someone else’s day?
Want to know a fun fact? You aren’t ruining my day. No, to be honest, I’m not even really listening because you’re talking yourself in circles and not making sense. Plus, you’re just being loud, so I’m going to let you wear yourself out first. My favorite part about these people, is most of the time it’s user error. Oh, so your upcoming flight isn’t showing up on your calendar? Did you add it to the calendar? No? Hmmm, well that’s interesting – it’s hard to see something that you never created! Oh, so your burrito costs more because it has guacamole on it? Did you not listen when the Chipotle employee told you it would cost extra? Or did you not read the board with that same information very clearly printed on it? No? Hmmm, well that’s interesting – seems like a very personal problem.
Personally, I choose to live my life by this amazing quote: ‘Don’t let idiots ruin your day’. Check. Don’t worry, I’m still going to have an amazing day because happiness is a choice. My favorite part about these interactions is when our irrational friend realizes they screwed up. The face stays red, but subtly moves from the angry lobster red to embarrassment blush red. Now, I’m not a vengeful person, but can we all agree that feeling is satisfying? Granted, in a slightly evil way, but we aren’t the ones trying to make the girl behind the register cry so we can get out of paying, now are we?
Maybe I’m not a very angry person either, but how does one get to that stage? Is this impacting your ability to act like an adult? You know that you can still voice frustration in a reasonable way, right? Is this really the example you want to set for the people around you? There are children EVERYWHERE, you know (it’s slightly creepy).
What’s that? You haven’t ever dealt with someone like that? Your life is all glitter, and rainbows, and CHEWY CHIPS AHOY cookies? Well, this is awkward, but you are that irrationally angry person. Yes, I know you think you’re reasonable, and fun, and easy-going, but no. You would be incorrect. You are an overreacter and tend to blame things on others to get your way. Wow, that’s a tough pill to swallow, isn’t it. You’re probably starting to get a little red right now. Thinking about composing a very friendly email for me. Totally great – bring it on! As Germany Kent said, ‘Stop giving people the power to control your smile, your worth, your attitude, and your day. Don’t give anyone that much power over your life’. BOOM! You have no power over my life! So all of your anger will do, well, nothing to me. I’ll read your lovely email, take it, feel a little sad for your unhappiness, then smile and move on.
But I get it – it’s not as easy as that for everyone. Getting screamed at isn’t exactly something you wake up in the morning hoping for. That’s ok. New savage queen, Taylor Swift, wrote a song for times like these. It’s pretty much the perfect response template for dealing with one of the hotheads. A whole song can be hard to remember so I’ll just give you the highlights:
How easy is that? You need to calm down. Why? Oh, because you’re being too loud and I don’t know you. Moral of this rant: there’s no need to be so angry – choose happiness.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who tends to overreact to everything, pass this along so they can scream at me not you. Maybe one day they’ll understand that life is short enough without tempting fate with frequent spikes to their blood pressure. Thanks for reading!
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Some things in life suck – breakups, getting fired, paying bills, when your team gets upset in the March Madness tournament, ripping your pants, losing the TV remote, running out of Chewy Chips Ahoy (READ MORE on my love for these cookies), cleaning a mirror to find streaks left behind (I think this is THE WORST – find out why HERE), etc. How do you react when it happens? Me, personally, am a pity partier. I’m not proud of that, but sharing is caring. Then one day someone gave me the best advice. They said ‘Let it go already! Ain’t nobody got time for that!’ And my first thought was ‘You’re my therapist … I’m paying you to have time for this’. But in reality, no, nobody has time for that! Not me, not you, not my therapist, apparently.
What is even the purpose of a pity party? According to the Oxford Dictionary, a pity party is defined as ‘an instance of indulging in self-pity or eliciting pity from other people’. That’s all nice and dandy, but let’s dive deeper. What is pity? Well, if you ask the Oxford Dictionary (AKA a Google Search for pity) it’s either ‘the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others’ or ‘a cause for regret or disappointment’.
Literally just typing that made me feel like a terrible person. What is wrong with us as a species? Why do we think it’s ok to force our sadness and misfortunes on unassuming people who were probably having a great day until you started moaning about the sandwich you ordered only being medium warm instead of hot out of the oven? Newsflash: NOBODY CARES! We get it, you’re sad. You know what won’t make you happy? Constantly reminiscing on how your life sucks right now and you’re in a tough spot. You know what will make you feel better, though? Well, Chewy Chips Ahoy for one, but also moving on and realizing that you can’t change the past, but you can change the future.
So your heart is broken? There’s more than one person in the world – go find someone better! So you lost your job? Use your experience to write a killer resume – then go get a better one with a higher salary! So your bills are due … again? Well, you don’t technically have to pay them if you don’t want to, you just won’t have electricity/water/cell service/Internet/etc. if you don’t. Oh, your bracket is ruined? Whose isn’t? That Cinderella team lost a lot of people money, not just you, and they moved on so suck it up buttercup.
By now, you’re probably thinking ‘That’s great and all, but easier said than done. Tell me something I don’t know’. Alright, fine. Have you ever seen the Pixar film Inside Out? There’s a lot of articles on the science behind it, but in my unprofessional opinion it boils down to this: whichever emotion you allow to control your switchboard is the one that controls every aspect of your life. So if you let Pity run the show, then that pity seeps into your actions, into your relationships with others, into your bones (hello constant exhaustion and tired muscles), and into your thoughts. You ooze pity and no one wants to interact with someone who looks like they might start rambling about how an unauthorized person parked in their spot and they forgot an umbrella so now they’re soaking wet. Would you go talk to that person? I wouldn’t because I don’t need your pity jumping onto my switchboard. I’ve got problems of my own, I don’t need yours too.
What’s my point here? Never to feel sad, or to talk about how you’re down about something that happened? No, that’s unnatural and a strong indicator of a psychopath. Feel that emotion, feel that weight, let it piss you off, question what led up to it, allow yourself to have that self-pity, talk to someone about how it’s affecting you! But don’t hold on to it. Don’t let it take over your switchboard and run your life for weeks, months, or years. Accept that it happened, learn from it, and get on with your life. Make that ex jealous, make your old boss beg to have you back, buy 12 different TV remotes so you can always find one, go off-the-grid and get rid of your bills, etc. And if you are struggling to do that for yourself, then please, for the love of God, do it for us because AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who is pity partying it up, pass this along so they can know that their reservation at the Pity Inn is up, and if they want to keep staying there, then something new has to happen to them. Otherwise GET OUT! Thanks for reading!
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Everyone has that one food that they can’t resist under any circumstances. You could be coming straight off a Thanksgiving dinner for the ages, but if someone asks if you want to eat blank you’ll be like yep, let’s do it! Because it’s the one item where you have no control and don’t even pretend to. Your go-to cheat day meal. Your motivation while working out. The subject of your deepest, darkest food fantasies. Your food bae, essentially.
You know what I’m talking about. You can pretend like you don’t, and that’s a lie that you’ll tell yourself. For some people it’s something salty. For other people it’s something sweet. For yet others out there it’s a straight up entree. Probably a very specific entree from a specific restaurant and the same order anywhere else simply won’t do. For the rest of the population that doesn’t fall into one of the above categories, it’s either a drink or something healthy. Both are questionable options for a fantasy food, but you do you.
For me, that food is Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies. Not Chips Ahoy, those are only ok and I think one of these days I will go deeper into the correct way to make a cookie, which, of course, is chewy, but today is simply not that day. Chewy. Chips. Ahoy. What?! Yes, I’m talking about the ultimate store bought cookie. The absolute God of drunk party food options. The all day, everyday, ultimate dessert option. I love these cookies so much that their serving size and the amount that I can fit in my mouth at one time are equal. It’s the one food that I don’t even think about calories with. Because everyone knows that when you’re in love, calories don’t count anyways.
I bet a good majority of you are wondering, why? I talk a lot about Chipotle, and Oreos, and food in general, so why an overly processed, half baked, commercialized cookie? Well, it’s not a totally invalid question. But that judgement, though! This is a safe space! This is the one food I can’t resist, it doesn’t have to be yours. Especially if I have had any sort of alcohol. Doesn’t even have to be a lot of alcohol. I could have sniffed a bottle and I would be immediately in the mood for the cookie crack that is Chewy Chips Ahoy.
Walk with me, for a second, into imagination island where we will encounter the beautiful world of cookies. I think most people enjoy cookies in some shape, form, flavor, size, baked level, etc. I’m going to say something very controversial, but, I personally prefer cookie dough to baked cookies. It’s clearly superior. It tastes like how I imagine the clouds in heaven would taste if I were up there and could eat them. It’s sweet. It’s soft. It’s chewy. It’s slightly tangy. It could be chunky, if you added stuff to your cookies. It’s an explosion of goodness in your mouth.
Unfortunately, raw eggs are not in style at the moment. Salmonella was a thing, and now we have PTSD and remain skeptical of what our chickens have been doing prior to us cracking their unborn children. All the best parenting and lifestyle blogs are anti-cookie dough with dairy in it at the moment. Which is understandable, I can’t deny that. It does make your standard chocolate chip cookie dough unsafe to bring as a snack anywhere. You can eat it in your kitchen and only in your kitchen unless you want Internet trolls to shame you.
Enter Nabisco. Who, like geniuses, thought about baking this cookie dough just enough to kill the salmonella evil spirits. Half baked cookies. Mind absolutely freaking blown. Now you can enjoy the cookie dough texture without any fear of dying. Win. Win. To the max. What more could you want from a cookie? It’s clearly superior. It tastes like how I imagine the clouds in heaven would taste if I were up there and could eat them. It’s sweet. It’s soft. It’s chewy. It’s slightly tangy. It’s mildly chunky. It’s an explosion of goodness in your mouth.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Ah, Christmas … excuse me, the holidays. Thank you politics for continuing to ruin all good things. Such a magical time of year with the lights and wrapping presents and cookies. SO. MANY. COOKIES. I think it’s funny when people say they’re dieting or “watching their sugar intake” anytime between mid-October and January. What is even the point? Do you hate yourself that much to deny all the best, most peanut-buttery Reese shapes? To choose not to eat a piece of the yule log, or peppermint bark, or anything pumpkin flavored?
I’m a big believer in finishing what you start, so if it’s Q4 and I still haven’t decided to take my diet seriously, then it’s just not going to happen. Finish strong! Besides, that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, right? Why bother during the three consecutive holidays whose main themes are food? I mean, look, Santa pretty much only eats cookies and he seems to be doing alright. He’s basically immortal. I’m trying to hop on that diet train for freaking sure. He can also fly, and train reindeer, and has a memory that could even make IBM Watson scared. He knows everyone. IN. THE. WORLD. That alone is impressive, but good old Santa is like ‘you know, I can do better than just knowing them … I’m going to keep records of all their actions too’.
Now, this sounds all innocent and cute and what not, but I see what’s happening here. You can’t fool me jolly old Saint Nick. Since the beginning of time, everyone has wanted to know how he does it. How is it possible that one man and eight reindeer can deliver presents to everyone in the world in one night? Not one month, not one week, not even one day … one night.
Enter the naughty and nice list. Why give everyone presents when we can easily play God and judge the actions of others? If they’re naughty, scratch that name off the list. One less house to visit. Now repeat this for all the people clearly dating Satan and trying to impress his demonic self. That’s a whole different topic – some people just need a hug, a smile, and a whole lot of Jesus. Anyways, so we’ve started to weed people out. Satan be gone! Who’s next? Well all the people who made bad decisions – so every adult ever. Boom! Knocking off suckers left and right! Anyone else? All the kids who don’t believe because they’re trying to be “cool” and “grown up”. News flash: growing up is not as cool as it looks. Just trust me on this.
Who does that leave? Literally only anyone under 5 because even Santa has a little bit of a soul and knows they are so innocent they can’t really do anything massively wrong. Problem solved. Santa stalks us and waits to see that one little slip up because you had just broken up with bae and were confused and that couple was all about the PDA life and it was just too much at that time so you told them to eff off and get a room. Welp, congratulations! Your name just earned a huge strikethrough. Good thing I’m an adult now and can buy myself presents to make up for the lump of coal I’ll be getting from the big man.
In a shocking twist, I have some serious concerns, though, about Santa’s delivery method for the people that are lucky enough to remain on the nice list. When I order something, from say Amazon, the package shows up at my front door. I owe the delivery person nothing. The delivery person has never set foot in my house. Life is good. On Christmas, however, this is not the case. Front doors are too visible, I guess, for Kris Kringle, so the chimney is his vessel of choice. And not just to throw the presents down – that would be too easy and law-abiding. No, Santa chooses to break into the house. And we all welcome it! We actively leave snacks for him as a reward for committing a crime. What is this teaching children exactly?
Moving past this blatant disregard for human safety. An unknown man is in our house (because, let’s be honest, nobody really knows who he is), eating food that we paid for, and leaves us gifts that he knows we want since he stalked us. Putting it like that doesn’t sound so ho ho holly jolly now does it? What if he wasn’t a happy old fella and was actually disgruntled and angry? That would be a very different story Christmas morning – why is our living room trashed and all our valuables missing? Mmhmm makes you think, doesn’t it. He could be a serial killer. Yet it’s more important that we have someone else come up with gifts for our offspring than to just go buy something for them. But happy holidays!
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you also feel weird about the conspiracy that’s coming from the North Pole, best to keep that to yourself. As weird as it is, the big man seems sane and happy for now so no need to stir that pot. Thanks for reading!
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What even is portion control? Do people actually do that? How does it work – do you longingly stare at what you want and hope that imagining the taste of that delicious treat is just as satisfying? Or do you avoid food altogether and hype yourself up on some sort of liquid diet to “feel full” and “energized”?
I’m all for leading a healthy lifestyle (that’s why I balance my eating with exercise…duh!), but I have zero control. Shoutout to all the people with more willpower than me though. You can portion control for the both of us. Because let’s be honest, if I’m going to treat myself, I’m going to freaking TREAT MA SELF (know what I’m saying?). Family size? More like family of one size. King size? Yes, me being the king of my own castle it is just my size. Great for sharing? Well, that’s just your opinion marketing team – I’ll share with me. Fun size? Get that sh*t out of here, I want a real snack, there’s nothing fun about a tiny sample.
Here’s how I look at it: I’m already blowing my calorie count and destroying my health kick for the day so I might as well go all in. Oh, who am I kidding, this is not an occasional thing. This is a daily occurrence in my life. And also in the lives of people around me, so I think it’s one of those awkward ‘it’s not me, it’s definitely 100% you’ type of situations.
Whose fault is it then, you may be thinking. The FDA, or the food manufacturers, or the nutritionists…I DON’T KNOW! Whoever decides what the portion is that’s who! Side tangent – can we think about how unnatural it sounds to call them food manufacturers? What are you feeding me? Why would you not be food producers? What manufacturing is taking place? It doesn’t sound natural or healthy, but my goodness it is satisfying. Is there a reason you have to create food “products” as opposed to just giving me “real” food? What is the difference – how do I even know what’s real and what’s fake anymore?! Almost like with people – are there people manufacturers?! This is getting too creepy, I need to take a hard pass on finishing my train of thought there.
We’ve established who is to blame and I feel the need to express my…dissatisfaction with their operation. What better way to do that than with an open letter?
Dear Subjective Food Portion Deciders:
I don’t know who you are, but more importantly, I don’t know where you came from. In my country, 2 cookies or 13 potato chips or 1 piece of bread or ½ cup of ice cream or ⅓ bottle of juice or ½ a banana or 18 pretzels or ¼ cup of shredded cheese or (I will stop for brevity, but just know that I could go on and on and on and on) are not an accurate representation of how people choose to consume those products. Let me emphasize here – whatever you are doing is not working because we keep getting fatter and our recommended portions keep getting smaller!
Are you hoping that by making the calorie count smaller it will make us eat more? Do you know how psychology even works?! If I see a lower calorie count, I WILL EAT MORE because I don’t feel as bad. For example: if 2 cookies is 140 calories, but next week you tell me that 1 cookie is 70 calories, I will still eat approximately 16 cookies…see my problem? Who has time to multiply 70 by 16? That’s too much effort so clearly those calories don’t count. 8 * 140 is a little easier, but still who tracks anything after 400 anyways?!
Why don’t you just give me what I want to know? How many calories are in the WHOLE THING? Then I’ll be more likely to just eat part of it and (bonus!) I’ll feel so so so much better about myself! For example: if all 32 cookies are 2,240 calories, but I use my stealthy self-control and only eat half the package, I’ve only consumed 1,120 calories and feel like I’ve done a good deed for the world that is my body.
Still with me? I think I might have lost you. Point being that no one (seriously, what monster only eats 2 cookies and genuinely feels satisfied – live a little) eats like a bird. We are creatures of the supersize system and have been trained to eat until we can’t anymore. So, for all of us just trying to relax and de-stress from our days with a whole bag of chips while drinking (for fun let’s just say juice), stop ruining this for us! That is all, good day.
-The Restless (and forever hungry) Professional
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who believes family size, king size, sharing size, etc. are simply opinions, pass this along so together we can unite and try to get this ridiculous serving size nonsense back to a realistic number. Thanks for reading!
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The Restless Professional 