Special Snowflake Stories

[Darcy]

Little-Geekette was a very special snowflake when it came to food. Grown-Geekette is only marginally better - I still hate it all, but if you serve it to me I'll eat it in a reasonable time frame... Well, most of it...

There's a lot of recent research that says that there's huge variation among humans as to how food 'tastes'. Regional preferences tend to be based on what's available in that region. If you liked the food that was available in your region, you ate more of it- and were better prepared to survive a famine.  Now, however, with a big variety of foods, picky eaters don't starve to death at a young age; they survive, and possibly they pass their genetic abilities to find certain foods unpleasant on to their offspring. Some of the taste differences turn out to be beneficial: I am one of the lucky few who can't taste the bitter aftertaste of artificial sweeteners. I switched to diet drinks back in my teens (remember Tab?) and I shudder to imagine how much I'd weigh if I hadn't.   Geekette, it sounds like you're a 'supertaster'- you can taste the bitter or unpleasant aspects of many foods. It's not a moral failing, any more than having freckles or blue eyes is. It's nice you learned to eat foods whether you like them or not; I agree that's a valid social skill to have. But reading the research has made me very sympathetic with picky eaters, because I can think about how awful it is for them that they get no pleasure out of foods I enjoy.  I realize that with kids, a lot of times it's just unfamiliarity. I got a lot of mileage over Christmas from the phrase 'More for the rest of us!' with the youngest generation of the family.  Amazing how kids want to try anything that the grownups don't WANT to share.

 
Thank you for posting that. I also get annoyed by the suggestion that picky eaters were "spoiled" by permissive parents. My oldest daughter (age 11) is like me and will eat pretty much everything you put in front of her. She has always been like that, even as a toddler.  My second daughter (age 10) is just the opposite. She's extremely picky. She wishes she wasn't. She wishes she could appreciate a wider variety of foods, but she just cannot. She, too, has always been like that. I have raised her to be polite about it, to try different foods (she's actually willing to do that) and to make an effort when she's a guest, but she is most likely a supertaster AND she has sensory issues with textures. I think as long as a picky eater does not demand special meals nor make a big production out of being grossed out by some foods, there is no Special Snowflakery.

My pickiness comes from textures and tastes. I can eat onions when they're part of a Thai stir fry that I like, but not when they're in a different restaurant's sweet n sour chicken. I'll eat pico de gallo if it's well-disguised with other things like guacamole, but I can't eat huge chunks of tomatoes. There's something in my head that sends off a signal going "Warning! Warning! This is NOT supposed to taste like this!" and will trigger a gag reflex. I wish I was different, and I've gotten better, but in some cases it's taken years to get used to certain foods cooked certain ways.

[rose red]

But we supertasters get equal pleasure out of foods that you might consider bland and unappealing.  Shrimp, for instance.  No cocktail sauce, no marinara, no Old Bay.  Just plain steamed shrimp.  They have a delicious, delicate flavor all their own that those who bread them and drown them in some kind of sauce or seasoning will never taste.

I don't think I'm a supertaster, but maybe this is why I like plain potatoes and bread and rice and meat.  I had a coworker tell me "your food doesn't look good" while her food is drowning in lots of stuff (which is fine, but I don't say anything about your food, so please don't say anything about mine).

[Lady Snowdon]

My uncle and his son, my cousin, were both total snowflakes over Christmas.    Apparently my uncle had lent some money to my cousin, and texted him, on Christmas Day, to ask him about setting up a payment plan to repay the money (because that's always a good time to ask about things like that, right?).  My cousin bean dipped him about paying the money back, and then made a strange comment about "and anyway, I'm going to see MY family today".  My uncle texted back and said, "what do you mean?", and it came out that cousin believes that our family as a whole likes him and considers him more of a family member than we do my uncle. 

So there's my cousin's Special Snowflake moment; who thinks it's okay to tell your father that nobody in the family likes him or thinks he's part of the family?  Then my uncle turned into a Special Snowflake, and asked my mom, who was hosting everyone for Christmas dinner, to uninvite my cousin.  She caved, and uninvited my cousin, and my uncle still decided to not come and pout about how no one likes him.   

I love my uncle and my cousin, but my goodness...we almost had a blizzard Christmas morning!  And because they're both being "Special", neither of them gave any consideration to how it would affect everyone else.  I didn't get to see either of them while I was home, which makes me very sad.  Of course, after the whole drama, I might have tried to knock some sense into them if I had seen them...

[gramma dishes]

Then my uncle ... asked my mom, who was hosting everyone for Christmas dinner, to uninvite my cousin.  She caved, and uninvited my cousin, and my uncle still decided to not come ...

Oh good grief!!  How old is your Uncle?  Five? 

How nice that he talked your Mom into uninviting his son and then didn't show up himself anyway.  Wish your Mom hadn't done that, but I suspect she does too at this point! 

[Sirius]

Day after Christmas:   I was running errands.  I pulled into a parking place - only to be almost hit by someone pulling through from the other direction.  Who then gave me a one-finger salute.  The parking lot was busy, although there were plenty of places farther out where someone who didn't want to back up could pull through, but they insisted on doing this in the first row back from the store fronts. 

[mmswm]

I took my large, well-behaved dog shopping today.  We went to two different pet stores that allow you to bring your pets in. At one of the stores, another customer decided that I was a horrible person because she was afraid of dogs and I should not have brought my dog out.  My dog only barks when he's lonely or he thinks you're going to hurt my kids.  At the time, he was sitting quietly while I looked at new collars for him (he came with a choke collar, and I hate those). I realize that some people are afraid of dogs, but I went to that store specifically because he was welcome there. The store employees wound up telling her that she was welcome to leave, but my dog had as much of a right to be there as she did.

[weeblewobble]

We were in a fast food drive through today, second in line behind the car at the window.  A truck with a HUGE boat/trailer pulls up beside the drive through line and parks in a such a way - angling his cab slightly in front of the car at the front of the line - that the car  can't pull forward, effectively trapping us all in the drive through lane. (We can't pull out sideways, again, because the truck and boat trailer are parked parallel to us.) And blocking in anyone parked in the parking spots opposite the drive-through lane. The truck/boat driver gets out of his truck and goes inside the restaurant!

The employee at the window called out to him that he couldn't leave the truck parked there, but he waved her off.  It took almost ten minutes for the man to come back out of the restaurant, holding a bag of food.  He flipped the drive-through line the middle finger and drove off in a huff.  The poor baffled employee at the drive through window apologized profusely and said the man had actually ordered a meal and sat down to eat it before she got a manager to go out to the dining area to ask him to move.  And he initially refused to do it! 

"I've been working here for four years and I've never seen anything like it!" the lady said, as the manager added several extra goodies to our bags to make up for the wait.  (Apple slices and cookies.)

[Mental Magpie]

I took my large, well-behaved dog shopping today.  We went to two different pet stores that allow you to bring your pets in. At one of the stores, another customer decided that I was a horrible person because she was afraid of dogs and I should not have brought my dog out.  My dog only barks when he's lonely or he thinks you're going to hurt my kids.  At the time, he was sitting quietly while I looked at new collars for him (he came with a choke collar, and I hate those). I realize that some people are afraid of dogs, but I went to that store specifically because he was welcome there. The store employees wound up telling her that she was welcome to leave, but my dog had as much of a right to be there as she did.

Good for them! Good for you, too, for not leaving just because of her.

[Slartibartfast]

Can a business be a special snowflake?  Because Redbook magazine seems pretty darn close.

(Summary for those who don't like to click links - one of the pages from the latest issue has a bunch of "do-it-yourself ideas" which incidentally happen to be several popular posts on Pinterest.  They don't give credit to the authors, or even to finding them on Pinterest at all.  The illustrations are drawn rather than the photos from the popular pins, but they're pretty obviously drawn from those exact photos.  Jen Yates, who writes www.cakewrecks.com and www.epbot.com, was the originator of one of those ideas.)

Unluckily for Redbook, Jen has over a million Twitter followers and they're all pretty mad about this stunt.  I suspect if this follows other internet flare-ups, there will be some impressive drama and then an abject apology within the next 48 hours or so.

[Jocelyn]

Can a business be a special snowflake?  Because Redbook magazine seems pretty darn close.

(Summary for those who don't like to click links - one of the pages from the latest issue has a bunch of "do-it-yourself ideas" which incidentally happen to be several popular posts on Pinterest.  They don't give credit to the authors, or even to finding them on Pinterest at all.  The illustrations are drawn rather than the photos from the popular pins, but they're pretty obviously drawn from those exact photos.  Jen Yates, who writes www.cakewrecks.com and www.epbot.com, was the originator of one of those ideas.)

Unluckily for Redbook, Jen has over a million Twitter followers and they're all pretty mad about this stunt.  I suspect if this follows other internet flare-ups, there will be some impressive drama and then an abject apology within the next 48 hours or so.

Since print magazines generally start with a 6-month lead time, Redbook would have been working on this article last summer. When did Jen publish her ideas? It's possible that both Jen and the Redbook staff came up with their ideas without having seen each other's work. My nephew once submitted an essay for class, only to have National Geographic publish, in its issue that came out 2 weeks later, an article that made the exact same point.

[PastryGoddess]

Shame on Redbook.   


Her original tutorial has been posted for a couple of years now.  I think she updated it to include regular shoes later though

[PaintingPastelPrincess]

My mother, the one-woman Christmas Blizzard:

We always celebrate Christmas Eve at my Grandparent's house.  When my fiance and I got there, Mom was already there and moping on the couch.  Everyone's attempts to draw her into conversation were meant with silence or one word answers.  Then, at dinner, she refused to eat saying that she's allergic to all of it. (She's not.  She's mildly allergic to beans, which were kept completely away from the numerous other dishes that she can eat and has eaten in the past.)

After dinner, we were opening presents.  Mom was silent until she opened her presents (we open them from youngest to oldest).  She then started throwing tantrums about the Visa gift card she got (despite having given them and using them in the past, she suddenly didn't know what they're for), trying to give the box of chocolates she received from my sister back to my sister, etc.  Basically acting like an ungrateful 5 year old.

We finally moved on from her turn, though she kept up the commentary about it while my uncles opened their gifts.  When we got to my Grandma, Mom hit her low of the night.  Grandma opened a $100.00 giftcard that my brother and sister had worked hard to be able to get her.  It's my sister's first Christmas with a full time job and the first Christmas in awhile that my brother has been able to do much due to his finances.  Everyone recognized it as a very thoughtful and well meant gift - except Mom who cut into the thank you saying "Yeah, well their dad helps out on it."

That reduced my sister to the bathroom in tears for the next 15 minutes or so.  My uncle tried to calm her down, to no avail, and she left in a huff telling us all to keep our stupid gifts.

The next day, she called to accuse my uncle of restraining her (he didn't) and of stealing her gifts.  When he hung up on her, she called my other uncle to whine about the gifts and he reminded her that she'd left, telling us to keep them, and had even thrown the treats from my grandmother into his bag.  Then she had her friend send me a facebook message (mom doesn't have Facebook) and leave me a note saying that it's our fault as a family that we gave her alcohol when we know she's mentally unstable (she was not given alcohol and did not have access to it during this time.

[ladyknight1]

Day after Christmas:   I was running errands.  I pulled into a parking place - only to be almost hit by someone pulling through from the other direction.  Who then gave me a one-finger salute.  The parking lot was busy, although there were plenty of places farther out where someone who didn't want to back up could pull through, but they insisted on doing this in the first row back from the store fronts.

I was turning left at a intersection where only one direction has to stop. The driver that had to stop had his car in front of the white stop line with a few feet extra. So, as I am making my left, I was within a few feet of his vehicle. He both honked his horn and gave a one-finger salute. What a SS!

[PastryGoddess]

My mother, the one-woman Christmas Blizzard:

We always celebrate Christmas Eve at my Grandparent's house.  When my fiance and I got there, Mom was already there and moping on the couch.  Everyone's attempts to draw her into conversation were meant with silence or one word answers.  Then, at dinner, she refused to eat saying that she's allergic to all of it. (She's not.  She's mildly allergic to beans, which were kept completely away from the numerous other dishes that she can eat and has eaten in the past.)

After dinner, we were opening presents.  Mom was silent until she opened her presents (we open them from youngest to oldest).  She then started throwing tantrums about the Visa gift card she got (despite having given them and using them in the past, she suddenly didn't know what they're for), trying to give the box of chocolates she received from my sister back to my sister, etc.  Basically acting like an ungrateful 5 year old.

We finally moved on from her turn, though she kept up the commentary about it while my uncles opened their gifts.  When we got to my Grandma, Mom hit her low of the night.  Grandma opened a $100.00 giftcard that my brother and sister had worked hard to be able to get her.  It's my sister's first Christmas with a full time job and the first Christmas in awhile that my brother has been able to do much due to his finances.  Everyone recognized it as a very thoughtful and well meant gift - except Mom who cut into the thank you saying "Yeah, well their dad helps out on it."

That reduced my sister to the bathroom in tears for the next 15 minutes or so.  My uncle tried to calm her down, to no avail, and she left in a huff telling us all to keep our stupid gifts.

The next day, she called to accuse my uncle of restraining her (he didn't) and of stealing her gifts.  When he hung up on her, she called my other uncle to whine about the gifts and he reminded her that she'd left, telling us to keep them, and had even thrown the treats from my grandmother into his bag.  Then she had her friend send me a facebook message (mom doesn't have Facebook) and leave me a note saying that it's our fault as a family that we gave her alcohol when we know she's mentally unstable (she was not given alcohol and did not have access to it during this time.

Wow...that goes beyond blizzard to SuperStorm or Whiteout

[Amava]

My mother, the one-woman Christmas Blizzard:

Wow...that goes beyond blizzard to SuperStorm or Whiteout

Agreed, that is just crazy. Why adults can't be, you know, "adult", and mature and gracious about receiving gifts, is beyond me.