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| Everyone has some sort of artichoke in their life |
Growing up I was not exposed to a whole lot of the "finer things" in life. I went to school, played some sports and watched a lot of TV. It is a lot like my life now only instead of school I work, instead of sports I sometimes "work out" and instead of the shitty basic channels we used to have I have real cable and a DVR which is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
For most girls (and boys, I'm sure), once you become a teenager you are suddenly hypersensitive to what you have an what you don't have. Aside from extensive knowledge about episodes of the Cosby Show, it turned out I didn't have a whole lot. This only got worse as I got older. One day you are on this level playing field where you have to wear uniforms to school and everyone lives in your hood, then suddenly you are dumped into a wasteland called high school and you realize YOU ARE FUCKED. This isn't fun, games and nap time anymore, this is hormones and opinions. It is like Mean Girls meets Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games. The kids who could no longer take it and start home school symbolize the tributes who get killed.
At first the change comes in small doses, maybe you wear designer clothing, or maybe you have had the same back pack since 8th grade and it is falling apart. Then summer break is over and you realize that while you spent the longest days of the year splitting your time between babysitting your mom's co-workers kids and sitting in front of the swamp cooler that was so conveniently placed two inches above the kitchen floor and mostly blocked by the kitchen table, some of your peers were sunbathing by the pool or taking fun vacations. A few years later when I asked for a car, my parents conveniently gave me the famous "you're on your own with this one" speech. So when the time came, instead of gallivanting around town in a brand new convertible like some of my classmates, I swept hair and disinfected lice combs to save up for a new ride. This didn't matter so much to me once I got my car because even though it was by no means a fancy ride it did give me my first taste of sweet, sweet freedom and it was so good.
As I have come into adulthood I have tried to come up a little in the world by getting myself a decent education and buying a car where the vinyl on the roof doesn't hang down.Sure, I have never been outside of the U.S. and have to nod and smile whenever someone talks about their month long backpacking trip through Europe, pretending that I am in no way super jealous, but in the past few years I went and got me some of that culture learning. As a side note I hope someday to see the Mona Lisa that everyone complains is "so over rated in person" which by the way eff you because you are looking at the work of a master artist, in a world renown museum. Besides, I don't say your family is so over rated when you show me Photoshop'd 8x10's of your wedding day or new baby but, as always, I digress.
The long way around this short story is that sometimes you are put in situations where you have no idea what you are supposed to do, it is completely foreign territory. This may stem from being a "have not"and suddenly finding yourself friends or mates with a "have" or maybe you are dining with people who have different customs, but instead of admitting you have no idea what is going on, you try to play along like you do. A great example of this can be found in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. This is the part of the book when the main character, Esther has dinner with Mrs. Guinea, a wealthy writer and the donor for Esther's scholarship. During dinner, Esther has no idea what to do with the cherry blossom water bowl placed by her plate. Instead of asking what to do with it, she assumes it is some kind of Japanese soup and drinks it. She later realizes that it was for washing your hands and of course is mortified. Yes indeed, we have all been there in one way or another. I call these kinds of mishaps "eating the artichoke."
This pithy phrase was birthed because my Bell Jar moment had to do with, you guessed it, eating artichokes. It happened one faithful day when I went to a friends house for dinner and they served artichokes as an appetizer. Of course I had seen an artichoke before, but had never eaten one. I had no idea what I was doing and panicked. Fear that my friend might be loud or patronizing about it I didn't want to ask so I just waited for everyone to start eating and tried to copy them. Just a few months ago my friend Meg ordered an artichoke and I forced her to show me how you are supposed to eat it. I realize now that at this infamous dinner I was doing it completely wrong, and that I found the experience to be gross because you are not supposed to bite off the entire leaf and eat it, DUH. Still, whenever I see an artichoke I feel as sense of anxiety. It is as though that ugly little vegetable is calling me out as a tourist. Eff you artichoke, I say in my head, I know like, five French words!
All in all, we have all eaten the artichoke in one way or another. At some point you just have to realize that if people look down on you for it, then fuck em,' they are jerks.
