Posts tagged ‘children’

Jan 16

Part of a complete breakfast

I’m not sure if cereal commercials still say the whole “part of a complete breakfast” thing at the end, since I no longer watch cartoons and the advertisements aimed at my age group are more in the soda and cars categories. Here’s what I’m talking about: cereal commercials used to do their catchy jingle thing, blah blah our cereal is the best, try it.. blah, blah, and then….

They would show cereal, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, a muffin, an apple. I remember a Honey Nut Cheerios one that would have cereal, glass of milk, glass of orange juice, a croissant, grapes, and an apple.

I never ate cereal plus all those other things. Heck, sometimes I’d skip the milk.

I walked through the cereal aisle the other day at the grocery store, and I remembered exactly how I felt about it back in the day. I loved colorful or chocolaty cereals. Sugar with a hint of food coloring? Count me in! But as I was staring at a boring blue box of Total, I heard the high pitched voice of a little kid say “Excuse me?” and he walked right in front of me and grabbed a box of Lucky Charms (it had a free toy or something in there, too) and he walked back to his mom’s shopping cart.

Excuse me.. excuse me..

Why can’t I do that when I need something but a person is standing right in front of it?

It happens at bookstores, at yard sales, and definitely at the grocery store. If I need a can of chili and someone is standing there trying to decide if she wants her chili with beans or no beans, I just kinda hover around. I look up and down as if I can’t find the thing I’m looking for. 25% of the time the person figures it out and they move away (at which point you widen your eyes and pretend like you just found your item). The other times, I just kinda wait around.. and get closer to the person. I’m seriously starting to believe that strangers repel each other. You move closer, and they step away. Now THAT works most of the time.

If all else fails, you can always send your kid.

That Awkward Moment When Jennifer Lopez Introduces Her New BF To Her Old Bf’s At The Golden Globes! (ksfm.cbslocal.com)
That Awkward Moment When…(Part II) (thegreatkh.wordpress.com)
“I Didn’t Have Enough Money For A Cup Of Coffee” Issa Rae And Her Journey To Awkward Black Girl (madamenoire.com)

Aug 23

7 Comments

“Try me!”

131. When you press the “Try me!” button on a toy and you can’t get it to shut up.

I like toy stores, I find them fun.

Back in the day, glow-in-the-dark things, and “stuff that flies” were my favorite! I once found one of those toys with a pull rope thing and some type of disk over it that would fly toward the sky when you pulled on the string. And IT GLOWED IN THE DARK. I still play around with glow sticks and my glowy stars are still stuck to my ceiling. I even decorated my room with invisible glow-in-the-dark paint and it still glows 10 years later. Oh, the awesomeness..

I was at Toys-R-Us recently, and I went straight for the cheap discount toys, since those are the ones I find most familiar. After browsing around, I decided to go toward the modern stuff.

Peew! Peew! Peew! Beep beep beep beep

… that’s all I heard!

Those weird toys that activate when you step in front of them were freaking me out, man. Even the stuffed animals have some type of electronics in them. And they all say “Try me!” … and they have a button on their paws … or a string of some sort … and the “Try me!” sticker is red … and I couldn’t help it. Who can resist those things? I squeezed the bear’s paw.

So the bear started singing and all was happy with the world! A rainbow materialized from under me and it turned into a slide! And I was sliding down past mushrooms made of marshmallows and scooped up roses on my way down. Oh, wow you guys should’ve been there!

It lasted for about 1 second.

Then it got loud and I couldn’t get it to shut up. I squeezed the paw again and it started over with a different song. Then some other toy started singing. So obviously I walked away –crying. No, just kidding … not crying. Imagine? Hahaha!

I did walk away though, avoiding as much eye contact as possible while the thing kept singing.

I’m more than just awkward, amigos! For those of you on tumblr, come find me! I’m still just getting started with it.. but it’s getting a bit lonely already. Here’s the link: edwincov.tumblr.com

Mar 26

13 Comments

Why are blankets shaped like rectangles?

That awkward kick thing you have to do to get your blanket back the “right way”.

While I was growing up and learning about the world around me, the strangest thing to understand had to do with my shoes. No, it wasn’t how to tie them, or even understanding why certain people owned hundreds of pairs; it was that there was one shoe specifically designed for one foot. Why didn’t the left shoe fit well on the right foot? What if I wanted the design to be facing the other way? Nope, it wasn’t going to happen. Eventually, I gave it up and started thinking about other things.. and later I realized that some things take time to get used to. Even if they don’t make sense.

For one, beds are usually shaped like rectangles. Longer from one side and shorter on the other. Why must sheets and blankets be shaped this way too? I guess it looks better… But I really think that blanket designers have to think that the blanket should be made to benefit the person, not so much benefit the look of the bed. I’ll tell you what I mean:

Suppose it is a cold winter night and you are woken up by your legs being cold. What do you do? You try to adjust the blanket over you in order to cover your whole body.. but it doesn’t work! What the heck is going on? The blanket is turned on its side. Now you must do a weird kick-thing and get the blanket to turn to the “correct” way. You didn’t only become more awake because of this, but also you must deal with the cold areas of the blanket. The point is that it would be less of a problem if the blankets were shaped like squares, or even circles (this is the part where you go “Yeah! Circles!”). Yeah, the bed would look a little different with a circular blanket, but I think it would be worth it.

Other things took some time to get used to:

Why was the Game Boy called that? It wasn’t a boy. Walk Man? Same thing, only awkwarder. Then again, Playboy.. hmm.. anyway, its just wrong.
I always felt younger than I actually was. I thought of this: When I was a 3rd grader, the 5th graders seemed a lot bigger and older; but as soon as I got to be that age, I felt like I wasn’t old enough to be a 5th grader. In high school, I saw college students as adults; now that I’m in college, I don’t feel so old.
Women. Well just interaction between genders in general. You probably know what I mean.

All I can say now is: Oh well. I wouldn’t know what to answer if a child asked me why blankets are shaped that way, or even why the name “watermelon” fits the fruit so perfectly.

Can anybody think of any answers, or bring up other things that take time to get used to?