"Me Talk Pretty": Like lemmings over a cliff...

My family has never been one to jump on board the popular way of thinking. When it comes to politics, I am convinced that my dad will always disagree with whatever he is being reported by the mainstream media, no matter how undeniable the source is. Unless it is coming from the BBC. The same story that was broadcast on network news will have no validity to my father, but if he hears it told with a English dialect, that same story couldn't be more fact than if he had witnessed the events of the story in person. The whole scenario is odd considering that although you can trace our lineage back to Ireland, but I don't know if my father has met anyone from the British Isles in person.

My sister and I, being of his direct gene pool have inherited this blatant distrust of anything of popular opinion. In school we were both associated with the outsiders, finding solace in drama and music, with all the other lost souls who, for reasons all their own, resist fitting in with the herd. As we have both reached adulthood, we wear our non-conforming traits like a badge of honor. In this world of SUVs, we drive our Ford Escorts with pride, justified that we are using less resources. As people watch American Idol, we foam at the mouth for the next installment of the House reality series on PBS (Frontier House, Colonial House). We voted for Nader, for God's sake. We do not conform!

Or at least I thought so. A few months back, my sister and I hopped on the train for a day in New York City. She lives in New Haven and has friends there allowing her to visit enough to be familiar with the city. On this particular day, we were going to explore Greenwich Village. My sister, armed with her copy of "A Radical's Guide to New York City", and I set out on the first warm day of spring. We set out to follow the trail of other self described non-conformists. We ate at Chumly's a very cool (but cramped) pub that has no markings on the outside to indicate it is a place of business. You have to know the address and pray, as you shove open the door, that you are not walking into someone's private residence.

We were feeling very radical until we happened upon a line that wrapped around a building that appeared to house a bakery. Now a true free spirit, would have paused, saw the line, and continued on their way knowing that nothing good can come out of that many people standing in a queue for something. Not us, we got in line, not even knowing what it was that people were waiting for. The excitement of a good desert outweighed our contempt for the populist mentality.

As we got closer to the shop (there had to be 50 people ahead of us) we could see the window display filled with cupcakes. People were exiting the shop in complete ecstasy. "Have you ever tasted anything so good?" we over heard. With that any chance of us leaving this line and maintaining our sense of individuality went out the window.

We rounded the final corner and the door to the shop. We could now see that there was an organized system implemented to create maximum efficiency in distribution of cupcakes. As we got even closer, a store employee (who could have passed as a twenty-five year old version of the outsiders of our youth) gave us instructions. The gist was take the appropriate sized box, select your cupcakes using a sheet of wax paper, proceed to the register. I soon discovered that the wax was unnecessary as there was no way to avoid being covered in frosting. The impatience of the "line people" grew exponentially as they entered the store, making the window of opportunity to get your cupcakes about 1/8th of a second. My sister did a great job of holding the tide of people cramming forward with her body while simultaneously telling me which cupcakes to pick. Interestingly, the cupcakes that she wanted were about as far away from me as the could get, causing me to balance precariously over the dozens of cupcake landmines to reach those she desired.

We sealed the box and paid for what was sure to be the best cupcake ever created.

We were able to find a seat on a bench across from the bakery. I opened the box and we each gingerly took a cake out of the box. At this 4 people with English accents asked why people were queued up.

"For the cupcakes", I responded.

The presumable leader of the group, asked "Are they any good?"

What a useless question, It made me question why my father trusts anything that the Brits have to say! "Of course they are, can't you see the line?" , I responded, my annoyance growing. The group moved on, ignoring the line an walking into the distance.

Now, with all the distractions gone, an hour after encountering the line, we took a bite in into what had to be the worst cupcake ever created. Then the shame set in. We had been tested and we had failed miserably.