What's Feeding You?

It’s important that we watch and see things in life that will impact our spirit on an elevated level. It’s true that what you see and listen to impact our psyche. But we all have our guilty pleasures right? Don’t judge me, I watch a few of The Real Housewives branches and laugh at the buffoonery of these women and men doing obscene things and acting ridiculous. Yes, I can do better by not watching it and there’s no “ifs, ands, or buts” about it- no excuses, just facts. I also read a really good (to me) book every two weeks, watch documentaries, comedies, news, etc. (ya’ll don’t need to know my TV history list, but you get it). It’s a balance that I’m working on.

The reason I'm bringing up this topic of visual and audible stimulation is, the other day I was on the subway (in NYC) around 8:30 am. It was crowded as per usual at that time, but not overly so. Across from me sat a man with a large baby stroller- which held an infant girl inside, a woman (I’ll call her woman #1) and an appx. 7 year old boy were next to him. They seemed to be an average family going about their day. The subway decided to go “morning express”- meaning it skips 8 stops in between the next major one. I personally loved this and did a little shimmy in my seat, but the family across from me were unprepared for the switch up. They rushed off the train not looking or excusing themselves to any one in their path from the seat to the door. Another woman (I’ll call her woman # 2) who was standing by the door, was almost knocked to her feet- thankfully someone caught her before that happened. I found out later that she had the volume in her headphones turned up loud and didn’t hear anything. Unfortunately the train was being held at the station for a few moments, and the doors were still open. Woman #2 decided to scream and curse loudly at the couple, who were now on the platform getting themselves together. Woman #1 shouted back and they had a huge shouting match (basic angry playground language), until the man from the couple stepped in. He got in woman #2’s face and threatened to beat her down; drag her out of the subway and screamed racial slurs at her. Woman #2 screamed back to him that she would get her brothers to fight him; how dare he threaten her; he’s disgusting; etc., etc. By this time, an older gentleman stepped in front of woman #2 to protect her, because the other man was really close to her face. Mind you woman #1 wasn’t trying to calm the situation down. She was letting the cookies crumble where they may. And boy did those cookies crumble. Their shouting match further escalated to the point that when the older gentleman was trying to move woman #2 further into the train so that she would be safe, the man SPIT on woman #2…yes ladies and gents…SPIT. The older gentleman turns and tells the man about himself and how disrespectful the whole display between them was. He also let him know that he should be ashamed to even get so worked up that his ego had to show off in that way in front of his woman and his young children. The older gentleman turned to woman #2 and told her about her actions as well, and how horrible her words were to woman #1 and the man. Woman #1 finally stepped up and took the man’s arm and told him “let’s just go”, as if a lightbulb in her head went off that their conduct was disgusting. During this entire display of anger and misplaced energy, the infant girl was screaming her head off and the 7 year old boy was staring dumbfounded at his parents and woman #2. By God’s grace the subway doors closed moments after the older gentleman was speaking to woman #2. The ride then went on as if the past 8 minutes never happened, but what I saw stayed with me for most of that day. I couldn’t shake how something that could have been easily resolved by saying “excuse me, I’m sorry.” from woman #1 to woman #2, intensified into a screaming battle from all three people and a gross saliva throw onto woman #2. I tried to put myself in that little 7 year old boy’s place, seeing his parents act so audaciously and disgusting, hearing the words that were said from all parties. These are the things that are shaping his mind. They were showing him an example of how they feel is a proper reaction to this sort of situation. I then thought of what else this little boy has seen and heard from his parents and the adults they surround themselves with. He will forever be impacted by that moment and obviously I don’t know for sure, but I bet he did not bring it up and ask questions about it after.

I’m not here to pass judgment on any one, but I am here to urge us all to do and be better than we were yesterday. You are what you eat and you also are what you watch and listen to. With that said I’d like to ask what have you seen and heard that has impacted you both in either a good and bad way? Who are you surrounded by? What are you turning your screens on to? What’s in your coming up and recently played list on your streaming services (Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, Hulu, Apple TV, Amazon, etc.)? I’d love to know and if there’s anything that makes you uncomfortable to share, I’d be interested to know why.

We’re surrounded by visual and audible stimuli, how is that feeding our minds?

A Cheesy Fate

I was told a story a few weeks back about the lengths a girl went to catch a mouse in her apartment. Her roommate had called to let her know that she saw one in their kitchen. After she got off the phone she completely panicked. Immediately, she went online to search for an exterminator and found one that would come the next day. When the exterminator arrived they asked if it was a definite that the mouse would be caught, of course, he could not be certain, but he assured them that he put down the best mouse traps he had. Now I don’t know if the mouse was ever caught, but I do know they paid way too much for someone to come and put down the generic sticky mouse traps you can find in the dollar store. For all that they went through I hope it was caught. 

After hearing her story, I laughed to myself and said I know of a good method they could try themselves if this happens again. I told her mice don’t only like pieces of cheese, peanut butter or whatever else exterminators or stores put on the the traps- they also like Doritos. Not all Doritos, but the nacho cheese ones. How do I know this? Well one day Orande had a $.25 bag on the table, walked away for a few leaving the bag in plain sight and when he came back into the room it was ripped open. The little shit ate his Doritos! So he came up with an idea of how to catch him, he put what was left of that tiny bag of chips onto little traps in certain corners of our apartment to catch him. I thought this was hilarious, but also genius. That little mouse is clever and it taunted me often by only appearing when I was in the house by myself- he had an agenda. But we don’t keep snacks in the house (outside of almonds and fruit) or leave food out, so the one time that bag of Doritos was there, he jumped at the prime snacking opportunity. Little did he know that his greed was going to be his demise. Not long after those chips were laid on the traps, I had went to get something out of a room and heard a squeaking noise but didn’t know what it was. I lifted up a bag full of hats and behind it in the crevice was that tiny mouse stuck on the trap and the Dorito chip was gone- meaning his ass thought he was getting a mid-day snack when he was actually meeting his doom. I screamed and ran into another room, told Orande who went and scooped up the mouse in a bag and got rid of it. 

Moral of the story is, if you ever have a mouse in your house, don’t spend a lot of money on an exterminator or fancy traps- go to the store, get a bag of nacho Doritos (they might be uppity, so stick to the name brand), place it on a cheap sticky trap, and be patient until it decides to go for a cheesy snack. Now what you choose to do with it after, whether let it go outside or the other unfortunate fate is your choice, no judgement here. We also live in NYC, and with old buildings built on older foundations or even new buildings built on old foundations, it happens sporadically. But remember: they are smart, but you hold all the chips (pun intended).

This didn’t even work on Jerry in the cartoons, you really think this is going to work on a city mouse? Get clever.