Eccentricities - Angela Yang
“So, do you know why you are here?” asked the head of the Eccentricity Committee. I shook my head. I had done many quirky things, and I was not sure which one they had caught me doing. We were in a great court room, with me in the center and all committee members around me. I recognized several of my friends.
“According to our witness, during lunchtime last Friday, you went to the dining hall’s ice cream machine, got yourself a vanilla ice cream, and then took a bite.”
The crowd gasped. Murmurs rose and fell among the committee members. “Yes,” I admitted, not understanding their astonishment.
The head of the committee sighed. “You know, Angela, you’re not supposed to bite an ice cream. You lick it.”
My somewhat stubborn nature immediately kicked in. “No, that’s disgusting. You don’t shape your ice cream with your tongue as if you were molding clay. In contrast, biting is more elegant, more sanitary, and more efficient, since you can take in a larger amount of ice cream.”
“But it freezes your teeth.” My friend, Katherine, tried to overturn my statement. She was a firm supporter of licking ice cream, and I was two hundred percent certain that she had reported me to the committee.
Nevertheless, I was prepared. “Not really. From my experience, teeth can’t feel the temperature. It’s your gums. As long as the angle is right, you shouldn’t feel anything.”
Reluctantly, the head of the committee waved his hand, and the court went silent. He flipped to the second page of the long accusation list.
“Someone has also reported that you enjoy pineapple on your pizza. Is this true?”
“Well, I do like pineapple, and putting it on pizza. Why not?”
This time the whole room was silent, dumbstruck. Soon an angry voice rose from the committee. “This is unacceptable! Pineapple will ruin the entire pizza!” Of course, it was my friend Sophia, who was of Italian descent and whose family cooked much more authentic pizza than our dining hall did.
“Really?” said John, the only person who seemed unsurprised. “Pineapple is good on pizzas. Its sweetness balances the sourness of the sauce and the saltiness of the meat, also adding more color to the plate.”
Everyone else groaned as I raised two thumbs in agreement: “Exactly!”
A few weeks later, the boarders got some kiwi fruit along with other snacks at the Commons. I was not a fan of it, but my German roommate Emma seemed to love it as she immediately grabbed one and headed for the sink.
She came back later with the kiwi fruit in hand but without any eating utensils, and rubbed the hairy fruit a bit before taking a great bite from the top. As some greenish juice oozed out of her bite marks and dripped slowly toward the bottom, I heard someone draw a deep breath. Caught on the spot, then.
“Well, guess the ‘Eccentricity Committee’ will meet again tomorrow,” I thought.
It’s hard to define the right way to eat something. Cindy dislikes olives on pizza; Coby cannot bear the sight of anyone eating a KitKat without breaking it into rows; Corrie puts chili powder on Lays’ original-flavored chips. When you think this is the worst you can get, there’s someone who orders a bubble tea, eats the bubbles, and leaves the tea itself. And, believe it or not, that guy will have solid reasons for his behavior.
Having those little weird eating habits is just an idiosyncrasy, like when I look upwards while thinking, tilt my head to express confusion or curiosity, and use my hands to ‘talk’ as I stammer. These habits are part of my own identity that makes me ‘Angela’. Even if getting caught ordering Hawaiian pizza is embarrassing, these small differences make each of us unique, and I accept my uniqueness. With good reasons, of course.