I’ve noticed that whenever I’m really, really happy and have nothing to do, such as complete homework assignments, I head for the kitchen. One of the requirements for being that happy is that I’m at home. Dorm kitchens are not happy inducing. Also, they do not have the ingredients needed to make Triple Chocolate Espresso Mousse Pie. I got the recipe from Martha Rampton (she said working at the Center for Gender Equity would have its benefits, and this recipe is definitely one of them). Over Winter III, I hooked my whole family on the dessert, and now they won’t allow me to come home for a weekend unless I make the pie.
Anyway, whenever I’m baking, I subconsciously sing to myself about what I’m doing. For example: “Cut, cut, cut the chocolate and put it in the pot! It’s gotta melt with the cream and cornstarch!” or “I’m stirring the mixture so it doesn’t stick to the bottom! Burning on the bottom would be bad for the chocolate. So I gotta stir! Stir that mix with my stirring stick! I think it’s called a whisk! Yeah, the whisk is for whisking up my pie filling!”
Okay, so none of that rhymes… and I’m obviously not going to be turning in the song in hopes of winning a Grammy. Still, the funniest part of the whole experience (at least to me) is that I don’t even realize I’m doing this until my mother bursts out laughing from listening to me. She always asks me why I feel the urge to turn my baking adventures into a musical. I protest that I don’t even know that I’m singing, but she never believes me and says it must run in the family: my father does the same thing when he makes Ramen.
However, I do realize when I get possessed by Screamo Bands. This happens whenever I’m extremely frustrated. And that normally occurs when I’m at my computer and receive yet another email from someone wanting me to do something. Then the mouth opens and sound comes pouring out of my mouth in response to the email. I sound like Steven Hyde in the episode of “That ‘70s Show” where he is pretending to be possessed Satan, combined with a cat coughing up a hair ball.
Don’t ask me to do this on command. I can’t Devil-Speak at real people; I can only scream at the ones that live inside my computer that will never be able to hear me. My roommate walked into our room when I was in the middle of a rant once, and the expression on her face quickly brought me into a fit of laughter. This just made her eyes get wider and back out of the room. (My laughter sounds like a crow when I get really worked up and can’t breathe, and I was definitely cawing that evening. I am just thankful she’d already known me for about five months or she probably would have requested a room change.)
While you can experience the crow laughter if you can crack me up past the point of having enough oxygen, and also hear the musical baking session if you were at my home, the closest that you can ever come to hearing me possessed by a screamo band would be my alternative possession by dust bunnies.
My friend, Emily, finds extreme pleasure in tickling me, especially about she figured out that I make weird noises when anyone tickles me. She says that I sound like I’m speaking some strange, foreign bubbly language. Thus, my possession by dust bunnies.
I don’t know why getting tickled causes me to sound like that. I’ve heard people screech and scream, but never burble-talk like me. Likewise, I’ve never heard someone crow-laugh either. That’s not my only laugh, mind. I’ve got the ‘hahas’ and the ‘heehees’ and the ‘ckckckcks,’ but those I’ve heard on other people. The crowing remains unique so far.
Like I said before, I know I picked up the ‘singing what I’m doing while cooking’ habit from my father. Also, I know I’ve picked up the Devil-Speak from my brother. And no, not because he listens to that type of music. Well, he might, but that’s not the reason. I’ve noticed that Nicholas tends to make the same type of noises when he’s trying to make me laugh. Maybe I subconsciously echo the sounds to make myself laugh and calm down.
Yet, this all makes me wonder how much of our quirky behavior has been unconsciously taught to us, and how much of it is just us without any outside influence? And also… even when we adopt other people’s weird behavior, does that still mean it’s their’s, or is it now a trait that makes us unique?
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