Worst YouTube Video. Ever.

I'm getting old.

Alright, alright. I'm not old. Like, old-old. At least not in that cane-and-walker, Depends diapers, false teeth that fall out in your soup kind of old. Not even in that gray hair and "ah! my achin' back!" kind of old.

But I'm growing up.

The other day, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm aging. Aging! Me, invincible Maxine, is growing older. Wow. Now I know what my mom always complains about. Well, this stinks.

I was sitting casually in my fraying desk chair, contemplating my procrastonated English paper, when my little brother suddenly ran in the room with a grin ear-to-ear. He was more off-the-walls than a Mexican jumping bean on crack.

"Maxi! Maxi! OMG! You GOT to see this!" he excitedly screamed.
"What now, Myles? I've got to do stuff."
"Let me just show you! Please!"

He led me to YouTube where he proceeded to excitedly type in "Salad Fingers." Just from the title, my stomach began to churn. (Never eat a super size salad from a McDonalds with ranch dressing. Don't even think of mashing the fries into the ranch dressing. Ever.)

The obviously homemade cartoon began to play. Instantly, my brother cracked up. He proceeded to laugh hysterically throughout the entire 2-minute waste of my life. He thought it was so funny. Like, actual laugh out loud, rolling on the ground, stomach-aching funny. The kind of laughter you get after watching one of those Japanese game shows where people fall off logs.

I found nothing even slightly comical about the strange emo figure finding pleasure in touching rusty spoons. "The feel of rust against my salad fingers is almost orgasmic?" What the heck? Rust is not orgasmic. ORGASMS are orgasmic. (Or ice cream.)

When I saw there were multiple episodes of this nonsense, I began to scream! Who would actually want to follow along with these schenanagans? They must be extremely sexually deprived or temporarily psychotic. Or both.

So, I guess I'm old, then. I don't find childish humor the least bit funny anymore. And I'm scared. What's next? I'll scoff at Spongebob?

No! Not the sponge.


In case you missed Salad Fingers, check it out here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3iOROuTuMA

8 Weirdest Places to Straighten Your Hair

Alright, alright. I guess I'm a teeny, tiny bit too obsessed with primping. Not really in a bad, Barbie girl, two hours with the blow dryer kind of way. But after spending the majority of my life as a awkward, dumpling-shaped basketball-head (complete with braces!), I'm just happy to have gotten a little bit of pretty dust from the puberty fairy. So, when I ski, I straighten my hair to avoid nasty tangles in my naturally curly, blonde locks. (I'm a competitive freestyle skier. Pretty sick, eh?) (Yeah. I've travelled to Canada too.)

This straightening is not a big deal. Usually. Except when I'm doing it in a ski lodge in Upstate NY and a group of gaggling pre-teens enter the smelly bathroom and notice my straightener plugged into the wall heating up. And audibly make fun of it.

"Hahahah! Who brings a STRAIGHTENER to a SKI LODGE?! What a freak! Woowww."

I hid in the stall until they left. (And this was not a short amount of time, mind you.) Then I exited, completely humiliated. My face was red as a wheezy tomato...(ah, back to the basketball-head days.)

I contemplated this interaction for the longest time. Then it dawned on me...there are WAY weirder places to straighten your hair than a ski lodge. Ha! Take that bratty snowplowers! (I bet their hair was messy as a rat's nest, anyway.)

8 Weirdest Places to Straighten Your Hair
8. In an airplane. (Are there even outlets in airplanes? Next thing you know, it will be on the news, "A 747 Delta jet landed in a Minnesota family's backyard...just moments after the season premiere of Lost. It was reported that a passenger on the plane was straightening their hair in the closet-sized lavatory.)

7. While on the toilet. (I stand by the general rule that some things just shouldn't be mixed. Like oil and water. Or toilets and hair straighteners.)

6. In the mall. (Ugh...dirty diapers, sweaty french fries and the dingy smell of perfume from those make-up ladies lined up like toy soldiers in Macy's can't be too healthy for your mane. Plus, those pesky mall cops might get agitated at bathroom loitering. Personally, I think the Paul Blarts of the world need to take a chill pill, but that's just me...)

5. While in the middle of a date in a pitch-black movie theater where no one can see your hair anyway.
("Sweetie, I'll be right back. Two seconds."
"Where are you going? You'll miss the movie!"
"Uh, to the bathroom. I just need to do a quick touch-up..."
twenty minutes later
"You missed the good part of the movie! I knew you would. What took so long? I thought you said two seconds...Ow! A wire hanging out of your purse just smacked me!"

4. At a coffee shop. (I'll have a venti caramel no-whip macchiado with steamed soy milk. Oh, and can I have a side of straight hair with that?)

3. While riding a motorcycle. (Ah, the wind rustling through your, er, semi straight hair.)

2. In the middle of an intense air hockey tournament. (Nobody is paying attention to your hair anyway. They're all wearing NJ Devils hats and focused on the intense 6-6 score at hand.)

1. In a ski lodge. (Because without my little incident, this list wouldn't have been written!)

AHHH OMG OMG!! Look at me...freaking out over nothing.

This is an actual story of one of those girls on the new MTV show True Life: I Have Nothing to Do With My Time Besides Waste It.

She was just hanging out with one of her friends, trying on make-up and stuff, when her Blackberry Curve buzzed ominously on the table. She figured it was another friend texting her about some party or whatever.

Her friend slid the phone over the countertop without missing a beat, not even looking up from straightening her hair. They had practiced the same exact drill so many times before, by now it was just muscle memory. Thumb here, press there, message sending, sent.

She glanced down at her phone, expecting maybe an ever-fowarded "If you send this to 10 people tomorrow you will meet Prince Charming, you will be able to read minds and your father will buy you a pet unicorn..." But, no!

OMG! Wait a second. Was this for real? It was him! HE texted her! AHHH! Why? OMG! It was the best day of her life. HE actually texted her. She was freaking out. She started jumping up and down screaming! AHHH OMG OMG OMG! Why did he text her? Did he like her? Does he know she likes him? AHHH!

She was so over-the-moon excited about this text. OMG! This, like, never happened ever.
The screen flashed along with her excitement:

1 New Message
From HIM

She didn't know what to do. Should she open it? Should she read the text? Should she pretend she didn't see it, building the anticipation on her (almost nonexistant) relationship? What should she say if she did respond? Should she use all capitals? All lowercase? Some caps and some lowercase? Mostly lowercase with a few caps randomly thrown in for affect? TaLk LiKe ThIs? Only capatalize every other Q? Every other E? Every other Y?

She turned to her friend, who still didn't know about this earth-shattering, ground-breaking, unprecedented, amazing, super-awesome, freak-out worthy event and was still dabbling away at her already perfectly pin-straight locks.

"OMG! OMG!"
"What?!"
"You will NEVER guess what like just happened. Like I'm like so excited right now. Like, you have no like idea."
"OMG! What is it? What happened?"
"HE texted me!"
"Like what do you mean HE texted you?"
"HE like texted me!!!"
"AHHH!"
"AHHH!"
"Are you going to like respond?"
"What should I say?! Should I use capitals? All lowercase?..."

She was contemplating what to do. If she texted right back, she could seem eager. But she didn't want to blow him off. She could open it, but decide not to text back right away. Maybe she would never respond. Maybe she would call him! Respond on Facebook wall to wall! Facebook pop-out chat! IM! IM to his cell phone! Oh, the possibilties were endless.

After much deliberation, (because 34 seconds is so long, you know?) she slowly slid her phone over in the palm of her hand, feeling the smooth, hard metal covering twirl against her lotioned and perfumed skin. Her friend looked over her shoulder curiously, because duh, that's what friends are for. Then, she squeezed her eyes shut...first the left one, then the right. She quickly clicked the necessary buttons on her phone to go to the texting menu before she could change her mind. (After all, she had done it so many times before, she really could do it with her eyes closed. Left, left, right, center.) It only took a second for the text to open.

She opened her eyes. The screen read:

hey.

Ode to PB&J

Ah, there's something refreshing about all the food I used to consume as a child. Reverting back to the days of PB&J, mac n' cheese, Granny Smith apples and chocolate milk (pretty much all the foods I ate in kindergarten) somehow brings on a type of nostalgia unrecognizable anywhere else.
Hence, the ode to PB&J.

Ode to PB&J

PB&J

What can I say?

I love you,

Like I love my left foot.

(And I love Edna a lot.)

Turkey, shmurkey.

Who knows what goes on with those?

One of those grown-up 'wiches will never pass my lips.

I want to keep you around forever, PB&J,

Even if you are only popular with nerds.

I'll be a nerd,

Only if I can savor your creamy legume-ness

Mixed with the sweet smell of artificial berries

And the soggy twist of Wonder bread.

Ah, and your cousin,

Mac.

Mac Cheese.

I love him.

I doodled on my notebooks "Mrs. Cheese."

Now, Miss Teacher is in a freeze.

She sees where I write Mrs. Cheese

And says, "Maxine, erase that at once, Mac is mine!"

No! Mac, don't leave me.

I'll have to resort to pesto pasta.

"Ew," as everyone would agree.

Granny Smith is the second-best.

(The apple, that is.)

Not Grammie, the white-haired wrinkly lady who knits too-big sweaters.

(She pinches my cheeks until they just need a rest.)

Oh, and choco milk, choco choco milk!

I think of you before I fall asleep at night.

You are the drink of my dreams.

"Choco milk all around but not a drop to drink"

Is my worst nightmare.

So, foods in my fantasies, stay with me.

Don't venture off my [breakfast, lunch and] dinner plates.

(Until first grade, that is.)

Poles + Tongues: A Non-Sexual Story

Boy, did I have an interesting time on my winter break ski trip. Very interesting. Never mind the fact that it rained, then went up to 60 degrees, then froze...(pretty bad conditions)...then snowed while we were leaving. Actually, never mind the actual skiing at all. My interesting experience occurred on the chairlift.

Now, I know what you're thinking. No, this little incident didn't involve anyone falling off the lift, nor did it involve anything sexual. I was with my family, after all. However, it did involve my little brother. And a bet. And my dad eventually stepping in to our little disagreement, causing the Great Demise of Maxine's Tongue.

It all started when my brother and I got into a debate on whether or not tongues actually stick to cold metal poles. He said they would, and I said they wouldn't. I knew it was just an old wives tale passed on from generation to generation, but not factual at all. Right?

We decided to test out our conflicting theories. It wasn't that cold out...maybe about 35 degrees F. I pressed my tongue to the side of the chairlift. Nothing. I left it there for a few minutes. I even wiggled it around. Still nothing. It didn't even stick to the pole for a mere second. Triumphant, I exited the chairlift, once again beating my little brother in a meaningless squabble. Little did I know that the only reason it didn't stick then was that the temperature was above freezing. This incident would come back to haunt me.

The next day, we were riding up the same chairlift when my brother raised the tongue/pole issue again. My dad clarified our question by saying, "Oh, your tongue won't get stuck!" Of course, I believed him. Ugh. Bad move, Maxi, bad move.

Oblivious to me, they were both retaining extreme amounts of laughter as I pressed my tongue to the pole. It was an ominous sign of the danger to come. Instantly, my tongue stuck, numbing it. I tried to pull it off. It wouldn't budge. We were nearing the top of the mountain. Aaah! I began to worry. I couldn't ride back down the chairlift with my tongue still stuck. I felt like the little foolish schoolboy that is the butt of all his town's jokes in one of those Laura Ingles Wilder books. I started screaming.

"Daaaeey! Daad! Hewp! Mah tung ith sthuk to da pole! HEWP!"
He cracked up.
Way to go, family.
Such a huge help in my time of need.

I had to get the job done myself. But how? I took my still-gloved hand, raised it to the pole, and drew in a deep breath. I knew what I had to do. I ripped the tongue off and shook my head side to side to free it. Ah. Safe at last.

Unfortunately, my tongue freedom came at a price. Some tongue stayed frozen to the bar. My tongue bled for the next 4 runs and was sensitive to everything I ate that day. (Especially mustard. Don't ask.) Plus, it hurt. Badly. Very badly. It was still sore all throughout my New Years Eve celebration and still feels a little hurt today. Poor tongue.

So, if you were at Hunter yesterday and saw a girl in a lime green coat all over the place down the hill spitting red blood, sorry.
And, if you rode on chair 1 on the Hunter Quad and saw a mysterious white blob stuck to the pole, I am extremely sorry.