#nothing normal ever

Hear me out.

Yesterday, while my wife of 17 (almost 18) years and I were running errands and vibing in silence, I turned to her and asked a question I thought was perfectly reasonable given she had been working on her PhD in Antropology.

"Do you think Mexican Luchador wrestlers would have done crazy numbers in per-unification bronze age Upper Egypt?"

Keep in mind before then we'd been quiet for a few minutes in the car and were heading to Home Depot to pick up moving boxes so the last thing we'd said was about bubble wrap.

She was silent for a moment, I thought she was going over the interesting question and implications that brings up. Instead she just said "Where in the FUCK did that come from?"

So I explained the ADHD thought train. I had been thinking of 16th Century Italian Comedia dell Arte (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commedia_dell%27arte) like one does, and how it's completely forward compatible- it just works and a lot of our comedy is still based on those tropes. It was absolutely backwards compatible too- the character tropes that we had even in Greek and Roman comedy (the greedy, scheming gossiping slave became the shifty servant, the young lovers more into being loved than paying any attention to what the other one is actually like and fumbling while other people tried to help them get together/keep those idiots apart, etc) so you could have absolutely made Comedia Dell Arte work in any time frame. Also it traveled as far as Moscow in it's time, transcending cultural differences even in the 16th-18th centuries. Comedia dell Arte transcends cultures- just like Mr. Bean (not a huge fan but respect for the work) is the most popular in terms of $$$ comedian worldwide because you don't need words to get the jokes from his fascinating facial expressions. It goes beyond language and touches the heart of the human experience.

I mean... who hasn't felt that exact way at some point?

So, what other forms of entertainment are universal or near universal? That transcends cultures, language and time?

US style Pro wrestling would have been a huge hit in certain eras but I don't think it's truly universal. It's part Comedia dell Arte (you have the heel, the face, lots of drama, grown men in skimpy clothing, etc) and in a lot of ways I think of it as "aggressively heterosexual drag without lip syncing while also being deeply, unintentionally homoerotic" . It would, indeed, slap in, say, the coliseums in Rome, but what about Mexican Luchador wrestling? It's got a lot more emphasis on social justice than WWF wrestling. A lot more commentary about the world and what's wrong with it, and gives a lot more voice to the oppressed who are angry about the way the world is and would sure like to punch a physical representation of that nonsense.

So I'm not sure it would slap as hard in super stable long term societies like the stable periods during, say, Egyptian Unification or Indian Maurya Empire or Gupta Empires, because a big part of why those cultures were so stable long term was the whole philosophy that your role in life was mostly cast by fate/karma. That leads to very stable but stagnant cultures in terms of social mobility, would that make Bronze Age Luchadors more or less culturally relevant? I mean there WERE tomb paintings of wrestling, they had it as a sport but not as a sport/theatrical performance/comedy/social commentary.

My wife laughed her ass off and said that's why she loves, me she never gets bored of how my brain works.

You could totally move Luchador wrestling into post-revolution France. If you could have gotten a drag queen style, huge foam powdered wig and a fancy glittered cape on a luchador he'd be a phenomenal heel. Robespierre and friends sitting in a private box so that people wouldn't see they was enjoying such uncouth entertainment as someone with the drag/wrestler name of Nobless Obli Cheese gets the People's Elbow to the gut would totally work.

We agreed that Shakespeare would have LOVED THAT SHIT. He'd have two Luchadors run off stage being pursued by a polar bear, no question in my mind at all. My Dad was a Shakespearean scholar and I wish I could have talked to him about that because he was a big believer in the universality of Shakespeare's work- you can turn them into westerns, samurai movies, all kinds of things.

So my wife, one of my best friends, and several important people in my life are all Jewish. I am not, as I am a happy polytheistic heathen and a dirt worshiping pagan, but I enjoy Latkes and the unbroken history and mythology, which my faith lacks.

However, I get informed that I'm jewish startlingly often. Which... ?

First, I am a nearly six foot tall Irish/Mexican woman with a tiny button nose, my hair is stick straight and fine, and I look like the opposite of the Jewish Steriotypes. Like... other than being pale, no. So I don't look Jewish at all yet I am semi regularly infomred I am a Jewish lady.

This confuses me.

So when I was living in Elgin, Texas I went to get food from the local grocery store. The woman in front of me was obviously having a party (her cart had baloons, cake, burgers, soda, etc) and I asked what she was celebrating, because chatting with your neighbors in rural areas Is Important. If you do not do it, you're a Rude Yankee which is bad.

Turns out her son had just become a pastor at his church. I congradulated her, she was obviously proud, and then the conversation took a turn I was not expecting.

"You can come to the party, too! Jews are allowed in the Kingdom of Heaven!"

I was confused. "Well, thank you but I have family plans tonight and I'm not... Jewish? At all?"

Then this woman proceeded to argue with me about my Jewishness and got more and more agressive telling me I was, in fact, VERY Jewish. Until she was yelling at me about how it was OK to be a jew and I shouldn't be ashamed of my relationship with God even though she could tell me all about Jesus and help me find Christ.

Folks, she thought my pentagram was a star of David.

I'm an adventurous eater, always have been. I misunderstood my Mom when I asked what capers were at 7 and thought I was eating picked bugs for years (no, buds, like flower buds). I was given a cat food sandwich and didn't complain at 4, and since I can't afford to travel I get a lot of pleasure out of eating and learning to cook foods from other cultures.

So when I was 17 we moved from Colorado to North Carolina, and I went to a grubby little little waffle house in like, Fuquay Varina or Smithfield or some tiny town like that, and I decided to try the Grits, having only heard about Grits from the movie My Cousin Vinnie (great movie, go watch it if you haven't seen it).

And when I got my bowl I wasn't sure what to do with it... so I smothered it in maple syrup because grits look kind of like oatmeal.

The waitress GASPED and the line cook came out from behind the counter asking me what the hell I was doing. I stuttered a bit before I meekly answered "I... I've never had grits before. My Mom can't cook."

Upon hearing my flatlander accent they accused me of being a Yankee. "No, I'm not a Yankee. I'm from Colorado. I've never even seen grits on a menu before. I just wanted to try them."

A few regulars started gasping in horror when they realized I'd put Maple Syrup On Grits and talking shit to me. The line cook was so offended that I'd been raised deprived of grits he just shook his head and got me another bowl. The waitress wisked away my bowl of shame grits and tsk tsk'ed at me and told me never to do that again.

I got cheese grits with terrible american cheese on them, with salt, and avoided grits for years because I despise american cheese. The first time I had PROPER cheese grits it was a revelation and I had them like three times last week.

Never before or since has anyone at a waffle house ever given half of a homeopathic fuck what I have eaten, but apparently MAPLE SYRUP ON GRITS was enough of an affront to God and Man that the entire diner shamed me for it before pitying my poor, deprived, grit-less childhood.

If you ever read The Game by Neil Stauss, the only celebrity that ended up hanging out with the guys that started the pickup artist thing was Courtney Love. A scene that stuck in my mind in the book was all these guys dressing and acting in carefully scripted ways to sleep with women and there’s Courtney Love ripping open a bag of bread like a raccoon because she couldn’t be bothered opening the end like a normal human, which I loved. The chaos goblin in me sees the Chaos Goblin in you.

Then I remembered the time I went to the grocery store in my PJ’s because I had a hankering for a midnight cupcake but the bakery was closed and my soon to be promoted Autistic Girlfriend (now my wife of 15 years) was with me. The price stickers were under the cupcakes in the cabinet so I just lifted the front like I owned the goddamn bakery section as Wifey was freaking out that we were breaking the rules.

It’s not like I hopped the counter to go the the back to fetch my confectionery.

She looked relived when I pointed that out till she realized I absolutely would have with zero regrets.

And I paid for the cupcake, which helped as Sarah was having a minor stroke that I had broken sacred How To Human In Public Laws and the cupcake gestapo was going to come and punish us as I just walked up to the checkout.

When she realized that I would have left the contents of my pockets if there were no checkout people… she nearly vibrated herself to immolation.

The thing is for a genuine certified chaos muppet like myself we end up completely hyper fixated and ruthless about random shit that doesn’t hurt anyone. I wasn’t trying to make anyones life hard but the point I was going to reach regardless of propriety was I was gonna eat that buttercream cupcake no matter what, and nothing was going to stand in between me and a bunch of carbs and sugar.

NOTHING.

Common sense? Social norms? I follow the rules as long as it’s the most direct line to what I want anyway. It’s far easier to ask the nice lady behind the counter to pass me my prey before I hold it aloft like a sand person honk-shreiking in victory. But if I have to use my Penguin-like body with stumpy legs as a way to scrabble or pole vault into a closed bakery to get my goddamn cupcake you bet your ass that’s exactly what is going to happen.

I have been called out for posting fake stories on the internet for true things that were very minor. Apparently I'm a Chaos Magnet and Weird Shit Just Happens Around Me, leaving everyone else to live a perfectly normal life while I aggro all the strange crap.

It might be part of why I'm considered an agent of chaos muppetry by my friends, because if I am not CAUSING the weird shit to happen, it's gonna happen to me.

Let me tell you about a minor fender bender I got into in Austin, Texas on Rundburg between the highway and Lamar where it gets all twisty, which is honestly some of the shittiest driving in all of Austin, who's entire traffic pattern is deliberately designed to deadlock because racism.

I am driving in my pregnant roller skate of a car, my Honda Fit Kaleigh (she was small, white, and nerdy and I love Firefly), may she rest in piece. A violently purple minivan hits me from behind. The light is long AF and there's no place to pull off anyway, so I get out of my car and inspect the minimal damage. The owner of the other car does not do the Polite Thing and get out, so I'm annoyed. I march over intending to chastize the Purple Minivan Person because it's damn rude not to even check on me, and I discover that the van is full of SEVEN

Extremely Stoned (I grew up in Colorado, I know that's not a skunk)

Completely naked

Blonds (driver male, all others are female)

Between the ages of 19 and 25.

Now this is a bit weird even for me. The poor boy driving who is obviously trying to crouch while sitting so my middle aged dyke eyes don't get offended by his peen, and starts babbling an explination that at first convince me he is the dumbest man on earth, then maybe one of the smartest. So in a minivan with every seat packed with Dumb Blond, Stoner Kid Driver was absolutely lucky or a strategic Machiavellian genius.

There's a nude beach in Austin called Hippy Hollow. This young man had convinced six good looking blonde women to go with him, they swam out in the lake and the boat that had all their clothes and shoes in it (~~mysteriously~~) capsized, floated away, was snatched up by a vulture, whatever. So this poor man had to get six wet, chilly, towel-less women home in his Purple Minivan without having anyone see them or get caught as they were all butt stark ass not a stitch of anything on anywhere, not even a thong or flip flips, NEKKED.

I don't think he interpreted my facial expression correctly because I was not mocking his predicament but going "Why does this shit always happen to ME?" before I told him the damage was minor, I'd buff it out myself, and that he shouldn't be driving stoned.

I was able to get back into my car before the light changed.

My other fender bender in Austin were when a bee flew in my open window (because hot) and managed to fly IN BETWEEN MY GLASSES AND MY EYEBALL and proceeded to GET STUCK IN MY EYELASHES. I then launched myself out of the car, nearly weeping, and flung my glasses off. When I explained to the very concerned person what the hell happened, he told me not to worry because a) the paint was only minorly scuffed and b) he sure as shit would have done the exact same thing.