If You Give a Hypochondriac a Handshake

If you give a hypochondriac a handshake.

He’s going to ask for hand sanitizer.

When you give him the hand sanitizer he’ll probably ask you where you’ve been the last 24 hours.

Next he’ll ask for your insurance information, then he’ll want to check webMD to make sure he hasn’t an infectious disease.

When he cheeks WebMD, he might notice he matches 4 out of 7 symptoms for several diseases.

So he’ll make an appointment with his, dermatologist, obstetrician, ex-pediatrician , dietician, and orthodontist.

When he’s visited his doctors, he’ll demand a fecal matter test, just to make sure.

He’ll start watching himself for symptoms.

He might get carried away.

He may even end up counting every strand of lost hair.

When he’s done, he’ll probably want to rewatch all episodes of Doctor Who before he dies.

You’ll have to prepare a hazmat suit for him so he can crawl out of his house for toilet paper and groceries.

He’ll put it on, make the helmet secure, and he’ll probably ask if he looks fat in it.

So you will lie to his hazmated face because he already has enough problems, and he’ll ask you to be in his selfie.

When he sees the picture, he’ll thinks he sees a cancerous mole. He’ll get so excited he’ll want to cut it off.

He’ll ask for some tweezers and a sanitized blade to remove the mole.

When the move is removed he’ll want to keep it in a jar…with his other moles.

When he’s done he’ll want to put it where he could watch it grow.

Which means he’ll need…a petri dish.

He’ll stick his jar on top of the fridge.

After seeing the filthiness at the top of the fridge he’ll ask for some hand sanitizer.

Chances are, when you give him the hand sanitizer, your hands will touch. 

Another Dieting Strategy

             A few months ago I posted the dirty dishes diet. Well, friends, Alaskan viewers and all, I have come up with another diet.

                When I was majoring in physics people always asked what I could do with it. Most people had no idea. Now, that I’m a food science major people still have no idea but they think they do. Most people assume that I will be doing dietary work. This is not what really what food science is about. None-the-less I’ve come up with a new diet but from a food science perspective.

                This diet, like the dirty dishes diet, focuses on losing weight by reducing the appetite. Many of us may recall our dear friend John Watson’s disgust at some of the things found in the kitchen at 221 B Baker Street. We too may have felt revolted at some of these things. But we weren’t revolted until after they were revealed right?

                Yes, and therein lies the key to the diet.

                This diet is fairly inexpensive and highly educational. First you’ll need a do-it-yourself microbiology lab kit. You should be able to find this at your local Superstore. Then you’ll use this to check for the friendly neighborhood bacteria hiding in your own kitchen. It’s up to you what you decide to test. Maybe you’ll be interested in the bacteria growing on your counter, or what might be living in that raw cookie dough you were about to eat, or the chicken you thawed out in warm water instead of in the fridge. This part is up to your digression.

                Then following the instructions on your kit you will grow your cultures, take samples, stain them to check for different microbes, and finally identify the microbes and the food borne illnesses they can cause. I believe by this point your appetite will be successfully reduced and you will lose weight in no time! You will also become well versed in microbiology which will be a sure way to impress at the next party you attend.

The Dirty Dishes Diet

Hello Friends,

Maybe it's a bit late to be talking about diets and losing weight and all that jazz. The New Year happened like a month ago but for any of you reconsidering your diets, I have a proposition.

The Dirty Dishes Diet

You know those days that you practically run home like a ravenous tiger because you've been at school or work for too long? And then you're at your door. You trundle through it like a woodland troll who knows that there's a hot goat stew waiting just inside. As the door swings open you see the kitchen. At that moment reality and memory hit you with a good one-two to the gut. Dishes fill the sink and occupy most of the space on the Brazilian marble counter tops. The pile of garbage sticking 6 inches, maybe a foot, out of the trash can arrogantly stares you in the eye while somehow defies gravity.

You stumble to a nearby couch and sink onto it before passing out from shock. Repulsed and  intimidated by the state of the kitchen your appetite disappears.

What I'm trying to say is by not doing dishes you can lose weight!
It's great. It saves you time. It's environmentally friendly because you're not using water to wash dishes. It's a win, win, win situation.

So next time you feel like losing a few pounds consider the dirty dishes diet.

The Unraveling of our Sanity

1) Whispering curses at your homework is much more intense than speaking them aloud
2) Sniffing the testing center desks for good luck
3) Laughing to yourself at a joke that you refuse to share
4) When someone says they "killed it" you've studied chemistry for so many hours that you naturally respond, "Yeah! Like human bacteria in a chlorinated pool!"
5) You become obsessed with Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch because you figure that because you've watched their show enough you know them intimately and have a real shot with them
6) When you've been on campus so long that you feel you deserve to live there and make the display cases under the Bensen your home
7) Sunshine and food become this vague memory associated with a mother's love and home

8) When you've studied

Poetry

So much so

Your mind falls 

Into

Nonsensical rhythms

(So you sound like a wannabe Native American chief. Except you are the whitest of the white girls) 

9) When you start speaking wildly inappropriate past tense versions of words that absolutely do not exist like "Squeeze-ed"

10) When you can't remember where a word ends and you end up saying things like "bananananana" or "respectative"
11) When you read things out loud you become quietly racist. Like chemistry in an Indian accent. Or talking like Billie Piper when you're discussing politics. Any politics.

WANDERING

Bikeyoga: I think I'm dying. I have neck pain, nausea at all hours of the day, especially after eating, trouble sleeping, and focusing. It's obviously cancer. Or anxiety. But that's what having a boyfriend does to you, right?? Can I get an AMEN????
No? 'ight, that's cool.

People are always so surprised to hear that I have a boyfriend. I wonder why....
I still fully plan to realize my dreams of dying alone with too many cats and books. And shoes if I keep up my angst-shopping.

I think Sherlock should be called Sherlock-Yoga, she's at peace all the time, like a skinny Buddha.

If I changed my screen name to Wanderlust you'd all think I was a bigger floozy than I actually am, and I don't want to falsely advertise. But I got 'em. The itchy feet. This is usually how Sherlock and I pass the time, we throw travel ideas back and forth like a Tolkein-Tennis ball and dream about all the places we want to go until our eyes glaze over and we feel like crying. Because we're poor. And in school. And this isn't like the olden days when you could stow away on a ship and get shanghaied into the french foreign legion and a life of near-death experiences and adventure. Damn you, Second Hand Lions.

I'm lucky enough to have been to a couple of places. NEVER ask my mother about my adventures, she always starts with the story of the original water-ride that catapulted me into the world. You know what I'm talking about.

Anyway. India, Peru, Costa Rica, Thailand, Laos, Japan, France.

Sherlock has been to Brazil, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic.

WE NEED TO SEE MOOOOOOOORE. You see what Wanderlust does to you? It turns you into a demanding cow.

I think that the Wanderlust is coming up because our first-week of school jitters have worn off and we're falling back into this monotonous rut of work and the two blocks between school, our apartment, and the grocery store. Our only hope of survival is to marry rich, or buckle down with some good adventure stories. Some people will tell you that love is the greatest adventure. Those people have never gone Parana fishing in the Amazon or hiked the Incan Trail through the Andes.

Day 2 of Finals

Day 2 of Finals Week

I think Bike Yoga is beginning to lose it. She’s twirling around and jumping while chanting Prince of Egypt music.

I don’t know how much longer we can survive here.

All that we’ve found to eat so far are cheap soups.

Now, Z is dancing with her but to her own music so the living room is a cacophony of sound, a strange mix of hip hop and gypsy music. It’s comparable to some strange tribal dance.

I’m sending this message out into the great wide web. I don’t have much hope that anyone will see it.

If anyone’s out there please send a rescue team and tell my family I love them.   

-Sherlock

The Great Winter Odyssey

Hi there!

This is Sherlock. Since this is the byusurvivalists page I thought it’d be good to talk about an essential part of surviving BYU and that is knowing how to get by when you are locked out of your apartment or home.

You may not realize how important this is so imagine this: One fine winter evening after a grueling day of school work your stomach begins to growl. This is a pretty good excuse to take a break from productive pursuits so you quickly make the trek home down the stairs, past the duck pond, and through the snow. Finally, you make it. You turn the door knob but to your dismay, the door doesn’t open! You desperately throw yourself against the door in an effort to get in. When you realize brute force isn’t enough, you slowly curl into a ball on the door mat and freeze there like the little match girl.

See! Not being physically or mentally prepared for this kind of crisis is detrimental! But don’t worry Bike Yoga and I have learned the secrets on how to deal with this situation. I think the best way to demonstrate these is through the story of our great odyssey that occurred earlier this week.

It all started on the train ride to Salt Lake City. We were cold, tired, and hungry but we had barely caught the train on time. The people around us were cheery drinking hot chocolate and eating Christmas flavored things. That’s when we began to wonder what we were doing there. It’s not that these things aren’t fun. They are but we, being worried about school, were not in the right mood for frivolous activities such as these. Yoga looked at me and I looked at her and we knew what we had to do. (Actually, it involved a little more than meaningful looks.)

 Anyways, we knew that we had to get off at the next stop. The train rolled into the Lehi station and we jumped off running ready to get onto the train going the other direction. Unfortunately, we’re not the best train jumpers and we missed the train going back home.

To stay warm while waiting the 30 torturous minutes for the next train to arrive, we walked around the station. We talked about warm places and all of the foods that we wanted to eat. Bike Yoga tried to prank call a couple of people from the pay phone. Finally, the train came!

We got inside fast and did all that we could to regain feeling in our feet and hands. Bike Yoga put her bare feet on the heating vent. Soon we were the only people on the train but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

On arriving back at the train station closest to home, we realized that we still had at least a mile to walk before getting back. We started the walk with our courage high! When our spirits started to get low one of us would quote something inspirational from Gandalf or Sam. Even with these protective measures we began to lose strength. We stumbled through the snow only putting one foot in front of the other. Things were beginning to look desperate. We had no provisions! Would we make it back? There was a light in the distance. It was a bakery that turned out to be a little Mexican oasis full of warmth and sustenance. On becoming reenergized from a cream filled churro, we ventured back out into the great cold wasteland that is Provo at this time of year.

We traveled on like the great explorers Lewis and Clark or possibly like a couple of pioneers.  The cold began to chill our bones and souls again. We were so close to Smiths though! If we could just get in there and warm up it would be ok .The grocery store seemed to taunt us. The farther we walked the farther away it seemed to get. Somehow we made it to the grocery store.

Because we were cold, hungry, and almost home we celebrated with some Thai food! The restaurant was very empty and quiet but the food was good and much needed. From there we only had to walk a few blocks to get home.

Soon we were walking past the other doors in our apartment complex. Our home was only feet away. Then we were standing outside the door. We turned the knob and pushed. Nothing happened. Was it locked? Could one of our roommates have locked it? Ok. Ok. One us has a key right? You gave your keys to Z? But where are her keys? Oh, they’re inside. See, if you look through the window they’re right there on the counter.

Ok readers this is where you need to pay attention. Now, that we knew we were locked out we had to put our secrets to use. The first thing that I always do is start walking towards campus. The library is always a warm place to hang out until you have somewhere to go. (As long as you make it there before 12)

So we began to walk towards campus. Bike Yoga made phone calls to our various roommates to find out when they were going to be home. As it turns out fate was smiling at us that moment and Cowgirl (one of our roommates) was in the library. We were able to meet her there and obtain a key, a beautiful precious key to our apartment, a key to rule them all. We swiftly made our way home and rejoiced in the warmth of our kitchen!