March 20, 2005

Evidently, there are still people out there who consider Spring Break some kind of “break” occurring in “spring.” These people are unaware that Spring Break is actually an additional work time occurring in late winter. Thus, I chose to spend my Winter Work Week in the great city of Boston on a survey trip, in order to begin the process of changing the world for the better, one soul at a time. And also to complete a PowerPoint presentation by late afternoon Monday.

I am a member of something we at Harding University like to refer to as a “church planting team,” in which a bunch of enthusiastic, naïve whipper-snappers (we just love snapping whippers) get together and pledge to move to some random big city to start a new church upon graduation. Our team chose Boston for the very objective reason that it is insanely cool, and there is much snow.

Fortunately for us, there was much snow in Boston while we were up there. This is because the city is located in a region referred to by geographers as “WAYYY up north,” which is where the snow lives. In fact, while we were up there, the city got sludged by several inches of the stuff, absolutely necessitating that the team spend time throwing it at each other. This was to assist in our efforts to “learn the Bostonian culture.” Or maybe it was to assist in our efforts to “soak our undergarments.” Either way, somehow much snow wound up in our respective pants, which was new and invigorating.

Well, I guess I should say that the average Bostonian (who is typically from some whole other continent like Asia ) doesn't seem to feel very happy about the snow. Maybe they like it in early winter when it's all new and fresh, but in March, I got the impression most Bostonians just kind of wish the snow would, I don't know, melt. In Boston there are still piles of snow visible from the last “nor'easter,” which took place, like, a majillion months ago, but it doesn't ever go away. They just plow it into big piles (conveniently located on sidewalks to underscore how pedestrian friendly the city is) and wait for the next snow, and then push that onto the piles, and so on until the sidewalks are twenty feet higher than the street, and coal mining equipment must be employed to enter a building on the ground floor.

Fortunately, however, Boston has a system for dealing with snow. Alabama doesn't really have a snow system, unless "unbridled panic" counts as a system. For some reason, Alabama families feel compelled, upon learning the threat of snow, to purchase several loaves of bread from the nearest supermarket, even those families that had been heretofore sustained solely by Little Debbie Cakes. In Boston, however, they have a far more systematic system.

You see, whenever there's enough snow to cause an emergency, they declare something called a "Snow Emergency," in which it is thereafter illegal to park on certain sides of the street. If you are not certain which side is legal to park on, no worries! The local police force will let you know by ticketing your vehicle!

Besides having much snow, Boston also possesses much education. In fact, it is impossible to walk ten yards in Boston without tripping over a major accredited learning institution, such as Harvard. There is so much education going on in Boston that something like 89% of the population is comprised of students, the other 11% being parents of prospective students barging around asking questions about card swipe access and scholarship applications. Because of all the students, there's also much coffee in Boston, occasionally sold out of shops with suitably left-wing-sounding names such as “The Highly Caffeinated Worker's Paradise” or “The Khmer Rouge of Cappuccino.” There is an awful lot of coffee going on in Boston it seems, so much coffee that the phenomenon has earned Boston that special and famous nickname: “Seattle.”

I'm not much of a coffee fan myself, but I am a low-carb bagel fan. This is convenient, because Dunkin Donuts just happens to come with low-carb bagels (Official Low-Carb Bagel Motto: “Mostly Air!”). Dunkin Donuts is a big deal in Boston. Without a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, travelers wouldn't be able to go to the bathroom hardly anywhere. People argue over whether Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts is superior (“My alliterative pastry shop is more sugary than yours!” people are all the time saying), but I'm not sure that the stores are really comparable. Dunkin Donuts is the sort of place you might, for example, go inside and order a coffee or pastry. Krispy Kreme is the sort of place you sneak suspiciously alongside at 11:59 PM and order a dozen extra-glazed as if you were leaking sensitive State Department information to North Korea, and then you eat them all in the car right then before the glaze melts through the upholstery of the passenger seat. (Then, of course, there's the guilty avoiding of questions from people back home – “Hey, didn't you weigh less than a tractor earlier today? *GASP OF REALIZATION* Where's the donuts?”) At least you can go to a Dunkin Donuts without feeling compelled to say twenty “Our Fathers” immediately afterward.

Boston is also home to professional sports, which sent the normal guys on our team into mouth-foaming happy fits, especially when they went to Fenway Park, the official home of overpriced scarves with “B” written on them. Also the Boston Red Sox, who are loved the world over for not being the New York Yankees. I'm not a big sports person, but I did feel strangely compelled to buy a scarf with “B” on it. They exert a strange power.

I brought an additional memento home besides the scarf. The morning before we left, I had an apple for breakfast. It's not exactly the most carb-friendly fruit in the world, so I was kind of sinning by eating it. And as usual with sin, temporal punishment was to follow shortly – a piece of peel got caught between two of my teeth and would not come out. I don't know if you've ever had this problem before, but there's not really a graceful solution to it. I tried picking it out with my fingers, but I could never quite get it, and only thought about it when I was in highly visible public situations where it would have been inappropriate to scrape my teeth with my fingernails, such as during my Computer Science seminar ("So if you observe the interaction between the- hang on, almost got it..."). Brushing and flossing only managed, somehow, to drive the apple piece further into my gums, resulting in tragic apple-related pain.

I knew what I needed and needed soon – a toothpick! Unfortunately, toothpicks weren't exactly falling from the sky. The Harding cafeteria had decided, in the interest of annoying the crap out of people, to no longer provide toothpicks by the exit. This meant that, in order to acquire a toothpick, I had to go and buy one. Now, when's the last time you ever bought one toothpick? I was a little reluctant to buy a whole case of the things in order to use only one, but I had already waited an entire week with the apple piece stuck between my teeth, so I bit the bullet and bought the whole set, only to discover that my roommate was waiting back in the room with a toothpick he had picked up at lunch. Anyway, I successfully plucked the little Boston memento out of my incisors, but I think I was traumatized.

No more apples! From now on, only donuts! Dunkin Donuts! From Boston! Let's leave tomorrow.