6 Things In Life That I Have Never Bothered To Google

I am the ultimate abuser of my smartphone. I have the Wikipedia app, and use it so frequently that if people thought I was texting, I’d seem PRETTY popular. If a sense of curiosity hits me, I have a craving compulsion to google the answer, for the sweet feeling of informational satisfaction. Nothing bothers me more than that thought “I KNOW that I KNOW the answer!” (correction: I know that at some point in my life I was told the answer, and now I evidently forget it) But there are some things I’ve always wondered and never googled. And even now, after compiling them, I still haven’t googled them. Sometimes it’s nice to wonder.

1. The Value of Foam Soap

When I was in the sixth grade, my school overhauled the entire bathroom experience. In spite of a dismal budget and increasing tuition, the school allocated time and resources into converting every bathroom soap dispenser to foam soap. While I’m not Bill Nye, I have never fully grasped the scientific benefits of foam soap over the lowly liquid counterpart. Perhaps the joy of the bubbly consistency encourages more frequent handwashing. Maybe the increased soap surface area allows for a more consistent lather. I remember the foam soap revolution well. In every public washroom, we were subjected to the thick, pink, pungent sludge that characterized forgetting to “go before we left” or getting a large soda instead of a small. Then, all at once, the bar was raised. While toilet tissue and paper towel have not yet followed suit and been universally upgraded, I will never quite know what caused the foam soap revolution.

2. Socially Accepted Bedsheet Colours

Like many things regarding private bedroom life (in this case completely nonsexually, relating specifically to the physical room décor of the bedroom, and not what happens when the lights go out, or stay on, if you’re into that), it is difficult to learn the do’s and don’ts. When I moved into my first “real” apartment (a wildly overpriced, bat-infested apartment, with four roommates and a moldy bathroom, but it felt real enough), I went to Sears and sought out sheets. While I have been socialized to understand not to admit to a fart in the elevator, or to always give my seat to the pregnant woman on the bus, I faced the challenge of choosing a bedsheet color. Not only color, but fabric. Is plaid flannel too rural for a downtown apartment? My mother informed me that black is a social “faux pas”, but it seemed so practical in it’s stain absorption.. was this the sort of parental wisdom that’s been debunked in our generation? Meanwhile the gold silk sheets were completely beyond my reasoning capacity. But classic white seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, especially with my tendency to drink tea in bed. The only thing worse than an embarrassing sheet color is a mysterious brown stain in the middle of them.. right? In the end I went with olive green cotton. They were on sale, and olive seems to rebel against any predetermined social norms. But mostly, they were on sale.

3. When, if ever, to sign your name at the end of a facebook message

Facebook is constantly evolving, and so is how we use it. I used to spend hours siphoning through the expansive photo albums of my peers. Albums like “Punta Canada pt 6” was regularly on my Sunday night repertoire. Now the thought of looking through sixty photos of my acquaintance and her boyfriend on the beach seems absurd. One thing that hasn’t changed about facebook, at least not in recent memory, is the message. More specifically, the ambiguous role of the Facebook message. I once was told of a job interview via facebook message. I have been in multiple highly emotional facebook “deep relationship conversations”. I have been invited to a wedding over Facebook message. And through all these incongruous uses of the messaging platform, my question has always been, when do you sign off on a facebook message? I mean, the person can always see your name in the message itself, so no matter what it’s redundant. At the same time, when discussing employment prospects, not signing off with a full name seems a bit unprofessional (well, even MORE unprofessional than discussing job prospects over Facebook). Every time I get a message with a little name thrown in at the bottom, I can’t help but feel it’s a little out of place. But I will always wonder.. is it?

4. The amount of calories in a self-serve frozen yogurt that’s about 4.50$ and not at all made with fruit

Girls love fro-yo. It’s an objective truth about being 21 in 2013. It’s just self-delusional enough for us to justify absurd volumes of it. Soft serve ice cream- no way, that’s so bad for you! Soft serve froyo- well, it is YOGURT after all! I’m sure there are probiotics in it! Besides, there are fruit OPTIONS as toppings, and everyone knows that fruit is healthy. By going to menchie’s I’m pretty much going for a jog. The thing is, I have absolutely no idea how bad for me froyo actually is. And in this case, I don’t want to know. I strictly abide by the “treat yo-self” lifestyle, and if I have to lie to myself to enjoy the occasional mountain of frozen yogurt, I’m willing to accept that deception.

5. Where baby corn comes from

I always love the baby corn portion of any stir fry. Something about the way it makes me feel like a giant is oddly amusing. Plus, eating an entire cob is living the dream. Gnawing around an entire corn husk, while delicious, is dismally ungraceful. It’s hard to feel like a lady when your makeup is smearing off thanks to corn juice and butter, and your teeth are wedged with corn kernel residue. I have never known where those majestic little corns come from. I used to like to think they are from mini corn fields, manned by the tiniest of farmers, with corn mazes for hamsters. I find this unlikely, but I don’t have the heart to google it, and kill off that childhood image of a baby corn utopia. So I savor both the little cobs in my teriyaki stir fry and the lingering morsel of my childhood in where those cobs originated.

6. How to dougie

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZglqkCRNt8&w=584&h=390]

This is my own fault. I just assumed I’d meet that special someone someday, and they’d teach me how to dougie. But it’s time I take my fate into my own hands. A strong independent woman doesn’t need to be taught how to dougie. She dougies on her own.