Unsolved Mysteries

You might not know it to look at me, but I am a thinker. I have been since I was a kid, when I would spend an hour or two staring at the weird flower pattern on my bedroom wallpaper pondering great mysteries like why those kids on You Can't Do That on Television didn't just say "I'm not sure" to avoid getting green slimed. Or what would happen if the tooth fairy and Santa had to come on the same night. Would he share the cookies? Would she let him out the front door? Do they even know each other?

 As you can see, I was quite the budding intellectual.

Three decades later, I have acquired as many degrees that confirm my brilliance. Yes, friends, you are reading the wise words of a woman with BA's in both French and Sociology (Mon dieu!), and a graduate degree in Social Work. Pretty swank, huh? No need for trivial things like computer science or international economics, no sir. I spent my years and extensive financial aid dollars at elite institutions fine tuning my conjugation skills and reading up on methodologies for dismantling The Self. Cha-ching, baby, chaaaaa-ching.

Lately I've noticed that, no matter how hard I get my stare on or how long I ponder, there remain certain questions I simply cannot answer. Some of these questions persist day after day, sometimes year after year, and pick away at me, even keeping me awake a night. I thought maybe this blog post would be a good way to invite others to please, please share some insight into these maddening mysteries. Please.


1. Is Alanis Morissette a total idiot or a fucking genius?
Speaking of You Can't Do That on Television, this Alanis Morissette issue really chaps my ass. The mystery is simple: in her seminal 1995 hit "Ironic," Morissette lists off situation after situation which she refers to as "ironic", but none of these things is actually ironic. This song is so maddening to me that I literally feel like I'm going to stroke out when I hear it. "Rain on your wedding day"? Um, shitty luck but not ironic. "Good advice that you just can't take"? Also lame, and possibly an indication that you are fucked up, but still not ironic. "No smoking sign on your cigarette break"? Yep, not ironic. And don't even get me started about the ten thousand spoons...

So the question is: is Alanis Morisette (in the words of my high school German exchange student) so many cups short of a cupboard that she--and her entire production team, apparently--doesn't realize these lyrics do not in fact represent irony? Or, does she know they are not ironic and use them anyway, thereby rendering the entire song truly ironic--meta ironic--because it's called "Ironic" but there is no irony in it, which would make her brilliant?!

I have worked this one over time and again, even talking about it with various friends, and we just can't come to consensus. I deeply want for her to be brilliant, but a little voice inside tells me she is really just a tool with a limited grasp of the concept of irony and has no idea that her big hit sends more learned listeners such as myself into full-on conniption because it is so fucking daft.

2. What is the deal with tail-on shrimp and how are you supposed to eat it?
I don't get you, tail-on shrimp.

I mean, what is your deal? Unless you are going to be featured in shrimp cocktail, where I will pick your tasty ass up by my fingers, you perplex and irritate me. I find it confusing when you are in my scampi or stir-fry. How am I supposed to eat you without getting my fingers all gucked up in my food from getting your tail off? Am I supposed to eat you with the tail on, and somehow spit it out? You make no sense. I've tried to de-tail you with just my silverware and it's impossible. Why are you even here? Are the chefs just lazy and can't be bothered to remove your tail?  Is there some special benefit to cooking you with tail on that is important enough to justify asking the diner to dig their fingers into their food to remove you at the table? If that's the case, why don't you come with instructions? You are so delicious that I continue to order you despite the fact you are an epic pain in the ass.

Fuck you, tail-on shrimp, fuck you.


3. Why the hell does Autocorrect infuse people's texts with filth and nonsense?
Ok, first off, if you don't know what I'm referring to here, let me fill you in: Autocorrect is a smartphone program that "predicts" what you are trying to type into a text message and fills it in for you. Nifty! Except it tends to fill in everything with words and phrases that are pornographic, bizarre, and/or nonsensical.  It throws in shit like "Manboobs" instead of "Monday" and "Poophole" instead of "pool" and typically renders the unwitting texter frustrated if not mortally embarrassed. To be sure, I find replacing the word "purse" with "pussy" as funny as the next person, but c'mon, this program is rigged! I've heard it said that Autocorrect fills in your texts with words you yourself commonly use, but that is a lie, since I personally have had all manner of explicit body parts and weird pop culture references "predicted" into my own texts messages when I know for a fact I have never before typed those words.

So what the fuck? Are the Autocorrect programmers just a bunch of childish frat boys sitting around flooding the dictionary with gems like "assmunch" and "dickinabox" while they share a spliff? Or does the dictionary somehow populate with the words most commonly used by all text users? And if so, who are all these people writing texts with words like "afterbirth" and "manjuice" with such frequency that they would get added to the damn program? Who??

I implore you, LEON readers, if you have any reasonable theories or direct information about these unsolved mysteries, for the love of god, clue me in. I have other more pressing matters I would like to devote some thinking to, like how to get my dog to stop eating cat shit from the litter box and new strategies for getting A. to change the toilet paper roll, for starters. Help a sister out.