Special Snowflake Stories

[rain]

I (almost) ran into a special snowflake today.

I was driving in a parking lot and an older man (looked to be in his 50's) walked out from between 2 huge SUVs that were parked and walked in front of me - he didn't even look before he walked out  - good thing I was quick to hit the breaks (I drive a van, so I don't think he would have missed seeing me - if he'd checked)

[Wench]

I had the same problem in HS on trip to Greece and another to Scotland/England. Except it wasn't the kids - it was the chaperons. It was less of a problem in Greece - because there weren't as many US chains especially on the Islands. But the flipped out at a Greek food and dancing dinner we went to, because we were handed shot glasses of ouzo as we walked in. Everyone except a few of the seniors was under 18, which was the legal drinking age I think. Thing is I'm pretty sure that our unethical tour director* had lied to the venue and said we were a University group not a HS group. I don't think we would have been allowed in if they known we were all underaged. 

Kherbert05 I believe the drinking age is 18 but I'm not sure it has always been this way.  When I went to Greece in 1998, I was 14 and was able to buy alcohol.  My mother would give me money to go to buy a beer for her to drink.  She wouldn't have let me do this if it was illegal so I'm not sure what was going on then! 

[kherbert05]

I was in Target today. I went to get the a drink from their cafe, and ran into 2 families of snow flakes.

Family 1
The server spoke perfect English but with a Spanish/Mexican accent. The family including 4/5 yo spoke with some European accent that I can't Identify except to say it was not English, Irish, Scottish, or German. It is hard to explain but the grandmother was treating the server like something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe. It was in the attitude and tone. The Grandmother got mad because they were out of something. She asked questions about a sandwich that was on the menu - except I don't think she realized it was 2 different sandwiches. When the server told grandma that the sandwich on top had chicken and marinara sauce then started to say The bottom sandwich has - grandma snapped and said the picture had other stuff in it. The sandwich with "other stuff" was on the bottom. She ordered the sandwich (which was labeled made fresh), then huffed and puffed when the server said it would be 5 minutes. She cancelled that order and asked if the hot dogs were ready (they are on the little rolly things). Then grandmother got mad because they were out of pretzels . She pointed to the ones in the case and was told those are plastic - they look plastic. At this point Grandma turns to me and says "Don't you wish they hire (sic) people that could speak English right"   I smiled at the server and said, "Her English is fine" Grandma huffed off. I don't know if Grandma just wasn't reading the clear signage or if she didn't understand it.

Family #2
The line is set up so you go by bottled drinks and chips, then get to the counter were you order things. I was behind family #1. Family #2 comes down the line the wrong way so they are standing in front of Family #1. They let Family #1 out. When the server turns to me - they try to barge in front saying they were next. Server says no this nice lady has been waiting for a while. She gives me my cup. The family blocks the exit and tries to make me go backwards. I'm stubborn. I stand there, server starts helping person behind me. Family #2 huffs, we have a child (I bite my tongue and don't make a sarcastic remark like "Glad you noticed, grow up and show him how adults act"). They stomp off and go to the end of the line.

I spoke to the manager about how she was polite even when people were being flat out rude.

[nuit93]

I believe this is a case of a true picky eater and not a super taster.

A coworker had gone on a university trip abroad with a small group.  One girl in the group refused to eat anywhere that was not an American chain restaurant.  The small group didn't want to split up, so the entire time they were there, they ate at McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Burger King, etc. instead of eating any local food.

(I would not have been so nice.  Trying new things is part of the experience for me.)

I had the same problem in HS on trip to Greece and another to Scotland/England. Except it wasn't the kids - it was the chaperons. It was less of a problem in Greece - because there weren't as many US chains especially on the Islands. But the flipped out at a Greek food and dancing dinner we went to, because we were handed shot glasses of ouzo as we walked in. Everyone except a few of the seniors was under 18, which was the legal drinking age I think. Thing is I'm pretty sure that our unethical tour director* had lied to the venue and said we were a University group not a HS group. I don't think we would have been allowed in if they known we were all underaged. 


In England I flat out refused to walk into a McDonalds - which shocked everyone. I told them I didn't eat there in the US why would I travel across the Atlantic Ocean to eat it. I pointed out several places near by with similar prices but better food. Besides if they were going to keep dragging me to Laura Ashley shops instead of going to museums or historical sites, they could at least let me eat a decent meal. The Principal was in charge of our group - and shocked everyone by letting us to to a pub for lunch. We got to eat local restaurants the rest of the trip for lunch. (We had to stay with our grade-level group, instead of having different interest based groups).


*I witnessed her getting kick backs from various venues on both trips. I also saw her bribe guards in Greece.

That reminds me of when I was in Germany in...1999, I think.  I was 17 and with a bunch of other students from my HS, we ranged from 14-18.  I was surprised that the McDonald's food was actually tastier than the fast food back home.

Also, the drinking laws weren't really enforced there.  The law as I understood it was 16 for beer/wine and 18 for hard alcohol, but the 14 year olds in our group joined the rest of us at the bar with no issues.

[Jocelyn]

 Susie in third grade. Old enough to know better.

Well, considering her mother makes the policy that others should give her child whatever she wants to avoid tantrums, Susie might NOT know better. Mommy has basically taught her that if she's greedy and unpleasant, she'll be given her way.

[gramma dishes]

 Susie in third grade. Old enough to know better.

Well, considering her mother makes the policy that others should give her child whatever she wants to avoid tantrums, Susie might NOT know better. Mommy has basically taught her that if she's greedy and unpleasant, she'll be given her way.

Obviously I don't know, but I'm guessing that doesn't work too well for Susie in school.  Teachers (and the other kids) have a way of getting pretty annoyed with the Susies of the world. 

[TootsNYC]

Over Thanksgiving, my parents scheduled a photo shoot for a family picture with a very well known photographer.  I have to admit, this guy was good. 

In the very best picture of the entire family, DH appeared to be standing a bit apart from my brothers and me.  It worked, since DH is a lot taller than my family of shrimps, but my husband HATES the picture because he feels it makes him look "separated" from the rest of the family.

You know, I don't quite agree.  I don't think your husband was a special snowflake at all. 

If this photographer is really that good, s/he should have realized that there was an unnatural and awkward separation of one person from the rest of the group and corrected that on the spot before that shutter ever clicked.  That's kind of Basic Photography 101.

Height differences can be compensated for in many ways.  One example would be by having some family members slightly seated on a high stool or something.  And then of course there's always the magic of Photoshop for "after fixing".

I think your husband's feelings were hurt and I can kind of see that.

We have a picture like that in our family, and it's my husband who looks *smaller* than he really is, because he was seated on a stool and quite a bit behind everyone else. It puts him in the frame, but it completely changed his *scale*; he looks like someone w/ a smaller skeleton.

I wouldn't make him hang it up in our house.

[Margo]

Picky eaters may be super-tasters, but it's not necessarily the case. I know people that claim that is why they are picky, but they will eat things that a true super-taster wouldn't touch, while claiming that their "super-tasting" is what makes them not eat something that has nothing to do with the mutation.

I''m curious about the 'things a true super taster wouldn't touch' part of this comment - surely this wouldn't be the same for every person? If you're a super taster you have a much more acture sense of taste than most people, but like anyone else you still have your own individual likes and dislikes.

 For instance - my sister is a 'super taster' - she has an incredibly acute sense of taste and can identify even a tiny amount of something in a dish. The effect of this is that if a dish has even the smallest amount of something she doesn't eat, it makes the whole dish inedible (she can't just pick out the offending items as the taste with 'taint' what is left. One of the things she can't eat is mushrooms.

However, she is quite an adventurous eater and likes some things which you might think someone with acute sense of taste would not like - strongly spiced foods, hot curry etc. She is fine with those provided that they don't contain any of the specific things she can't eat, such as mushrooms or  cinnamon.

She seems to have inherited the 'super taster' ability from our dad, (although his is much less acute now, as he has almost lost his sense of smell) but the specific things it applies to are different - my sister can't bear mushrooms - my dad loves them. My dad cannot eat raw tomato (literally cannot. it triggers a gag reflex) or cheese. My sister loves both.

The SS picky eaters reminded me of a child who went on the same overseas school trip as I did, once. She was about 12, and would not eat anything which wasn't exactly the same as what she had a home,to the extent of being unwilling to eat the chips (fries) because they weren't the same size as the ones her mum made.  It turned out that she was also horribly homesick. She had never (and I do mean never) spent a night away from her own house and parents - she'd never even had a sleepover at a freind's house, or stayed with relations. It got to the point where the school was on the verge of sending her home early on health grounds, although she did start eating when she was told that that would happen. I'm not sure that I'd class her as a SS, as I think she was mostly just horribly homesick and out of her depth, but I did think that her parents were a bit daft, to have sent her abroad, for a week, when she'd never spent a night away from home before...

[Giggity]

Thank you for posting that. I also get annoyed by the suggestion that picky eaters were "spoiled" by permissive parents.

Why? A lot of them are.

And you know this, how?

Of the ones I know, as I said above all children, I know their parents and I've seen it happen. "Oh honey, it's okay, you don't have to eat the nasty grown-up food if you want, I'll make you some mac and cheese." Where I come from, making an entire extra meal to cater to a child's want is spoiling the child.

[Rohanna]

Margo: supertasters, in general, don't just "taste better" than other people. They specifically pick up one or more types of flavours more strongly than others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

So to have someone claim that they won't eat brocolli because they are a supertaster, while they are cheerfully eating kale, drinking coffee, and love dry wine- and they've never been professionally diagnosed as one- well, it's more likely they just don't like brocolli- since they eat many of the other common food categories.

[siamesecat2965]

Margo: supertasters, in general, don't just "taste better" than other people. They specifically pick up one or more types of flavours more strongly than others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

So to have someone claim that they won't eat brocolli because they are a supertaster, while they are cheerfully eating kale, drinking coffee, and love dry wine- and they've never been professionally diagnosed as one- well, it's more likely they just don't like brocolli- since they eat many of the other common food categories.

While I wouldn't call myself a supertaster, I do experience this with several things, including black pepper. To me, anything that contains it, that's all I can taste, and it burns my mouth like crazy. The same thing with walnuts. I detest the taste of them, and anything I might eat that has them in it, that's all I taste, even the most delicious, fudgy, gooey brownie. So I just try and avoid these ingredients.

[wonderfullyanonymous]

While I wouldn't call myself a supertaster, I do experience this with several things, including black pepper. To me, anything that contains it, that's all I can taste, and it burns my mouth like crazy. The same thing with walnuts. I detest the taste of them, and anything I might eat that has them in it, that's all I taste, even the most delicious, fudgy, gooey brownie. So I just try and avoid these ingredients.

This is me. I don't like the taste of blackpepper, walnuts, cilantro, and oregano. I will use a small amount of black pepper when I am cooking, but I won't use any of the others. I detest Pizza Hut pizza because of the oregano. I love mexican food, but I always ask for them to omit the cilantro.

[Ms_Cellany]

For the black pepper supertasters - try white pepper.  The Sweetie can't stand black pepper and says even a tiny bit overwhelms the taste of anything it's in. I experimented and found that white pepper doesn't do that.

[snowflake]

Margo: supertasters, in general, don't just "taste better" than other people. They specifically pick up one or more types of flavours more strongly than others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

So to have someone claim that they won't eat brocolli because they are a supertaster, while they are cheerfully eating kale, drinking coffee, and love dry wine- and they've never been professionally diagnosed as one- well, it's more likely they just don't like brocolli- since they eat many of the other common food categories.

While I wouldn't call myself a supertaster, I do experience this with several things, including black pepper. To me, anything that contains it, that's all I can taste, and it burns my mouth like crazy. The same thing with walnuts. I detest the taste of them, and anything I might eat that has them in it, that's all I taste, even the most delicious, fudgy, gooey brownie. So I just try and avoid these ingredients.

I wouldn't call myself a supertaster either.  I happily down strong cheeses and I can't tell the difference between wines.  (Really, it tastes like old grape juice.)  But there are some foods where I can't get away from one taste and black pepper and walnuts are on that list as is lemongrass.  When I am served anything with black pepper I just smile politely and swallow without chewing.  For some reason those tastes give me the shudders and I can't notice anything else about the food while tasting them.

I guess garlic and cilantro figure in there too, but I don't mind those at all.

[Isilleke]

I'm a picky eater I guess. Although I also pick up some flavours quicker than my siblings (e.g. for me it's too much spice while they say they barely taste it or when there's paprika in it, it ruins the whole dish for me).
I always blamed my parents for not forcing me to eat everything on my plate, but I see now with my two nephews, that it's probably both. One of my nephews doesn't want to eat meat at all, he refuses. He does have to eat three pieces (he's 3 years old) and manages but it does take him a lot of effort. The same with other food, even if he liked it before, you can never tell if he will eat it again.
The 1 year old on the other hand eats everything and gets very angry when he sees someone eating something that he doesn't have. Even if he doesn't like it, he will just keep on eating it.
So I think that, as a parent, the most you can do is teach your children to always try everything and to be polite about it and hope that one day they will actually learn to eat most things.


I nominate my work for an SS award.

They refuse to hire nonstudents to be hosts (manning the cash register and cleaning cinema rooms) and then get upset when they don't find enough people to work during exam periods.

A friend of mine wanted to come back parttime, because she only found a parttime teaching job and was told that they don't hire nonstudents. Which is their right, but only two days later they send an email to all hosts that they are disappointed with us because they can't find anyone willing to work more during exam periods.
Even if you work 1 or 2 days extra they get mad since it isn't enough. (Which for most of us made us work 5 days of our 14 days we had to study)...