Disney Princesses

Special thanks to Kenny, Bethany, and Diana for the content.

Disney princesses. Little girls try to dress like them and little boys think they’re gross. Teenage boys are creepily attracted to them. But some Disney princesses really aren’t princesses at all. They are mainly just peasants or wannabes in strange circumstances, circumstances that often lead to mental instability.

Belle is normal for about the first 20 seconds of Beauty and the Beast, but then the townspeople let you know she’s pretty much a loon. She reads a book to some sheep, talks to dishes, then falls for a hairy, talking bison/lion/gargoyle. It’s no wonder she’s crazy, look at her dad!

Mulan has a gender complex (also not a princess, and never becomes one either).

Ariel is almost a princess, but she is also a fish, which kind of disqualifies her.

Snow White is like 16, lives with 7 old tiny men, and kisses them all every night.

Cinderella commands an army of mice and has an abusive family. If the prince were to visit her home in the modern world, it would most likely be to arrest her for a triple homicide.

Rapunzel is great, but she just wouldn’t be able to function after years of solitary confinement, and her hair would have more junk living in it than David Bowie’s pants in The Labyrinth.  

But there is one princess that stands above the rest as legitimate royalty. I will give you a hint—she has a PET TIGER. That’s right, Jasmine is our winner. Even if Aladdin is the “princess” type character in that movie, Jasmine is still widely considered a Disney princess, and rightly so. She lives in a palace, has a sweet blue pendant headband, and did I mention she has a PET TIGER! She isn’t sent away by an evil step mother, captured by a witch, or taken by some crazy old woman, she runs away because she wants to run away. Jasmine knows her subjects and is aware of their dire situations, tries to help them, and even falls in love with a “street rat”. She is witty, intelligent, wealthy, compassionate, and let’s admit, she is pretty sexy for an animated character.

Even though Jasmine is a great princess, she is an exception to the rule. Almost every other classic Disney princess (not including the Frog Prince girl because I never saw it) is not a princess at all, and you know what, I think that’s just fine. It’s so much cooler to see a strange, poor, eccentric, or even non-human creature succeed rather than a princess. Princesses are great, but who wants to see a princess’ life get any better than it already is? They’ve already got it all. So thanks Disney for letting little girls all over the world know that even if they’re a crazy, deranged, psychotic child, they can one day be considered a beautiful princess. 

Cleaning the Keister

As many people know, bidets are popular bathroom accessories all around the world, but it seems that the proud people of the United States can’t quite seem to wrap their heads around the concept. Every time I tell someone about the awesomeness that is the bidet, I get a blank, grossed-out stare. My go-to illustration for bum-fountain bliss is dog poop on your shoe: which do you use to clean it off, the hose, or toilet paper? The choice is pretty easy, and almost everyone chooses the hose. For most people, something immediately clicks in their mind, and they realize that a bidet is superior, but they can’t admit it yet. Others come up with a list of exceptions for why toilet paper is still better. “Yeah, but…” No buts about it, mister.  Instead of admitting how rational that dog poop logic is, they put up even bigger mental barriers because they know they’re wrong.

Talk about chafing

What is the big deal with shooting a fountain of water at your poo-covered butt hole? Ok, admittedly that sounds strange, but I feel like we are living in the Stone Age with toilet paper! We seem to have been stuck in a butt-rut for the past two thousand years, using everything from corncobs to animal fur to wipe our precious tooshies. Greeks used rocks to clean their bottoms, and the Romans cleaned off with sponges soaked in saltwater. In China as early at the 6^th century, people were using rudimentary forms of toilet paper, and by the 1300s they were manufacturing huge amounts of the stuff. That’s all well and fine for them, but it’s all gross to me, and it seems incredibly obvious that we should have come up with something better by now.

With a bidet, all you have to do is spray some water to get everything off. You don’t get your hands dirty, you can get everything off, and you will never have to buy toilet paper again. Whatever you might think, it is much more hygienic and healthy. And people who think it’s weird to wipe with a rag, how do you dry off your derriere when you get out of the shower?

If we clean something as gross as poo off with just paper, why don’t we clean everything off with it? I can just imagine coming home sweaty after a tough workout and my wife says, “Aren’t you going to shower?” and I respond, “No, I’m just going to mop up with some dry tissue paper.” Of course, this is disgusting, but that’s exactly what we do when we wipe with Charmin. We may not want to face the facts, but we are far behind a lot of the industrialized world in butthole hygiene.

By the way, never touch anyone’s left hand if you go to the Philippines...

Ancient Writings

We have learned a ton about old cultures and societies from their writings. The Rosetta Stone was probably one of the greatest anthropological finds in history. It unlocked the secrets of the writings of ancient peoples, allowing us to study them and learn more about them. I can only imagine what societies of the future will study about us. I just really hope they don’t find ancient files of YouTube video comments and take them as viable archaic writings.

I can just imagine two highly evolved humanoids discussing what “Fake and GAY!!!!111!” meant to the ancient Americans. Then they would run a special on their version of Nat Geo about our primitive nature: that we enjoyed watching people fall on their faces, rack their scrota, and jumble their words after strong anesthesia. And then the one person who makes poignant, political comments would have all their writings turned into a religion.

Just missing the Dew

Then the History Channel would investigate the origins of “The Internet Troll.” Was there just one troll? Was there an entire secret society of trolls? Or was it just an entity that spammed the internet simply by willing it to happen? It would be kind of like us trying to find out who Jack the Ripper was 200 years after the fact. Middle-aged men who drank copious amounts of Mountain Dew and still lived in their parents’ basement would get the most attention.

Then they would probably find old episodes of Jersey Shore, that would really throw them for a loop.

If IKEA made cars...

When I was a little kid, the only thing I knew about Sweden was that they made little gummy fish and meatballs. And for the longest time I thought the only market for Swedish fish was the small eastern Idaho town of Malad. Whenever we would visit my Grandma there, we would do three things: fish at Crowthers Reservoir, eat some good bacon, and purge ourselves on Swedish fish. I never saw the candy anywhere else, so I figured they had a special market with old folks (I think the mean age in Malad is about 70). Well, I guess the GDP from Swedish fish and meatballs wasn’t good enough, because they moved into the furniture market—and the world is a better place for it.

Who knew the Swedes had so much engineering skill hiding behind those tight blonde braids and blue eyes. Their furniture is incredible! IKEA makes my life heavenly with tiny chairs, sleek designs, and space-saving, ready-to-assemble furniture. A trip to IKEA routinely sets me back about 150 bones, but I never have buyer’s remorse. Where else can you get an 8 dollar side table and feel like a king of modern interior design? I think they should get into other markets. Like the auto industry, for example.

If IKEA made cars, they would be cheap, efficient, and cute as a button! I’m sure an IKEA car would have a hideaway stove, room for 12 people, a separate bedroom, and still be the size of a Honda Civic, all at the price of a scooter. While we are admiring them so much, why don’t we just let the Swedes rule the world? Oh yeah, they did once and people hated them and their pointy, horned helmets. But I don’t think they would rape, pillage, and burn as much now as they did back then. They would just make cute tables for everyone, and maybe make Dancing Queen the world anthem.

A Day in the Life

When I tell people that I'm majoring in Chemical Engineering it usually elicits a response of, “oh wow” or, “so you must be smart”. Of course, it’s a little bit harder than the average major, but the coursework is nothing compared to how difficult it is to work with my classmates. I am going to explain my typical day as a student in the supposed “hardest major” at BYU.

               
 I start my mornings at 6:00 AM with a trip to the gym to get ripped, seems to be working out quite well, if you don’t believe me, ask me to take my shirt off, I will gladly do it, and you will never want me to put it back on. Actually that is all a lie, I try to work out at 6:00, but usually I put snooze on until 7:45 and either go late to my 8:00 AM class or just don’t go. It’s ok because it is just Chemical Engineering and Society. I already know all the stuff they teach me and I am probably the most liberal eco freak of all my crazy right wing, gun totin’ classmates (we talk about the environment a lot in that class, so their viewpoints come out). Then I get a two hour break where I do my homework and study while I watch the Price Is Right. I am sorry, but I think Drew Carrey is actually doing a bang up job.

               
Anywho, then I go back up to the Clyde Building for some Materials Science. I don’t mind that class because half of them are seniors and they seem to be a little more in touch with reality than my fellow juniors. Here is brief description of the stereotypical juniors in my classes.

Number 1

1. The girl who thinks out loud, shouting every answer to the professor because she knows she is smarter than everyone else.

               
2. The girl who only wears pink and blue that is only in the major to find a boy who is going to be rich someday, chemical engineers typically earn lots of money.

               

Number 3

3. The chunky kid with his butt crack hanging out who is always a half a step behind in the conversation.

               
4. The guy who thinks he is cool by blurting out the most complex mumbo jumbo to solve the simplest problem.

               
5. All the people who think number 4 is really cool.

               
This is my life.

I begin dealing with these people at 2:00 PM in Physical Chemistry. The first day of class, my professor said that P-Chem was the study of everything—so far he is right. I pretty much know a little bit about a ton of stuff. I won’t bother telling you because you won’t understand it, but no worries, I don’t either. My classmates seem to already know everything about everything, or at least you’d think that by the way they talk. I am surprised the professor can even teach with everyone and their dog finishing his sentences.

               
Then my day culminates with Fluids Mechanics, which is full of juniors:  internship hungry, blood thirsty, top-of-their-high-school-class, young engineers vying for top position. They go to the library every day, read 5 days ahead, do every homework problem 1,000 times and brag about how awesome their major is. They all seem to think that chemical engineering is the cat’s pajamas and that no one in another major can think on the same level as the dullest Chem E major.

                 
Spoiler alert— ALL THE OTHER MAJORS HAVE INTELLIGENT PEOPLE TOO—I seriously overhear them bad mouth English, History, and Art majors because they are lesser degrees. I wish there was some way to open their minds and shove something other than an equation in there, maybe a novel? It is frustrating, but I feel like I have an advantage over them because I actually know who Herman Melville, Monet, and Louis XIV were. I like to write, and believe it or not, I can carry on a conversation that doesn’t involve the intricacies of the Schrodinger Equation.

               
I hope I can survive the next two years…