Peanut Butter Boner
We All Get Them
Daniel Serrano, Union Staffer
Illustration by James G. Morales, Union Staffer
The coolest food I know isn’t kept in the fridge. The dopest means of high quality nourishment isn’t in the freezer, it’s not even cold. Room temperature is the perfect degree for the sly beast. It’s sitting in your cupboard waiting for its moment in the spotlight.
Undoubtedly, Peanut Butter is the cool walking, sweet talking player of the food groups. It’s on a boat with Captain Crunch, and will set sail to your wildest taste bud dreams. Back on shore, peanut butter takes you to a classy meal with Mr. Planter, pimp cane, eye glass and all.
Peanut butter keeps you coming back because it’s rich and smooth, but it knows how to be nutty. It’ll go organic when you’re feeling eco-aware, or maybe even low fat when it knows you’re watching those calories. There’s no monotony on PB time.
And if meat isn’t your thing, peanut butter should be. It’s got that all natural protein to build you up while filling you up. Beans are good, and so is protein powder, but let peanut butter show you the sweet, creamy way to get the ever essential amino acids. Your muscles will bulge in thanks, and your mouth will smile with approval.
Despite peanut butter’s voracious social life and velvety charm, there’s no denying chocolate is peanut butter’s true love. Just like Kim Kardashian and that basketball player (is his name important?), they were made for each other. When peanut butter and chocolate walk down the street, people notice. Hordes come to get a bite, and rightfully so, but I would just like to point out that peanut butter has options. When stardom gets to peanut butter’s head or the stress of chocolate’s limelight has gotten to be too much, peanut butter can open up its peanut phone and flip through the contacts.
“Hey celery, what’s up? How you been?”
“Damn, jelly, it’s been so long. Let’s get together tonight. You busy?”
“Oreo, you know how our flavors mingle and blend. How about I come over?”
Oh peanut butter, always working that swagger. And don’t even try and say that cake or ice cream is the sweetest. They may be delicious in their own right, but that sugar blast will rot your teeth and leave your stomach aching. It’s delicious in the moment, but lord knows when you plop on the scale the next morning you’re cursing its name and regretting your decision. When’s the last time you felt guilty about a PB&J?
Peanut butter holds its head highest because it’s the sweet option that sustains while it pleases. It’ll make your healthy lunch or be that little something extra in your dessert. It knows it’s got the best of both worlds and behaves accordingly. Peanut butter captivates then regulates.
Just try to give it up. Never again enjoy a Reese’s or peanut butter brownies, or the trail mix with little peanut butter drops mixed in. You might succeed, but you’ll cringe when you see peanut butter around town enjoying itself with others. In those moments, peanut butter will look more delicious than ever and you’re longing will return with a passion.
Unless, of course, you for some reason don’t like peanut butter, poor soul. Turn the page please then, and read no more. This article is no place for you. For the rest though, give peanut butter its due. Sure it gets around, but that’s only because it’s so enjoyed by so many. Don’t hate the player, love the taste.
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Prolix Opuscule
Because Words Are Important
Gabriel Moura, Contributor
Last Tuesday, I was in my audio production class in the FA1 building when the iMac a few stations over started displaying words and definitions in an educational, dictionary-esque screensaver. I leaned forward and squinted until I read a word that now eludes me. It was an obscure word that referred to a type of French dance from, I think, the XVIII century. My immediate reaction was: “That’s a word I’ll never use!” One of my best friends and classmates noticed my extra effort to read the computer screen said, “You’re the only person I know who looks up words for fun.” Then he added, “Besides Oprah.”.
It’s no secret that my titanic enthusiasm for the lexicon exceeds the interest of most people. After all, though not quite a wordsmith just yet, I often assemble words together in a fashion to create meaning and make a point, such as in this sentence.
But you know what? Try going one day without using words—written or spoken. No talking, no reading, no writing. Point is: language is ubiquitous. Just look around you. You use it with friends and family, at school and in the streets, when studying and hanging out. Words are there when you’re reading a book, watching a movie, playing the latest Xbox fad, or simply texting.
Perhaps for most people, language is just a tool for communication, steps to a goal, the mediator of a transaction. Totally acceptable. If you frowned or cringed in petulance when I said “lexicon” instead of simply “dictionary,” “zest” instead of “passion,” or “petulance” instead of “annoyance,” worry not, you’re not alone. Big words are not for everyone. The dictionary abounds with them, and only a few people will master them. Not me. To be honest, I actually had to browse the thesaurus to find a synonym for annoyance I liked.
However, the truth is: the more words you know the better your interaction with people and the faster your understanding will be. And if you think that only writers will benefit from knowing words, think again. What if you are an engineer and your boss asks for a machine with chartreuse knobs, as to increase visibility? A wrong breath and you will forget the word before you reach the dictionary. What if you are in a cooking class and your instructor congratulates your strawberry cupcake by calling it vapid. Is he being sarcastic?
Granted, most times most people will use more common words. But occasionally someone will try to mess with you and employers will test you. Be ahead of the crowd and the competition. As long as “chartreuse” and “vapid” are in the dictionary, they are both fair game.
Ironically, as words get smaller, the problems get bigger. If you don’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its,” then you probably don’t know the difference between “who’s” and “whose,” “they’re” and “their,” “you’re” and “your.” What about “then” and “than” or “lose” and “loose” or “everyday” and “every day”? If you don’t know the difference, then you most definitely have misused them in your texts, letters, and emails. I only hope none of them were directed to someone you were trying to impress or a suicidal writer. And the worst part is that people think they know how and when to use them, but often they actually don’t have a clue.
Which brings me to Tony the Tiger. A few weeks ago I was having breakfast with one of America’s most beloved felines, when I read on the box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes the sentence, “Do the write thang.” If you didn’t catch the subtlety of the sentence, read it again. A sharp lawyer could make a case that they were alluding to something greater, but I seriously think they were just trying to sound cool. Coolness at the expense of misinforming and confusing the thousands of kids and teens who read the box. What negligence. The kids are the future. Why would anyone deliberately do the “write thang” instead of the right thing?
Recently, I have noticed people writing “should of” when they intend to write “should have,” as in “I should have gone to the movies.” One might assume the proliferation of the mistake arises because in a conversation the phonetics become confusing since you don’t see the words; you just hear the sounds that, in this case, are usually contracted in “should’ve.” Thus, it’s safe to say that just speaking a language is not enough to master it. One must also read.
I wish I could say you have to read Hemingway and Dickens to learn English. But why should you, unless it entertains you or made mandatory in a class. I know I haven’t because the dense language usually throws me off of the experience. Fortunately, alternatives exist. Pick your cup of tea, I won’t judge. From Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings to Twilight to the sports section in the LA Times. Reading is part of the solution.
This past weekend, my internet connection wasn’t working, so I started reading the dictionary. You know, just for fun. It was Janeth, my nine-year-old sister, who caught me reading it without purpose. So she asked, “What word are you looking for?” I answered, “None.” So she argued the dictionary wasn’t a book, I couldn’t just read it unless I was looking for a specific word. So I looked up the word “dictionary,” which said the dictionary is indeed a book. Janeth relented and went away. Scouring the dictionary for words doesn’t mean you don’t know the language, it means you revere it.
