Neil Pasricha's Blog, page 78
October 17, 2022
#613 Your tongue
Babies are funny.
While zooming down the highway with my friend Agostino last week he broke into a story about his one-year-old daughter. Apparently while feeding her a bowl of mushy peas she suddenly started sticking her tongue out, slowly and suspiciously peering down at it, and then wiggling it around.
It was like she suddenly came to the starstruck realization that “I can control this thing!”
And what an amazing day that must be, for you, for me, for anybody. After all, we grow up inside these flabby blobs of flexy muscles, whirring organs, and gurgling body parts, and then discover what everything does along the way.
The mysteries of your tongue are sort of discovered along the way, too. And what beautiful mysteries they are:
1. Tongue got your cat. Yes, the muscles at the back of your tongue help make certain sounds while talking like hard g’s and c’s. Try saying the word “go” or “cat” really slowly and you’ll feel that pink puppy push across the roof of your mouth.
2. Bubble blower. Hey, that wad of chewing gum ain’t gonna balloon into a thin n’ shaky pink bubble on it’s own.
3. Whistle while you work. Think of your mouth like the cold garage where your lips and tongue come together to jam after school. Your lips make a small opening and your tongue gets the bumping grooves going. Also works for singing.
4. Taste the rainbow. When you’re a one-year old baby you’ve got around 10,000 tastebuds covering your tongue and when you’re a wrinkly old fart you’ve got around 5,000. These tiny flavor-detectors are why mushy bananas and macaroni taste so good when you’re a kid and bloody steaks and olives do the job when you’re older. On top of all that, your tongue helps move food to your teeth and then down the gully for digestion. He’s basically the whistle-blowing traffic cop of your body.
5. Clean your fur. If your entire body is covered in fur your tongue helps you clean off instead of taking a bath.
6. French kissing. Apparently swapping spit is a common gesture of affection throughout the animal kingdom with lovers kissing with their tongues in jungles, deserts, and bat caves throughout the world. Evolutionary biologist Thierry Lode even argues that tongue kissing has a real function — to explore a partner’s immune system through their saliva. Yeah, I know: hot.
Once upon a time you discovered your tongue with a profound sense of eye-widening wonder and amazement. Over time you began using its magical powers to try new foods, learn how to speak, sing in the car, or snuggle up with a young love.
So today give three cheers to that fleshy pink slab of greatness sitting inside your hot, disgusting mouth. Use its noble powers today to sit back and scream forward one big booming word with me…
AWESOME!
Photos from: here, here, here, and here
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October 16, 2022
#614 When you tune the radio station perfectly so there’s absolutely no static
I’m a terrible tuner.
Yeah, I’m the guy twiddling clock radio dials before bed every night with scrunched up eyebrows. Usually I end up on a crystal-clear station that I quickly realize isn’t the one I was aiming for or I end up accidentally using my body as an antenna so the sound gets fuzzy the second I move my hand away.
People, if you’re like me, you’d definitely find these moments over on 1000 Annoying Things, that non-existent netherlist we’ve mentioned before that features entries like #992 Someone shaking your hand with freshly wet hands from the bathroom, #991 Bendy straws that crack at the bendy part, or #990 When a chocolate chip in a cookie turns out to be a raisin.
Brother, that’s why nothing’s as nice as landing perfectly on your radio station of choice after twiddling that little orange dial for a few quick moments. When you nail it just right, slowly move your hand away, pause for station identification, and then quickly click the switch over to Alarm, you’re loving it lots.
See, radio waves float and fly through our lives sending highway traffic reports, wacky morning DJs, and bumping bass beats bouncing around the air like magic. It’s up to us to catch them like butterflies with our thin antennas, dusty clock radios, and determined little fingers driven to get that job done.
AWESOME!
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October 13, 2022
#615 When your friend makes sure you got into the house safe after dropping you off at the end of the night
When your friend drops you off after a lazy hazy night it’s always nice when they sit with their engine quietly revving till you get in the door. And when you pop it open make sure to wave back so they can bee-beep or flash their headlights to say goodnight before quietly drifting away down into the dark suburban night.
AWESOME!
Photo from: here
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October 12, 2022
#616 Trying to understand what your friend’s saying when you’re underwater
If you strain your ears and figure it out you’re a master deep-diving codebreaker who speaks the strange and mystical language of Bubbles.
AWESOME!
Photo from: here
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October 11, 2022
#617 When you win a point in tennis with the ball hitting the net and then dying on the other side
I’m terrible at sports.
Yes, when I was a kid I retired from soccer after just one season. In my final game I took a booted ball right to the face which snapped my glasses in two and caused me to crash to the field in a wet, goobery mess. Unfortunately, since we were low on players and couldn’t forfeit the big playoff game, I was forced to hang out on the field, blind and drippy, until the whistle blew.
And it wasn’t just soccer, either. I hung up the cleats after a season of baseball, too. Somehow I managed to bat fourteenth in the lineup and lead my team in hit-by-pitches. This was less because I crowded the plate with gritty teeth and steely determination and more because most twelve-year-olds can’t pitch straight and I have very slow reflexes.
Since I’m so bad at sports, I tend to over celebrate any type of tiny sports victory I can get. I’m not talking about shooting a buzzer-beating three pointer or catching a winning touchdown, either. No, I’m talking about any teeny-weeny play during the game where I get to feel like I actually did something right for a second.
My five faves are:
1.The Air Hockey Self Score. This is where your opponent fires the plastic puck so hard it bounces off your end and scores on their own net. Fist pumps all around.
2. The Accidental Pool Shot. Here’s where you aim for the six-ball in the corner pocket, but miss completely and send the cue ball spinning wildly around the table until it accidentally bumps another ball into a completely different pocket. We’ll take it.
3. Rim Rollers. Okay, over to basketball. This is when your shot bounces off the side of the backboard and clangs around for ten seconds, bouncing in every direction, before eventually, reluctantly, spinning around the rim and slowly falling into the basket.
4. The Slow Strike. Do you ever go bowling? If you’re as bad as I am you love that moment where your ball barely nudges a corner pin and causes a slow-motion domino effect that eventually gives you a strike. Booyeah, time for a little celebration.
5. The Tennis Dropoff. Here’s my favorite one of all. Yes, when you win a point in tennis by hitting the ball into the net and having it immediately fall over and die on the other side, that’s just perfect. Now you get to relax and enjoy a brief moment of success.
Now I know what you’re thinking: These are all terrible cheap shots no athlete would be proud to score. But I’m no athlete, people. I’ll take my cheap shots when I get ’em if I get ’em. I’m not too proud to admit it, either.
So who’s with me?
AWESOME!
Photos from: here, here, here, and here
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October 10, 2022
#618 The feeling of brushing your teeth with a new toothbrush
Bust the new brush free from it’s cardboard confinement, give those straight, crisp bristles a quick welcome-to-your-new-home rinse, plop a fat glob of minty green paste on top, and then get down to business, baby.
Yes, it’s time to scrape those pearly yellows clean with your brand new scrubbing machine.
AWESOME!
Photo from: here
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October 9, 2022
#619 When the person at the store tells you the thing you’re about to buy is going on sale tomorrow
When your friendly neighborhood employee gives you the secret whisper tipoff that the heavy, cardboard something-or-other you’re carrying is about to go on sale, you know what to do.
Stop, drop, and come back tomorrow.
AWESOME!
Photo from: here
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October 6, 2022
#620 Singing in the car on the way home from the concert
Stamped hands and plastic wristbands cover the sweaty crowd as lights flick on at the end of the show. Crowds bump and grind to the bathrooms as eyes adjust and ears pop. Minutes later you pile into the car with your friends and buckle up for a slow, traffic-jammy trip out of the lot, down the highway, and home to bed.
Killing an hour on your way home from a concert is a piece of cake, though. Just roll down those windows, pump those fists, honk that horn, and get ready to scrape that scratchy throat.
Because folks, it’s time for the loud, screechy sing-a-long version of Tonight’s Greatest Hits.
AWESOME!
Photo from: here
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October 5, 2022
#621 Staying up past your bedtime when you were a kid
Nobody likes bedtimes.
Nope, nothing’s worse than lying under the covers in hot, flannel PJs with wide, unblinking eyes while the late autumn sun slowly droops outside your window. As the sky fades to a burning orange the streetlights flicker on, the moon pops out, and eventually the thin crack of light under your door flicks to black.
And then you just lie there, staring at the ceiling, flipping your pillow, tossing and turning, aching and burning.
Nobody likes bedtimes.
Come on, whether it’s mom chasing a giggling, diaper-clad junior around the coffee table or dad forcibly finger-peeling Xbox remotes out of pre-teen paws, it’s all the same when you’re a kid. The fun stops when the head drops.
Yes, bedtime is the secret, locked gateway to a magical mystery tour of late night television, dark downtown scenes, and unknown journeys into all things strange, exotic, and sinful.
But it’s that buildup and curiosity that makes it great when you finally do break on through to the other side.
Do you remember birthday sleepovers where everybody drank Cokes after 9pm and watched R-rated movies? Did you have faraway little league tournaments where parents cracked beer coolers after the game while kids terrorized the hotel whirlpool and sauna? Did you celebrate New Year’s with cousins all shaking hips and eating chips as the next year hit?
Staying up past your bedtime when you’re a kid is like getting on a rickety roller-coaster and riding it down a dark tunnel heading somewhere you’ve never been and were always told not to go. But then you find sugar rushes, skinny dips, heart-to-hearts, and non-stop giggles all waiting for you deep in the blackness, just around the bend.
AWESOME!
Photos from: here, here, and here
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October 4, 2022
#622 When the dog’s really excited you’re back home
Greasy forehead, sore ankles, and a dull headache cap your traffic-jammy ride home from a long day at work. Dragging yourself to the door your stomach rumbles and grumbles as you picture the bland frozen burrito you’re gonna nuke for dinner.
Yeah, the day got you down, the day knocked you out, but suddenly you unlock the door and your mood zooms sky-high as there’s a loving and waiting BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK.
Someone’s happy to see you.
AWESOME!
Photo from: here
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