My parents and I went out for frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf, this new place that opened in town this year. We had just finished a pretty long bike ride, and I wanted chocolate. I was met with a dilemma. They had three different flavors of chocolate, and even had something called "red velvet cake" flavored yogurt. I was unsure whether or not "red velvet cake" met the requirements I had for "chocolate," so I played it safe and had whatever the thing with the most chocolate things in its name was. Probably something like chocolaty truffly brownie-y chocolaty chunky chocolate or something. I combined that with a layer of cheesecake-flavored yogurt, some brownie pieces, some cookie pieces, and some Snickers bar pieces. It was obviously fantastic. And yet the mystery of the red velvet cake had gone unsolved.
This was unacceptable, but in a fortuitous turn of events, I stumbled across something labeled "red velvet cake for two" on walmart's discount bakery shelf. Sensing a resolution to the riddle at hand, I leaped at the opportunity to purchase the cake and put to rest once and for all the controversy that had been brewing in my head. You see, on the one hand, everyone knows chocolate is not red. On the other hand, the sort of red I imagined the cake to be had an element of brown to it. On the one hand, if it were chocolate it would just be called chocolate cake, but on the other hand, velvet is an adjective I could easily see being applied to chocolate. On the one hand, nobody I had spoken with had described red velvet as chocolate, but on the other hand, none of them had really provided a satisfactory description of what it was if not chocolate. It was time to settle the score. Upon returning to my place of residence I wasted no time in sampling some of this fascinating fare.
Long story short: I still have no clue what it is or what it tastes like. Worst mystery resolution ever. I mean, it's exactly how it was described to me: not chocolate not vanilla, not any other flavor. It's indistinct. It's pretty good, but it's certainly not on the level of chocolate. At least I was reassured I had made the right choice at the yogurt shop, but the mystery of what exactly red velvet tastes like remains.
Observation:
I sometimes look like this:
Yup, I'm "that guy."
I figure if it makes people smile, I might as well look ridiculous. And it's fun, of course, to see the looks on people's faces. Occasionally I think of what my first impression must be when I'm clad in pink, sporting a spiked mohawk, displaying a crazy farmer's tan, and seeming for all intents and purposes as though I have not a single working brain cell in my head, and that makes me chuckle too. I doubt I come across at all how I think of myself. It even sometimes reminds me how inaccurate I may be with my own snap judgments, but it certainly hasn't prevented me from forming them as rapidly as ever.
The reason I bring this up is that I took along my typical "flair-ful" attire to my handball tournament last weekend in Kansas City and found I had no motivation to wear it. It seems it's only appealing to me to look like an idiot if there's someone around who knows I'm not one. At frisbee tournaments, there are my teammates, and at almost every other handball tournament I've been to, I've traveled with someone who knows the pink getup is all just silliness. But without someone around to be in on the joke, I just felt that there would be no point. I would be "that guy," and there would be nobody thinking to themselves how it didn't quite match up with the person I am every other day. So I wore my black shorts and a jersey with my name on the back like everyone else, and it was all perfectly normal. It turns out I'm not a huge fan of the perfectly normal. I'll still take the pink stuff to my next tournament, but I'm not sure whether or not I'll wear it.
Me:
Speaking of my tournament, it went pretty well. I won my first match after losing the first game due to nerves: 16-21, 21-10, 11-5. I played pretty poorly, and was sort of dreading my second round against the number one seed, but despite the loss, I played much better and was even winning briefly in the first game after going down 10-0. Sadly, after scoring thirteen points to his one, he figured out I've never played against someone who can serve hard to my left hand, and things spiraled away from that point on. I got some much-needed tournament experience, though, and I'm eager for my next one this weekend in Denver. I just signed up, and I'll be seeded last in the open division, but I look forward to the challenge.
