Afghans Aren't Really Very Comfortable. We Just Wish They Were.

Neither are wool sweaters. They're very scratchy. They're also inconvenient because if you get too hot, you have to take them off, which involves lifting them over your head and dealing with static cling, the single dumbest thing physics ever invented (at least as it applies to sweaters and things that are made of wool).

We just like things that are old-timey and quaint even if they're kind of strange. Like marmalade, which tastes like a Yankee Candle. Bonfires, which sting your eyes and make you smell like bologna. Blue cheese, which is not only redundant because it's rotten milk that's even more rotten but really not that tasty until you eat it enough times to convince yourself that you like it. That seems to me more like submission to societal pressure (because it's in EVERYTHING on the menu at Red Robin) than a genuine preference.

I'm assuming this instinct serves a higher purpose, perhaps preventing us from just shoveling donuts, ice-cream and french fries into our faces without remorse. It may even apply to exercising and not just wearing sweat pants all the time but I'm not really sure. All I know is that we like to create tiny little hurdles for ourselves every single day in the funniest ways and we usually do it with stuff. And booze. And hot sauce.

I'm sitting here on my laptop all wrapped up in the afghan that my Great Grandpa made for me and just the sheer impressiveness of it's existence, the fact that someone made something so pretty at the age of ninety with his bare hands makes it comfortable, even though it's not. Maybe that's the reason we like weird things; we're impressed that they can be fun even though they're a bit of a pain in the ass. Or maybe it's because we feel as though these things are challenging us to like them and by rising to that challenge, we're proving that we're tough and kind of classy. It just cracks me up that the same basic function that motivates me to want to eat truffled mac n' cheese and strawberry rhubarb pie is what, when pushed to it's darker extreme, also motivates people to binge on crystal meth. And finally, when pushed to the loftiest peak of ridiculousness, forces a person to drink another person's pee.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I'm really glad that I don't want to drink another person's pee, or even my pee. Itchy old afghans and root beer candy totally do the trick for me.