I NEED TO VENT ABOUT GILMORE GIRLS

I have a lot of feelings right now, and I don't know where else to vent them to besides the internet because the internet has always been there for me and everyone is really nice on the internet. Also, I don't know what diaries are and I don't have any paper in my entire house.

A few weeks ago, I started watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix. I'd been told by way too many people that I would love it so, coincidentally after I no longer had any schoolwork or responsibilities or reasons to live, I decided to see what all the fuss was about and I started watching it. And then before I knew it I was onto the second season. And then the third. I was in love, and I knew I had a problem. And Netflix knows it too. The screen that pops up saying "Are you still watching Gilmore Girls?" from time to time now seems to do it just to spite me. As if it's saying "Are you still watching Gilmore Girls? Sheesh, get a life." 

But how could I not be completely in love with everything about this masterpiece of a television series? The coziness of Star's Hollow, the witty dialogue and references that make me actually laugh out loud at times, the way the town is decorated for Fall and Christmas, Lorelai and Rory's ridiculously awesome relationship, JUST EVERYTHING. Basically, I just really love them. This is a picture of me pretending to be hanging out with them and being really, really creepy and weird about it and it's all sepia-toned like the intro and Carole King is singing and we're all having such a great time together. JUST LOOK AT US.

I apologize if that scared you at all, but I just needed to properly establish how much I love this show before I say what I need to say. Alright. I'm just going to go ahead and say it.

THIS SHOW IS MAKING ME MAD NOW. I'M EMOTIONALLY INVESTED AND WHAT IS HAPPENING IS MAKING ME ANGRY.

I'm in the middle of season 5, and I just have some things to say. And then I promise I will stop and we can all go back to believing I'm a (somewhat) sane person (ish). 

First, Dean. I have never liked Dean. He's always been clingy and annoying and syrupy sweet gross and I don't like him. Now, I'm not saying Jess was the best choice either, because, like, he's got some problems, but if he could work them out and stop being a jerk then I see no reason why he and Rory wouldn't be great together. But Dean. HE'S LAME. And I cannot believe what he and Rory did at the end of season 4 because, um, first of all he is MARRIED and second of all he is LAME and third of all I THOUGHT RORY WAS SMARTER THAN THIS. Like, when did she decide that, with all of her choices of men at Yale now she should just go home instead and get back together with her lame-o ex who is MARRIED and make him get divorced when there was NO REASON why she should have any reason to do that? I would really like to know. I bet it had something to do with her bad cropped hair decision. And, not that I'm a big fan of his anyway, but did anyone else see how undeniably gross and freaky looking he was at the end of season 4? Anyone? Who could find that attractive? I'm just at a loss for words on this and it drives me crazy that she went back for him. Move on, Rory. Dean is gross.

This takes me to the biggest travesty of all: all of this asinine Rory and Dean business is ruining what I've been waiting for for four long seasons of this show: Luke and Lorelai FINALLY getting together. Just when we thought that we were getting to the best part of the series when they start dating, Rory has to go and ruin it and make Lorelai upset and complicate what should have been the happiest episode of everyone's lives. WHY RORY WHY. And she's not the only one ruining this relationship. Lorelai's parents just need to back the heck off and let her be with who she wants to be with. Making Chris pop back up in her life at that wedding made me SO MAD and Lorelai has NO REASON to owe him ANYTHING AT ALL because he was never around as Rory's dad and was a bum and still is a bum and there is just something about him that makes me cringe and want to punch my couch. Luke has ALWAYS been there for her and does SO MUCH for her and Rory and everyone is just getting in the way and making it impossible for me to enjoy that they're together. IT'S NOT FAIR. I CAN'T COMPLETELY ENJOY THIS SHOW ANYMORE BUT I CAN'T STOP WATCHING SO THIS IS A PAIN I HAVE TO LIVE WITH BUT IT SUCKS AND I THINK EVERYTHING IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE AND IT'S BECAUSE RORY IS DUMB AND LORELAI'S PARENTS ARE DUMB AND EVERYONE JUST NEEDS TO BE HAPPY AND LET LUKE AND LORELAI BE TOGETHER.

Whew. I think that was it. Thanks for listening. I just...I just really want everything to go back to the way it was in the first few seasons when everything was happy and nice and Rory wasn't crazy and I still had hope and something to live for. Because at the rate this is going...I might need some therapy. Or a straight jacket or something, because...*whispers* these aren't even real people. Star's Hollow isn't real and none of these characters are alive and it's just a story! IT'S NOT REAL. 

(I can't believe I just typed that.)

WHO IS REY? MORE THEORIES THAT EVERYONE SHOULD CONSIDER

Like most people on the planet by now, I have seen the new Star Wars movie. Twice. And I loved it. It perfectly blended the original trilogy with new characters, a new plot line, and brought theaters full of complete strangers together. I AM A WITNESS. But it also left everyone with a lot of questions. Questions like, what's up with Kylo Ren's wimpy-looking ship? Why can't I pull off an up-do like Carrie Fisher? Why am I overcome with a burning desire to give BB-8 a hug and wrap all of that spherical cuteness in my arms? 

And, the biggest question of all—who is Rey?

Since the movie premiered, theories surrounding this question have been discussed by countless articles all over the internet. Is she Han and Leia's daughter? Luke's? Obi-Wan Kenobi's? Only time will tell. But until then, I've come up with a few alternate explanations for Rey's origins that are all just as plausible and have just as much evidence as the theories of her either being the daughter of Leia, Luke, or Obi-Wan. But seriously. They're really good:

My level of obsession with them is almost unhealthy. Almost.

• She was created by midi-chlorians, and has nothing to do with the Skywalkers. 

• Unkar Plutt is actually her father, and he made her think someone was going to come back to Jakku for her so she'd stay there and keep bringing him cool stuff and be his slave.

• In that scene where we see Rey as a little girl screaming at the ship flying away leaving her, that's actually the ship that took Finn away to be a baby stormtrooper and they were brother and sister. So they'll have that weird we-like-each-other-but-we're-actually-siblings thing in Episode VIII like Luke and Leia. Lando Calrissian is her father.

• She is Chewbacca's daughter, as female Wookies are hairless. We just had no idea.

• She is Obi-Wan reincarnated as a woman—explaining her British accent.

• Kylo Ren is actually her father, which explains why he is so shocked when he hears about her the first few times. (He didn't want his parents to find out.)

• She is actually Luke and Leia's triplet sister who was put into cryosleep when she was born.

• She is Padmé's sister put into cryosleep.

• She was Anakin's twin also created by midi-chlorians who was put into cryosleep to keep Anakin from killing her in the womb. What?

• She is Yoda's other protégé who he put into cryosleep when he saw the future that Luke would fail training the new jedi. 

• She is Obi-Wan's sister who he put into cryosleep because he wanted to be the only British jedi. 

• She is Boba Fett's daughter, conceived in the Sarlacc and then put into cryosleep, because that gross pit is actually a gigantic cryo chamber. So...Boba Fett is still alive too, and they will reunite in Episode VIII.

.......

So yeah. There are some more theories to think about. Let me know how you feel about them, because I'm pretty positive that, like, at least seven or all of these are contenders.

(Especially the cryosleep ones. I bet it's that.)

ONE TIME I WENT TO BURGER KING IN ELKO AND IT WAS THE WORST

Last winter while shivering in our poorly insulated house, my husband and I were like “We should go on a vacation this summer! That’s what married people do, right? Yes? Okay.” It was peachy. It was great. Until seven months later, when we came to the realization that driving to Northern California means driving through Nevada. 

Let me tell you about Nevada.

Nevada is the part of the west that was left over when they drew up all of the other states. None of the states surrounding it wanted any of that barren wasteland within their borders, so after much consideration, they decided to give the gross, triangular shape of land a name because although “the place you have to drive through to get anywhere good…or find gold in California” was definitely accurate, it didn’t exactly roll off the tongue. The two lone vaqueros who were brave enough to frequent the space suggested the name “Nada,” which, for all of you uncultured Americans, means “nothing.” The government thought this was a clever idea, but decided to add a couple other letters in there to make it more interesting—and decidedly less multi-cultural. The conversation went something like this:

Government Official 1: So…what letters have we not used yet?

Government Official 2: Um...Z?

1: Z, eh? Nazda….hmm. I don’t know. Something feels wrong about it. I have this feeling that one day this might be too similar to the name of a foreign car company.

2: What are cars?

1: I don’t know.

2: What about a Q? We don’t have a Q yet.

1: Wait—what about South Daquota?

2: Okay. Q is out, then. X?

1: Can’t do X. Sounds too much like Mexico—and aren’t we trying to make this Nada place seem less…exotic? The name needs to be something that will sound weird if someone tries to say it with a Hispanic accent.

2: ……

1: Could we use a V? V is a random letter.

2: What about Vermont?
1: No one even thinks about Vermont.
2: But it’s shaped like a V!

1: OH MY GOODNESS, RODNEY. SO IS THIS PLACE. LOOK. *lifts up map.”

So that’s how it happened. (Look out for this, Wikipedia, because I plan to add this to your page about Nevada.)

But really though—go look at a map and tell me that Nevada isn’t just the space leftover when all the better states were formed. (Or better yet, look at this map, which I conveniently color-coded and and put right here to emphasize my point.) 

BUT SERIOUSLY. JUST LOOK AT THIS.

So back to our trip. 

Nevada made us crazy. There was nothing but dry, pale land in any direction we turned. The lack of scenery drove me to madness—I flailed and bounced and made noises and took out my hair tie. I turned this on. We couldn’t stop talking. Our eyes started to bulge out of our heads. We craved civilization like exiled criminals, stuffed Star Wars fruit snacks in our mouths at light speed, but nothing could satisfy the emptiness Nevada had created within our souls. Did people actually live here? Why is this a place? Are fruit snacks actually food? And then, up in the distance, we saw civilization. Civilization in the form of Elko, which is the name of a town but also the name of my pet elk, if I had an elk.

And we realized we were HUNGRY. In all-capital letters hungry.

Our eyes parched with misuse, we drove off the freeway exit and fell into the gravitational pull of the first restaurant we saw like two flies drawn to a bug-zapper. And somehow we found ourselves standing inside a Burger King, the beady eyes of a freckly Nevadan teenager looking at us look at the menu, the sizzle of fry oil and quiet chatter of two cowboy hats that may or may not have had men underneath them disturbing the silence.  

After we placed our order and participated in excruciating small talk with the greasy teen, we claimed the table in the far left corner of the establishment and awaited the glorious call of “77!” to put an end to our hunger. How they had already had 77 customers that day was intriguing to me. I dwelled on that while my husband went to use the bathroom, while sitting awkwardly in the corner, trying to not draw attention to myself and my lack of cowboy hat. A couple construction workers drifted in. There might have been music playing. A fly crawled on the ledge next to me, trying over and over again to fly through the glass of the window with surprisingly little success. The signs were all there—I should have known what we were getting ourselves into. But we were in Nevada and we were hungry and people do questionable things in times of desperation.

Now, I don’t eat Burger King very often, but I remember it being typical grease-fare in the past. Not amazing, not horrendous. Just cheap, salty, hot food. Which is something you can’t really pack on a road trip (I’m looking at you, Star Wars fruit snacks). I thought I’d be safe with a chicken sandwich, my go-to fast food delicacy, but OH MY GOODNESS WAS I WRONG. THAT FOOD. It was so dry, my tongue turned into sand. The chicken might have been dehydrated. The bun might have been an expired hot dog bun from Elko’s last community barbecue. And I was too scared of the beady-eyed cashier that was still staring at us to go ask for some sort of sauce. My husband denied my request that he go ask for some because he wants me to, like, be an adult or something. So I sulked and muscled my way through the rest of it, as well as approximately 3 chicken fries that I think were more like cactus fries. All while rationing out the contents of my little water cup and discretely gawking at the Elko people who looked a little too comfortable inside a Burger King. After I gulped down the last bit of desert sandwich, I could tell I had just ingested something that was incapable of moving down my esophagus and I was then both socially and physically uncomfortable. My favorite. It was definitely the highlight of our trip, I’d say. Not really. But this experience taught me a lot of things:

1. Never drive through Nevada.

2. But if you do, don’t stop at the first restaurant you see off the exit. There will be a Wendy’s down the road by where you decide to get gas after eating and you will kick yourself about it for the next five hours until you get to Reno (because everyone knows that Wendy’s is infinitely better than Burger King (unless the Elko Wendy’s is also tainted. Which it probably is)).

3. Just get the sauce.

4. But really. You need the sauce.

AMERICAN PHAROAH : HORSE RACING :: JANGO FETT : THE CLONE ARMY :: WAYNE GRETZKY : HOCKEY

Tonight, while lounging on the couch eating slice after slice of mediocre pizza and watching game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals after an exhausting Monday, I had a thought. The kind of thought that only happens when certain thoughts have already occurred and are sitting in your brain and then all of a sudden culminate in one big, epiphanic moment that leaves you wide-eyed, covered in goosebumps, and/or crying profusely.

(Not really.)

But it's still cool.

So here's my theory.

I've watched a lot of hockey through the years, and for some reason it never occurred to me until tonight that all the players look the same. They're all about the same build, the same skin tone, have similar facial features, and always have the same beard. Always. Which reminded me of Star Wars and the stormtroopers and Jango Fett and led me to the realization that HOCKEY PLAYERS ARE LIKE THE STORMTROOPERS. THEY'RE ALL CLONES. EITHER THAT OR...COUSINS.

Which then made me think about American Pharaoh's recent Triple Crown win and how people are going to be paying a lot of money to have him make baby horses with their horses and made me think WAYNE GRETZKY. HE'S THE JANGO FETT OF THIS WHOLE OPERATION. All today's players got some Gretzky in them. 

All of this is completely true. 100%. IT'S A CONSPIRACY. 

I need to go to bed. 

SWOLLEN EYES AND BEE ATTACKS: THE RETURN OF 8TH GRADE

Middle school is a strange time of life. Bodies are changing, emotions are fragile, and everything about it is just awkward. Like really, really awkward. A woman I look up to once described it as "the armpit of life," which I feel is an apt summation of the experience. Yet while everyone isn't horrifically smothered inside of this armpit, I'm pretty sure no one makes it out completely unscathed. Even me (hard to believe, I know). But we grow up and move on and figure out how to navigate social situations with a little less awkwardness and everything is fine. Or so I thought. 

A few weeks ago, I relived middle school--8th grade, to be precise. 

And now that it's been a couple weeks and I can finally view what happened with humor (instead of the terror I felt at the time), I would like to share it with you, because it's that ridiculous, and further proof that if something like this can happen to anyone, it will definitely happen to me. 

Yep.

Before I begin, I must share two stories from my early adolescence. 

First Story:

One Autumn day, near the beginning of my 8th grade year, I noticed little wrinkles forming under my eyes. The next morning, I woke up and could barely see. Why was that? MY EYES WERE SWOLLEN. LIKE BASEBALLS. So I wore sunglasses to school to hide my hideousness and I felt like a freak and I had to talk to all of my teachers to tell them why I was wearing sunglasses since it was against the dress code. Both my doctor and my mom couldn't figure out why it happened, but after a couple days it went away and became just another awkward thing that all of my friends liked to remind me about.

Second Story:

I was reading a book in the middle of our family's SUV with the window open about an inch or so as my dad drove us all somewhere on a Saturday afternoon, when in my peripheral vision I noticed a giant, fuzzy bee descending upon my book. And being terrified of bees, I did what any slightly-dramatic 13-year-old would do: I simultaneously unbuckled my seatbelt while flipping backwards into the seat behind me, narrowly avoiding kicking my little brother in the head and strangling myself on the seatbelt. My dad swerved off into a parking lot and opened the doors to get the bee out, and my family was traumatized.

Now, keep these stories in mind as I spin my horrific yarn of déjà vu. 

It began by looking in the mirror and seeing this:

MY EYES. THEY WERE SWOLLEN. AGAIN. ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE SEMESTER.

So I stayed home, took a bunch of Benadryl, and laid on the couch all day. Oh, and felt like a loser, that too. I'm assuming the catalyst was the new makeup I bought the weekend before, but I've tried quite a few over the years and 99% of the time my eyes don't turn into gigantic swollen balls of gross. So...who's to say? 

But it couldn't just end there. No, it wasn't over. After a few hours I heard some buzzing coming from the blinds in the window and realized, with terror, that something evil had found its way inside:

(This picture is completely inaccurate, but it gets the point
across, so just work with me here. I'm bad at drawing blinds.)

I will illustrate the rest of what happened through the texting conversation between my husband and I that followed this revelation:

Me: THERE IS ANOTHER HUGE BEE YELLOW JACKET THING IN THE BLINDSHim: HOW?!
M: I DONT KNOW BUT I'M GOING TO DIE
H: I BET YOU ITS THE HOLE WHERE THE CABLE COMES IN
H: DON'T WORRY, WE'LL GET NEW WINDOWS SOONM: IT'S TRYING REALLY HARD TO GET BETWEEN THE BLINDS
H: WEIRD. KEEP THEM BABIES CLOSED TIGHT.
M: I HATE THIS SO MUCH
H: IT CANT GET THROUGH. THERE'S NO SPACE.
M: BUT IT ALMOST DID
H: HOW?
H: CAN YOUR BROTHER COME KILL IT?
M: I PUT SOME RAGS AT THE BOTTOM AND CLOSED THEM AS TIGHT AS I COULD
M: I'LL BE OKAY 
M: BUT I HATE THIS DAY
M: IT'S STOPPED MAKING NOISE. I'M SCARED.
H: IT KNOWS THAT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

(2 hours later)

M: THE BEE GOT OUT IN THE ROOM AND IVE BEEN TRYING TO GET IT TO FLY OUT FOR HALF AN HOURH: WHERE IS IT NOW?
H: SHUT THE BEDROOM DOOR!
H: ISOLATE THAT SHIZ!
M: I OPENED THE BLINDS AND NOW I CAN'T CLOSE THEM
M: HOW DO YOU CLOSE THEM
M: I THINK IT MIGHT BE DEAD BUT I'M NOT SURE
M: I'M GOING TO DIE
M: AND ALL OF THIS IS ONLY MAKING ME FEEL MORE GROSS 
M: AND NOW THE TV WON'T WORK
H: GO KILL IT
M: I THINK IT'S DEAD
H: PUT IT IN THE JAR
M: I CAN'T SEE IT!!!!!

And I still have no idea what happened to it. But I'm pretty sure it died. I think. Also, for your information, this has happened at least three more times since this fateful day because our house is old and our landlord is lazy and still hasn't fixed anything. (I'm clearly not bitter.) 

So yeah. This happened.

(I used my jeans as a weapon.)

I AM A SWEATER

This is how I felt on my unseasonably warm walk home today. 

IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE COLD RIGHT NOW.

Post update: After accidentally putting this sweater in the dryer, and making it scratchy and a little shrunken, and months of trying to make myself believe it didn't look that bad, I finally made the decision to give it away to a local donation center because it was gross. So looking at this doodle makes me a tad nostalgic. Carry on.

OCTOSPI OR SPITOPUS?

Are spiders and octopuses related?

But really though.

They both have eight legs and stuff.

How many other creatures just randomly have eight limbs?

Do spiders squirt ink when they get scared?

Should we be calling octopuses "water spiders"?

These are the things I think about during class.

LESSER KNOWN COLLEGE FOOTBALL BOWLS

I've come to the conclusion that the reason so many bowls exist in College Football is because they're trying to make teams that either don't get into the playoffs or win their division not feel like the huge losers that they really are. (Also, for $$ through extensive and shameless advertising.)

It's the NCAA's way of saying "It's okay kids—we're all winners."

Even though they're totally not. 

Anyways. As if there weren't already WAY TOO MANY bowls in the league, here are some lesser known bowls that you may not have heard of. If you don't recognize them, that's because you're obviously just not as into sports as I am. Clearly.

The Vegan Awareness BowlThe Flag Football Bowl
The Bowl Cut Bowl
The Ginger Awareness Bowl
The Super² BowlThe Princess Kate Bowl
The Colon Cancer Awareness Bowl
The Orthodontia Bowl
The #Twitter Bowl
The No Contact Game Bowl
The Joan Rivers Memorial Bowl
The Ostrich Bowl
The Facial Hair Awareness Bowl
The Marlboro Cigarette Bowl
The Hanukkah Bowl
The Gluten Free Awareness Bowl
The Martin Luther King Jr. Bowl 
The Alcoholics Anonymous Bowl
The Michael Sam Bowl
The Lady Gaga Christmas Special Bowl
The Yugoslavian Bowl
Your Mom's Bowl
The Accordion Bowl
The Pyrex Bowl
The Ceramic Bowl
The Bread Bowl
The Glass Bowl
The Cereal Bowl
The Bowl

EXCERPTS FROM MY LITTLE GREEN NOTEBOOK

In order to understand this post, I must first try to explain my brain...

Well...It's CRAZY.

Seriously. I'll be walking through campus on my way to class, eating a bowl of cereal, or lying in fetal position on the ground or something and a random spurt of inspiration will suddenly pop into my head. Like an awkward flash of lightning. It can quite literally happen at any moment, and based on the fact that I cannot control when it does, I always have to write my thoughts down before I forget them.

But this practice resulted in me drowning in a sea of To-Do Lists and confusion without a canoe or a life preserver...or an angsty ginger mermaid to save me. I had lists in my school notebooks, on the backs of envelopes and receipts, on a whiteboard in my room, on Word documents on my computer, and on a range of brightly colored Post-it notes that littered my desk and walls like sad, discombobulated glitter (as opposed to the regular, bobulated glitter). It was madness. And I was lost...

Ain't he just beautiful?

Until the day I saw a tiny, unassuming notepad at the grocery store and fell in love. And brought him home. And vowed to take him everywhere I went so I could keep all of my ideas in one place...one insane, messed up place. Honestly, sometimes I look through it and read something that I wrote in the middle of the night and try to figure out why I thought it was so funny, or how I even got to that point of thought in the first place. And then some other times I'm like CAMRYN HOW DO YOU EVEN FUNCTION IN SOCIETY YOU ARE SO STRANGE. Here are a few examples in order to better illustrate what I'm talking about:

"When I first met my roommate Gertrude, I thought she had some sort of Latin ethnicity in her. Maybe it was her slightly darker skin coloring, maybe it was her luscious dark hair....or maybe it was the way she always carried a plate of tacos in her purse."

"I love how when people here talk about Utah they're always like- 'Well, I love the mountains, but...' Yeah. That's all you have going for you, Utah."

"Every time I open a can of Campbell's Soup, I think of Andy Warhol...and I wonder why his Marilyn Monroe paintings didn't end up being used as the design for the can...and then I realize that it's probably because Marilyn Monroe doesn't sell soup...she sells something else..."

"If you act super confident and seem like you know what you're talking about, everyone will believe you. #lifelessonswithcamryn" (I have no idea where this came from)

"That I'm Blue song is either saying 'And I'm in need of a guy' or 'I was beat as a child.' ...Three of those are not true."

"Things that Creep Me Out #162 - those toe shoe things. It's gross. We wear normal shoes to disguise the fact that we even have toes, and then these things come along...WHY." 

"The next time that girl in my Geography class looks at my notes whenever I write something down, I'm going to write something along the lines of 'HIDE THE BODY' or 'NEED TO POLISH MACHETE FOR TONIGHT.'"

"Need to write more ironic sonnets."

"That awkward moment when you're walking behind a white guy and a rather voluptuous black woman and they're shaped exactly the same from the waist down."

"Today I learned that I share my birthday with John Stamos. Everything in my life makes so much more sense now."

Basically everything in this post. At 2 in the morning. Between intermittent periods of sleep and consiousness. I have the half-legible notes to prove it.

"If ever you're feeling down, open up a map of Ireland and try reading the names with an accent. Instant happiness."

"I'm pretty sure that Black Friday at Wal-Mart is the closest example we have of what the apocalypse would look like. Although there would be zombies eating people instead of elderly women fighting over socks...but yeah. Basically the same thing."

"'You know what...I want some figgy pudding,' said no one ever."

"J-Biebs makes me feel like one less lonely girl. She is so thoughtful!"

"I just watched The Bachelor for the first time. I think they should rename it The Harem."

"Whenever I need to humble myself, I think of the drummer from Def Leppard, and how he only has one arm. And how he'd completely dominate me at the drums with that one arm...and that usually works pretty well for me."

"Sometimes I think about how everyone says that they want Morgan Freeman to narrate their lives, and then I think about how I usually text my friends in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE THIS the majority of the time, and then I realize that it would probably be more accurate if Billy Mays narrated my life...only he's dead. And I'm also not a cleaning detergent. So that wouldn't work."

10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT POKÉMON

In a fit of nostalgia, I recently came across the design we made for our Pep Band shirts my senior year of high school. Tradition held that seniors always used some sort of shameless, nerdy theme for their T-shirt designs, and not daring to break with tradition, we went straight for the jugular like a pack of voracious pumas. Behold:

Now imagine this emblazoned across your chest.

Your chest just became 37% more awesome.

Growing up, Pokémon were pretty much the coolest things ever aside from the Backstreet Boys and squeezable glitter glue- both of which were very sparkly and pretty (especially Brian. I loved Brian). They were just so fun to collect...and then battle with until they killed each other. They could be adorable or scary or even just plain creepy. It was great. I Kanto (see what I did there?) even begin to estimate how many hours I spent sprawled on the couch, eyes trained on my Gameboy Color and completely transfixed by the world that a roomful of ingenious Japanese men created just for me......it's really a beautiful sentiment, when you think about it. Thanks, guys. I am forever in your debt.

But I played it SO MUCH that a pretty hefty portion of my brain is still devoted to remembering every single tiny, insignificant detail about it. Sometimes I think about how helpful it would be if that particular lobe decided to throw all of that information into its little brain waste basket and instead remember more important things...like the lectures in my classes...or Arbor Day.

I was telling my brother about this problem of mine the other day, and he responded by telling me to prove it, so I challenged him to ask me any Pokémon-related question he wanted to. A sly, condescending smirk flickered across his face as he asked, "Where would I go if I wanted to find a Drowzee?" With a completely serious expression I answered, "Well that depends. Are you in Kanto or Johto? Because if you're in Kanto you'll want to look in the grass to the east of Vermillion City, but if you're in Johto you have to go south of Goldenrod City next to the Day Care Center." 

SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH ME.

But as awesome as it was, and regardless of how much of it I still unwittingly have committed to memory, there were a few things about the games that annoyed me...well, they obviously didn't keep me from playing, but still. They exist. And here they are:

1. First of all, when you're starting the game and Professor Oak is all, "Are you a boy or girl?" This was always insulting to me. I mean, Professor Oak. I'm standing right here. In your laboratory. Isn't it obvious? Are you blind? What am I, a Ditto? 

2. Ditto. What the heck were these things? I really wish I could've been in the brainstorming session when they came up with this. I imagine it probably would've gone a little something like this: Guy #1- "How about we make a Pokémon that can turn into OTHER Pokémon?" Guy #2- "Yoshi, that's a brilliant idea! Hmm...would it be really powerful on its own?" "Oh, of course not! On its own people would just have their Pokémon...breed with it. And it would be GENDERLESS. And...how about gelatinous and pink as well?" "That makes so much sense, Yoshi, it really does. Ever since you came up with that idea for Lickitung the other day you've been truly unstoppable." I'm still too traumatized to eat jello because of this Pokémon.

3. Pretty much EVERYTHING that the trainers you battled would say. Were they supposed to be intimidating or something? Maybe the Japanese was just translated incorrectly and they actually cussed you out. I don't know. Also, the fact that they were always so confident in their abilities. I mean, come on. There is no conceivable way that your Lv. 12 Oddish is going to beat my Lv. 47 Charizard. No way. I don't care how many super potions you have tucked in your loser fanny pack or what kind of connections you have with Nurse Joy. I don't even care that Oddish is the most adorable little thing to ever pop out of the ground. I'm going to destroy you, "Youngster Joey." And your hopes and dreams. Those too.

4. The reality that you can't actually catch all of the Pokémon without buying more than one game. Everything they advertised, everything Ash ever said- it's all a lie. You can't catch 'em all...unless you give in to their shameless marketing ploy and shell out another $50 bucks. Touché, Nintendo. Touché.

5. How when you traded Pokémon with someone in the game, you couldn't change its name so you ended up with an Onyx named "Rocky" or a Machop named "Muscles." I don't think I could have come up with lamer puns than that, and that's saying something.

6. Also, how depending on how many badges you had, your traded Pokémon wouldn't obey you for a while. There was nothing more infuriating than telling your Sandslash to use "scratch," and instead having the screen tell you- "Sandslash went to sleep instead," or "Sandslash pretended not to hear you because it feels objectified and it wants you to lose and yell at your Gameboy for five minutes." It was times like these that I wished options like attach shock collar or beat with stick were available methods of action.

7. One word: Magikarp.

8. The Bug Type. Someone answer this for me- was it actually super effective against ANYTHING?! No. No it was not. And since when do bugs get their own type? Last time I checked they were annoying and dumb and nobody liked them.

9. That you weren't allowed to run from trainer battles. And not even because you thought you couldn't beat them- sometimes I was like, "You know, I'd love to stay and pound your six puny caterpies into submission, but I currently have more pressing matters to attend to." Theoretically, you should always be able to physically run, right? Especially if you had a Koffing with a particularly good smokescreen or the other trainer was morbidly obese.

                                                                                              AND...                                                                                                                                                          
10.  ......The fact that it's not socially acceptable for me to play it anymore.