Goodbye (a Eugoogooly)

On Saturday, December 28, Hoopty's transmission blew out. Because I cannot afford the $1,200 or more (probably more) to replace it, this makes Hoopty officially dead. Those precious few close to Hoopty (ok, mainly me), knew him as a good car with a good heart. (Engine?) He may not have been the prettiest car, and he may not have been the most reliable car, but he was a good car. Yes, he had rust spots that were nearly a decade old, and yes, his passenger side door didn't work, and yes I had to use two keys (one for the doors and one to start him), and yes, he would often leave me stranded in random places because he wouldn't start reliably, but he was still a good car. He lasted about 3 and 1/2 years, much longer than I thought he would. And during that time, when he wasn't in the shop, he was a (somewhat) reliable method of transportation, and a damn good car. He was more than a car, he was my escape route, my one way to freedom. I didn't have to beg for rides, or rely on other people to get where I needed to be, and I could go anywhere I wanted to provided I could afford the gas (or car repairs). Hoopty may have been a jalopy, a clunker, a beater, a piece of shit, (and yes a hoopty), but he was my piece of shit, damn it! From my 16th birthday until now, Hoopty has always been there. Now that he's gone, I miss more than my mobility, I miss Hoopty. So goodbye, old friend, may "flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

This post is dedicated to Hoopty (1990-2007). He lived a long, fulfilling life.

Daydreams of the Ugly Duckling

I saw the movie Enchanted today. It was cute, and I was amused by it, even though all of my friends that have seen it thought it was idiotic. (I'm immature, what can I say?) But because the movie was all about fairy tales, it unearthed the part of me that's still 6 years old. I grew up with beautiful books and stories, but from a young age, I always preferred fairy tales. Not just the Disney ones, although of course I grew up watching Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and many, many others, countless times, (my favorite movie with a "princess" in it was Beauty and the Beast: Belle loved to read and she was a brunette; for a 5 year old that's a huge deal), but also the real fairy tales: the (somewhat) unsanitized tales of princes that fight gigantic ogres with terrifyingly bad breath, the beautiful princesses who were sometimes in league with witches and demons, the youngest sons of farmers or woodcutters who were somehow the bravest and the strongest and the kindest in the land who always win in the end, the mythical creatures in the equally mythical and mysterious, dangerous, dark forests, and the entire magical world. I adored fairy tales. I read everyone I could find. The library of my elementary school, had the entire collection of Andrew Lang's Fairy Books (The Blue Book, The Red Book, The Green Book, The Yellow Book, the Violet Book, The Chartruese Book, The Salmon Book, etc. ...) and I read all of them at least two times. (I also read and reread and reread and reread Hans Christian Anderson and the children's version of the Brother's Grimm.) Back then (and, alright, now) fairy tales were my only means of escape from a cruel and inhospitible world, and they very quickly became my reality. There are no divorces in fairy tales. Young girls who have sad and lonely childhoods grow up to be the most beautiful women in the world, whom everyone adores. The ugly duckling always becomes the swan. She has to; that's the way it's written. I began to see the world in terms of good and evil, with the strictest ethics that I learned from my books. But at the same time, they taught me that even the lowliest was capable of the greatest good; that even I was capable of good. Fairy tales have their own view of justice: the evil die or are horribly punished, while the good get their happily-ever-afters. I saw that in my books, and I dreamed that it would somehow get applied to the real world. I guess I still do. But more so then the justice, and the safety, I retreated into stories for the wonders they possessed. In fairy tales, the mundane and supernatural walk together like twin brothers. And just like twins, sometimes you don't know which is which. The supernatural becomes mundane and the mundane becomes something supernatural. In fairy tales wonderful, beautiful, magical, miraculous events take place every day. I don't regret my reclusion into fantasy; it gave me so much more that reality never could. It awakened in me a great sense of wonder, for somewhere, everywhere, there was something fantastic happening, even if I couldn't see it. They made me search my back yard and the nearby park for leprechauns. Fairy tales allowed me to see the magic that I desperately needed; and they taught me to cherish every living thing, for life has a magic of its own, far more powerful than any spell. They made me into the idiotically optimistic person I am today. For a time I recanted my beliefs in fairy tales: those years were the hardest and saddest in my life. I've grown older and become this strange girl-woman hybrid, and now I can see the beauty and the truth in my old daydreams. Crutch for reality they may be, but fairy tales only add hope, wonder and magic to this world: things we need more than we know.
"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed. "-G.K. Chesterton
Kathleen, the (ex?) Disney Princess

"Thank you for coming, and have a great day" : the memoirs of a fast-food worker

Wow, we're up to our third post already. As you can no doubt see, Stephanie and I are incredibly productive. Actually, I'm rather proud of myself for even writing this tonight; I really didn't think I would.

I have a confession to make: I work in a fast food restaurant. Go ahead, make all the jokes you want about the teenager making minimum wage; from my perspective any job is better than no job at all. And for the most part, the job really isn't that bad: I love my co-workers, I love working in the grill or assembling the sandwiches, and I usually love the customers. Most of the people I see are kind, considerate people, and when I tell them to have a great day, I actually mean it. However, it wasn't until I began my job in late May (and then came back to it for Christmas break) that I actually acknowledged the darker side of humanity: the cruel, selfish, arrogant, and sometimes just pure evil side. I have been ignored, yelled at, sworn at, and insulted by various customers, all for no good reason. For example, yesterday I was working in drive-through present (the second window in the drive through where you get your food), and one women ordered tea with her meal. (Amazingly enough, we have tea, and it isn't total crap! It's orange pekoe, which, while too dark for my taste, is very good with sugar in it. But I digress.) Anyway, I was making her tea, and once the cup was full, I set it down so I could put in the tea bag. As I did this, a bunch of the water splashed up and hit my hand. And the water was hot enough to burn. So I'm clearly wincing in pain as I'm rushing to finish the order, and as soon as I'm up at the window, the first thing she says is "I asked for my tea bag on the side." I wasn't expecting to hear "Are you alright?", but I was hoping that she wouldn't have a complaint. Because, honestly, after I burnt myself by assisting her, the last thing I wanted to hear was for her to complain. First of all, who goes to a fast-food restaurant for tea, anyway? And second of all, since it was (admittedly indirectly) her fault that I was hurt, I was in no mood to hear her complain that her tea could possibly be a teensy bit too strong. However, I smiled and apologized, made her tea again, and handed her sugar, to which she testily replied, "I requested Splenda." So I apologized again, despite the fact that I had done nothing wrong (because she definitely did not request any sweetener at all, let alone that specific brand), and got her the Splenda. I told her in the nicest voice I could muster (which really wasn't much because it is very difficult to be nice to someone who has been nothing but completely inconsiderate to you, and the very small and very petty part of you is hoping that they burn their tongue) "Have a nice day!" She harrumphed in response and then drove off. Now I told this story not just for cathartic purposes, although that part was very nice, but also because I thought that if I told this story of how not to treat people, maybe it might change someone's behavior. ( I do realize how incredibly idiotic that hope is, just for the record.) I'm sure that all of you are wonderful, considerate people, who do not need to hear this, but I thought it should be said. I just have a few requests: please do not talk on your cellphone when you're in the drive-through or on the front counter(it's extremely rude, and makes me have no desire to help you), please clean up after yourselves and throw out your own trash (it's really not difficult, I promise), and please just treat us like people. I would like to just say quickly that there's a very large difference between servants and service workers. We are not your servants, nor are we stupid, incompetent, or in anyway lazy. We work hard, much harder than any desk job, and we have to deal with rude idiots all day. The customer is usually wrong. Please, just act like decent people. Is that really so hard? I'm sorry about the rant, but I felt that it was something I needed to say. I promise my next post will be more positive.

Introduction Part 2

Yes, yes, I know Kat said we would get on to the interesting stuff now, but bear with us for one more post. I just wanted to agree with Kat: I have no idea what this blog will be about. I never know what random thoughts will occur to me, but they'll probably all end up here. I'm imagining Snowden's Secrets (The title's a reference from Catch 22, a book I highly recommend.) will be something along the line of Blast Shields Down. If you haven't read that yet, leave this blog immediately, go to www.blastshieldsdown.blogspot.com and absorb some greatness. (The two guys who created BSD are both amazing writers and their material and ideas are, at the moment, a lot more developed than ours!) Come back here when you're done and hopefully you'll enjoy our ramblings just as much. Welcome and thanks for reading!

~ Stephanie

FIRST POST! (YAY!)

Hello, and welcome to Snowden's Secrets. Since this is our very first posting in our very first blog (how exciting?), I think that an introductory post is in order. My name is Kat, and I guess that I'm the creator of this blog. My co-writer is Stephanie...there's really not much more to say, I guess. I have no idea how frequently either one of us will post updates, as we're both full-time college students, and I'm working forty hours a week over Christmas break. Hopefully we'll update 3-4 times in a week, but please don't hold us to that. I also have no idea what we'll be writing about most of the time, but I'm willing to bet that it'll be anything and everything. Well, this is an incredibly lame post, because I am terrible at introductions. I appologize for the boring introduction; but now that we've covered the (bare) basics, we can start posting the interesting stuff.