Tag Archives: myfamilyname

the annual game

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every year (ish) my brothers and i play a game of monopoly; usually, we play during the winter holidays, but last year we didn’t get around to it until january 15 of this year. so this is technically the 2011 game, but since that might confuse people, we decided to call it the 2012 game.

the game is simple: it’s regular monopoly, with $500 in the middle on free parking. as to wheeling-and-dealing property exchanges: any deal that you can convince someone to agree to, goes. really. the only other stipulation is that you can’t conduct deals on your turn—nothing should disrupt the rhythm of play, insofar as that’s possible.

it tends to be a fast-paced, sometimes brutal shin-dig, requiring a whiteboard to keep track of all the deals made. this year was a lot of fun; actually, we agreed that it was one of the better games we’ve had, because one of my brothers had only one piece of property left (waterworks, of all things), but he managed to keep rolling three doubles and landing himself in jail, then landing on free parking on his way out of jail, and then back into jail—before he ever had to pay rent. he didn’t win the whole game, but he outlasted half of us!

some of you have seen this video already (it’s on my facebook), but here ’tis anyway.

how i (almost) (sorta) invented the pringles can (kinda)

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When I was 12 years old, I invented the mini Pringles can. No lie. Aside from some theatrical embellishments, this is A True Story.

In seventh grade, I had to write a business letter to a company as a homework assignment. I could write to any company, and the letter could be for a variety of reasons: to complain, to show thanks, to offer a suggestion, etc. We had a list of guidelines for business letters in our language arts textbook: headings, salutations, date, body, closing, and so on. The exercise was to teach the techniques of proper correspondence.

I was watching TV one afternoon before the business letter was due, and a commercial for Pringles–the chips–came on. As you know, Pringles are sold in tubular canisters that are about a foot long; the commercial was hailing the genius of such packing. Pringles, according to this commercial, did not get smashed up in the bag like other chips. You didn’t get your hands greasy reaching into the bag for them. And the kids on the playground were more likely to talk to you if you had Pringles than if you had another kind of chips.

Being the star skeptic that I already was, I easily dismissed the second two claims of the commercial. It didn’t take a feat of rocket science to reach in a bag of chips without getting your hands covered in grease, and kids on the playground were unlikely to care what chips you had. But the first claim bothered me. Pringles was clearly targeting school kids in this commercial–none of the adults I knew sought validation from kids on playgrounds–and in that case, the commercial had one enormous flaw in its logic.

The brilliance of the idea struck me then–star-spangled and sparkly, like all brilliant ideas are. I grabbed some paper and began jotting down my idea. In proper business-letter form (but I’ll spare you that).

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing regarding your recent commercial on T.V. about Pringles. The commercial says that Pringles will not crumble like other chips because they come in a can and not in a bag. I think this is very true, except it does not make sense for school children. We carry lunch boxes or lunch bags, and the Pringles can will not fit in a lunch box or bag, so we have to put the Pringles in a baggie. I would like to suggest the idea of making a Pringles can that could fit inside lunch boxes and bags so that the chips would not crumble.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours truly,

Nicole [Myfamilyname]

I looked over the letter with approval.

“Nicole,” my mom called from the dining room. “Don’t you need to finish your homework?”

“All done,” I asserted triumphantly. There is no triumph quite like that of a perfectly timed honest answer.

I showed her the letter, asked for a stamp, addressed the envelope, and put the whole thing in my Lisa Franks Trapper Keeper. The next day I turned the assignment in; it was mailed it (with aplomb, I hope), and I promptly forgot all about it.

Several weeks later, my mother handed me a letter from Proctor & Gamble. It was a kindly-written response to my brilliant idea, asserting that my idea may indeed be something they were interested in, and it included a patent form.

“You’ll be rich!” my brother cried.

I looked over the patent form. It was a seventh-grader’s nightmare: form-field after form-field, question after question. Words that I didn’t understand swirled around lines that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. I wasn’t so much intimidated as perplexed. All of this just for smaller Pringles cans? Surely it was disproportionate. (My deep-seated distrust of bureaucracy may or may not have begun at that moment.) I tucked Proctor & Gamble’s letter back into the envelope.

“It’s okay,” I told my brother with a peaceful shrug. “They can have my idea for free. I’m not going to fill out the patent form.”

“WHAT?!” he cried, wide-eyed in dismay. “You could be a millionaire.”

“I don’t think they pay you that much,” I said doubtfully.

“I bet they’d give you,” he paused for dramatic effect, “Five Hundred Dollars.” Enough to live on forever.

“It’s okay. This is for the greater good,” I said, humbled and inspired by my own noblesse oblige. Doubtless, I would now have to work for a living, but there are some things that must be sacrificed for the sake of humanity.

A few years later, I came home from school and was greeted by my hyperventilating younger brothers:

“They did it! They made it! We saw it today!”

“What are you talking about?” I scowled and threw my backpack on the sofa, brushing past them irritably. Hell hath no fury like a teenage girl.

But no one cares less about that than younger siblings.

“The little Pringles cans! They made them! We saw them!”

“Wait, really?” I shrieked in delight, hell’s fury forgotten. “Today? Where?”

One of my brothers ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the can he had bought to show me–and there it was: a short Pringles tube. The perfect size for lunch boxes.

The solution to all our problems.

We all gazed at it in awe for several minutes.

“I can’t believe you didn’t fill out that patent form,” one of the wise men rebuked.

“You would have been famous,” the second one sighed.

“And rich,” the third added. They lowered their heads respectfully. My future as an millionaire faded before my eyes.

full-contact sports

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have i told you that i play piano? well, that’s probably because i don’t. not technically. but i used to. oh, boy, did i.

i began piano lessons when i was 6, but i didn’t actually touch a piano for 6 months. that’s because right around the time i decided to grow up and be a concert pianist, my parents decided to move to taipei. as in taiwan. and of course, you can’t take a piano as your carry-on on international flights, so we went without one.

for 6 months i did theory workbooks. i am pretty sure that every kind of busy work you have ever done pales blanches in comparison to doing piano workbook exercises when you’ve never touched a piano.

anyway, we moved back to america and got a piano, and then i found out that i didn’t actually want to play piano. as it turns out, playing piano requires practice. and as a general rule, i do not like practice. i especially do not like practice that requires sitting still for more than about 20 seconds. piano practice is like that. or at least i think it’s supposed to be.

i somehow made it through my first year of piano lessons (i eventually survived 5 of them), and at the end of the year, it was time for the recital. i was going to play a piece called “clouds.” apparently, it was called that because it sounded like clouds would sound if clouds sounded like anything. i was utterly mystified by this idea — the way music claimed to know what silent items would sound like (clouds, chopsticks, little brown jugs, fur for a girl named elise, and so on). how did they know? it was one of those things that, the more i thought about it, the more confused i became. fortunately, i was 7 and so i had other things on my mind.

like patent leather shoes. oh yeah. i totally got patent leather shoes for my recital. and a light blue dress. (like a cloud. in case no one knew what clouds were supposed to sound like, they could at least guess from my little dress what was going on. ahh, the things that make sense when you are 7.)

my turn at the recital finally came. i sat down at the piano, positioned the seat as i had been instructed to do, and rested my hands on the piano. “imagine there is a bubble under your hand,” my teacher would always say, “and you cannot let the bubble burst.” i kept my hands neatly curved, determined that the little bubble would not die on my watch.

i began to play. i was focused intensely – on saving the bubble, on playing the right notes, on pressing my new patent leather shoes against the pedal at the right moments, on not thinking about the A HUNDRED people watching me, on saving the bubble, on playing the right notes, on pressing the pedal, on saving the bubble, on –

CRACK!

with a mighty smack, my forehead hit the top of the piano.

picture the scene in full technicolor: i was totally engrossed in the music, swaying gently as i played, and then BAM! my head slams into the piano. 

i looked up and around, stunned. in my intent focus, i had gotten carried away, leaned too far in and over, and hit my head.

when you see the videotape (because, oh, yes, of course there’s footage), it looks so serene. i’m there playing, the perfect picture of innocence, and then WHACK! and i’m dazed and confused, and the cameraman is laughing too hard to keep the camera straight.

so, yeah, that might be why i haven’t mentioned that i used to play piano. i don’t actually play anymore. maybe one day if they start requiring helmets.

prima donna

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i consider myself an efficiency aficionado, eager to keep the wheels of everyday life running as smoothly as possible, slick with the sweet oil of mastermind management. i’m sure you can relate. it’s a truly noble line of obsession, but — like all true artists – i find often my noble intentions misunderstood.

for instance, let’s say i am sitting on the couch in my living room, relaxing and enjoying the seamless spinning of the earth on its axis, and suddenly realize i am hungry. now granted, an instinctive reaction would be to rise, go to the fridge, get some food and eat. but, efficiency aficionado that i am, i quickly survey the room for a more direct way of getting the desired results.

i notice the second of my three brothers standing right next to the fridge. in the true spirit of energy conservation, i would then ask my brother to please (efficiency bows to the need of common courtesy) hand me some yogurt.

the second of my three brothers is a true genius, but his passions do not lie in efficiency (as we will soon see). “I am not your slave,” he would say — completely misunderstanding the integrity of my small (miniscule, really) request. “you can’t always ask people to do things for you. you have to learn to do things for yourself.”

this is a chink in the plan, but as previously mentioned on this blog, i keep three brothers on hand, and for this very kind of situation. there is no end to need for a good back up.

i would then turn to the other side of the room (granted, it’s not as efficient, but…) “dearest youngest brother, will you grab me some yogurt? please?”

youngest siblings are a true blessing to the world of convenience and productivity.

the noble second of my three brothers, still unappreciative of my energy conservation tactics, will then approach me with his special brand of genius. “the problem is that you don’t pitch it right,” he will say. “you have to make the buyer WANT the goods.”

he is a master salesman, and  i, eager to learn new ways and methods in this life, take his advice with humilty. he offers a few suggestions and i listen attentively.

“second brother of mine,” i will say, mimicking him, giving my best tv salesman voice, “i have  a once-in-a-lifetime chance for you! it’s going quick, but there’s still time to act. just bring a spoon to this living room and you too can experience the joy of helping me out!” the youngest brother only brought me yogurt. no spoon. “but wait, there’s more! act in the next 2 seconds and you can also have the chance to bring me a napkin as well!”

the pitch works, if only for its comic value: i get my napkin and spoon and eat my yogurt.

the trouble is, it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime deal. he won’t fall for it again. the youngest will turn to his own (deviant) brand of efficiency expertise himself (sly lil guy), considering how much energy the second brother is saving and he won’t bend again either. and its really no use to ask the first of my brothers. he has steeled himself against the greater good of my energy conservation strategies.

it is a pity, to be sure, but i, selfless efficiency aficionado that i am, will continue tirelessly in my efforts to streamline the ordinary world around me.

backhanded and roundabout

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somehow a discussion about who was taller and shorter in our family (pursuant to dre day’s comment on my recent post) got tangled up with some good-natured banter about which of us was cuter. and i have now been (magnanimously, of course) informed by the first of my brothers that i am “tall as a button.”

did i mention that sometimes being the firstborn has a certain price attached? yes. well, we take what we can from the ankle-biters.

company or a crowd?

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in the course of small-talking this weekend, someone asked me how many brothers i have, and i said “three.” and then i said, “they just keep on coming.”

which might have seemed like a cryptic remark (i’m not actually sure why i said it — it was one of those things you hear yourself say but did not know you were thinking), but it was reminiscent of my initial reaction to the birth of my third brother: bafflement, perplexion, confusion, bewilderment, etc.

when my parents told me that the baby was a boy, my exact words (as i remember it) were “are you sure?” another boy? really? why? we already had two.

but of course, they were sure. in an annoying, parental sort of way.

i was not so easily convinced. i distinctly remember the moment: pulling into the garage (we were driving home from school), staring at the ascending garage door, wondering how this had happened. perhaps a mistake had been made — if not by the hospital (and these things happen; i was 7; i had heard of switched-at-birth stories by then), then by God Himself (i hadn’t heard of so many mistakes-by-God stories, but even then i was presumptuous enough to think i was an exception to rules and principles.)

the odds of there being a mistake were slim, i decided after a moment’s consideration, and then sheer confusion set in. i did not understand how this God, if He was everything my parents said He was, could (in good conscience — which God would surely have) give a person three brothers and no sisters.

well, apparently He does. and, of course, because i was 7, in a matter of minutes i decided i liked this baby just fine, and i have not yet had cause to rescind that decision.

still, truth be told, for a few years after that, every time i met another little girl, i mentally calculated her sibling ratio (boys to girls). for years, i was the only girl i knew with three brothers and no sisters. one time, i did meet a girl with four brothers and no sisters, but as that discredited a lot of the research i had done, i quickly dismissed her as an anomaly.

so. the moral of this story is that God is not bound to symmetry. Which may also explain why I am only 5’2″ and my brothers are 5’10″, 6’2″, and 5’11″, respectively.

not tested on animals… tested on siblings

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i had the good sense to be born first among my siblings — a strategic position that, in later years, i suspect they all envied. but having garnered the top spot, i was not to be moved, and i have been the oldest [Myfamilyname] ever since.

it is not a position without its price, of course, and in some later post, perhaps i will regale you with tales of a woebegone princess. still, pricey though it is, being the oldest child is the best route to take, and the perks over the years have been immeasurable.

in one instance, these perks took the form of an opportunity to explore and nurture my scientific side. it all began when the second of my three illustrious brothers was born (and brought home), and after a few months (give or take), it occured to my then-five-year-old mind that babies are not born knowing their own name.

“how will he know his name?” i asked my mother, keeper of essential answers (like where toilet paper goes when you flush it).

i was informed that (and this is, of course, paraphrased) a baby hears his name so many times that he becomes familiar with the sound of his name, and one day he realizes that it is being used to refer to him.

the english language may not hold a word to describe how absolutely fascinated i was by this knowledge. charmed. enthralled. entranced. (roget himself is stumped here.) i gazed, mesmerized, at the innocent little thing in the babyseat: cooing nonchalantly, staring back with those big unsuspecting saucer eyes.

“so, the more you say his name, that’s how he knows it?” i clarified (my grammar has since improved). i felt it important that i be exactly correct here. my mother assented as much.

i stared again at the unsuspecting infant. science requires experimentation — even at my young age, i knew that. i scampered off. experimentation requires A Sidekick.

the lone ranger had tonto, sherlock had watson, don quixote had sancho panza, and i had a (then) three-year-old brother. i found him and brought him to see the baby.

“i have an idea,” i told the three-year-old.

i suppose there are many things that a five-year-old could say that would cause alarm, but as far as things she could say to a compliant, trusting three-year-old brother, “i have an idea” must be among the most ominous.

i explained to the three-year-old the way that babies learn their names: by repetition. the more we call him by his name, the sooner he will know it, i summarized.

uneducated the three-year-old might have been, but stupid he was not. he eyed the innocent bystanding baby with a fascination that mirrored my own. for all practical purposes, this baby was nameless – but only because he had not heard his name uttered enough times.

not yet, anyway.

the plan was simple: we would take turns (me first, of course) sitting in front of the babyseat, repeating the baby’s name, hastening his recognition of it. and, since the baby did not know his real name, we could use any name we wanted… tabula rasa indeed.

we decided on “bulldozer.” we began taking turns repeating the word, confident that the baby would come to think of that as his own name. the plan was fool-proof. it was science. (in our defense, i want to say this: there wasn’t any malice in the plot at all. we were genuinely curious to see if we could teach a baby to recognize his name, and “bulldozer” struck us as a pretty funny name).

fortunately for that innocently bystanding baby, we were 5 and 3 year olds, and had the attention span of… well, 5 and 3 year olds. so though it seemed like we took turns repeating “bulldozer” forever, i suspect we stopped after a few minutes. i’m pretty sure my mom would have noticed after a few minutes anyway and put a stop to it. historically, the domestic sphere has often posed a threat to scientific endeavors. in any case, the baby answers to an entirely different name now.

but sometimes, i still think it would be interesting to creep into his room while he is asleep, or catch him off guard, and whisper “bulldozer” and see what happens.

he’d probably clobber me. in my haste to be born first, i completely overlooked arranging a few other details that would have come in handy over the years — like size.