the downward spiral

http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/defunlaw.htm

“Story affirmed the right of self-defense by persons held illegally. In his own writings, he had admitted that ‘a situation could arise in which the checks-and-balances principle ceased to work and the various branches of government concurred in a gross usurpation.’ There would be no usual remedy by changing the law or passing an amendment to the Constitution, should the oppressed party be a minority.

“Story concluded, ‘If there be any remedy at all … it is a remedy never provided for by human institutions.’ That was the ‘ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.’” (From Mutiny on the Amistad by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press, 1987, an account of the reading of the decision in the case by Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court.)”

“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).

so this guy in a fancy denim cowboy shirt (a jirt, if you will) came in during our dinner rush and ordered two burritos. the girl (T) doing the hot station (beans and rice and meat) was like "okie dokie, what do you want on them?"

this guy goes "I want Everything on the burritos, except the corn, jalapeños, and cheese."

T pauses to check

"You want Everything?"

"Yes, all the meats, and then all the vegetables."

"So you want... the steak, and the chicken, and the white meat chicken, and the ground beef, and the pulled pork, and the tofu?"

"What's tofu?"

"A soybean protein, comes in spongy blocks."

"You had me at protein, put it on!"

T turns to me. "Can we... can we do that?"

I slap on my manager tone of voice. "Sir, each extra scoop is going to be about $2.09-2.59 each, is that okay?"

he reassures us that is fine. I okay the Frankenburrito

T starts making his burritos. with each extra scoop the mound of food gets larger and larger. she is sweating bullets by the time she slides the first burrito to the cold table

so tonight was the first night J the new boy had been working cold. he has zero experience rolling burritos previous to the last two hours

he looks at this thing and goes "Do i.... have to?" o_o

absolutely not

I step up to the table and start piling on lettuce and cheese and pico de gallo and guac and onions and cucumbers and olives and cilantro

when I am done I look down at this thing, I look up at this man, and i sigh

Sir, I don't mean to question your life choices, but can I put this in a bowl? there is no way I can roll this.

"No it's fine," he insists. "Just use another tortilla to like, extend them out, and then roll it up."

....

Sir.

"You can do this, it'll be fine!"

so i get another 12" tortilla

like kinda overlap them?

and then sorta?? roll one into the other so it is a literal Tube of Meat

the ends did not fold in there was no Containing this thing

I grabbed another foil wrapper so I could roll this thing into two of them and kinda smash the ends in

I squinted at the customer

"It's great, it's fine!" he says, cheerfully

T hands me the Second Burrito

I do it ALL OVER AGAIN

and then take these two giant lumps to the cashier

the cashier, A, is looking over in horror

"[Kiry], how do I even ring those up???"

it's okay, I've got this

the man requests no chips, so I pack each burrito (which for some scale is about the size of a small puppy each) sideways in a paper bag and put them in a plastic bag for carry out

I ring him up, adding scoop after scoop

$47.20 y'all, for two burritos

A is about to die

"$47.20????"

"that is what you get when you get fuckin Noah's Ark over here!!" I say

I may have been having a stroke by that point

the man laughs and hands over his card np

"Are you okay?" he asks me

I am terrific

"Are you mad at me?"

Sir, this is the most delighted I have been in days. I am going to go on the internet and tell Everyone I Know this story

he is ecstatic. he takes his burritos, wishes us a great night, and leaves

There’s an experiment called “The Ultimatum Game”. It goes something like this.

Subject A is given an amount of money (Say, $100).

Subject A must offer Subject B some percentage of that money.

If Subject B accepts Subject A’s offer, both get the agreed upon amount of money. If Subject B refuses, no one gets any money.

The most common result was believed to be that people favored 50/50 splits. Anything too low was rejected; people wanted fairness. This was believed to be universal.

And then a researcher went to Peru to do the experiment with members of the indigenous Machiguenga population, and was baffled to find that the results were totally different.

Because, to the Machiguenga, refusing any amount of free money (even an unfair amount) was considered crazy.

So the researcher took his work on the road (to 14 other ‘small scale’ societies and tribes) , and to his shock found the results varied wildly depending on where the test was done. 

In fact, the “universal” result? Was an outlier. 

And that’s the problem. 96% percent of test subjects for psychological research come from 12% of the population. Stuff that we consider to be universal facts of human nature… even things like optical illusions, just… aren’t.

“mind your own business,” it becomes my business if it’s possibly harmful to me or the people around me

Yes, some people have pre-existing conditions that can make wearing masks difficult, the solution is going out in public as little as possible or finding alternative face coverings. (I’m sure there’s more safe solutions out there that other people have figured out)

I have no solutions for an alternative face covering that would work for someone w/copd, but someone with copd probably wouldn’t want to be in public rn b/c they’re very high risk?!? (Please someone correct me if I’m wrong on any of this I do not have copd)

Also asthmatics and other high risk people should wear masks to protect ourselves if we can? Having a few asthma attacks or panic attacks is so much better than me or someone else dying from covid19.

for people with actual breathing conditions (such as copd or severe asthma), or anyone else who doesn’t want to wear a mask, face shields exist and are extremely cheap (you can get a 6-pack for 5 bucks):

salmon sharks are small adorable relatives of the great white!

they do occasionally beach themselves, at which point they almost always get mistaken as “baby great whites” so if you see a clickbaity news article that goes LOCAL COUPLE RESCUES BABY GREAT WHITE FROM SANDBAR, chances are it was actually a salmon shark!

they can’t help it, they’re just babey.

The wild yeast found in flour and in the air of your home can be cultivated by just.... leaving wet flour paste and a sprinkle of sugar out as free real estate.

Yeast moves in, you feed it a bit more every day, and that’s a bread starter!

Mine is about two months old and going strong. Some bakeries pride themselves in having bread starters over a century old. The wild yeast gives bread a complexity and depth of flavor that gives sourdough it’s iconic flavor.

—-

When the yeast is hungry it starts to smell like wine or acetone.

When it’s eating well and happy, it smells like vinegar and fresh bread.

Keeping it cold slows its metabolism, so you can put it in the fridge if you don’t make bread every day.

In the fridge you only have to feed it every 2 days or so. Left out at room temperature, you have to feed, and take a piece off for baking every day.

Yeast is killed at temps over 85 degrees Fahrenheit, but it can withstand short periods of being frozen, so the cold fridge is fine.

As long as you have flour on-hand, it’s basically infinite ready-to-bake bread.

——

So far I’ve used my bread starter, mixed it with flour and water, and made:

Dumplings (rolled dough flat and stuffed with minced veggies)

Bread loaves (duh)

Fried dough balls

Elephant ears (that cinnamon-sugar ❤️)

Pizza crust

1. Robin Williams making off-the-cuff jokes that are definitely not Sesame Street appropriate.

2. The slow zoom in on Elmo’s face at the end.