In Theory

Graduate school is a special time in an intellectual's life. It is a rarefied opportunity to acquire lofty knowledge that will serve the scholar for years to come. One develops skills to discern which professors are least likely to assign copious amounts of work. One figures out which secretary to cozy up to so dissertation paperwork will get signed and submitted by deadlines. One learns what to answer in a psychological battery to appear dangerously psychotic, and wonder if the professor will refer said person to university counseling. One can have a little clean fun with the non-English-speaking professor by loudly repeating in class her same obscene-sounding mispronounciations of statistical theories. One  identifies the professors closest to retirement to put on a dissertation committee. One might even realize that a dissertation chair with a reputation for ethical lapses might make the perfect dissertation chair.

One thing that is not learned in six years of doctoral study is anything about the actual subject being studied. That is reserved for a very special post-doc period called "studying for the licensing exams." These magical months, spent almost exclusively in the company of flash cards, practice tests, CDs, and used study guides, is not only reserved for psychology Ph.Ds, however: My attorney and physician friends will also have flashbacks recalling this time.

I was going to include a clever paragraph about how, while studying, I felt like I was embodying most  of the theories I was memorizing--attributing the gist of a one-sentence overview of someone's lifelong theory to describe my experience. Similar to how medical students convince themselves that they have symptoms of every obscure disease they read about. But, sadly, another hallmark of the infamous "licensing-exam-cram" is that as soon as the examinations are finished, the information is apparently no longer available in either short- or long-term memory. Especially if you were, say, nine-months pregnant for the national exam (with the only bathroom outside, through the courtyard, and take a left), and nursing every two hours for the state exam (talk about incentive to finish a three-hour exam quickly). I know there are all sorts of theories about information processing and encoding that explain why these facts have such a short shelf-life in one's brain, but I really don't recall the specifics of those theories. I vaguely recall some theories involving unsuspecting students administering electric shock, and other unsuspecting students being imprisoned. Psychological researchers sure are a misanthropic bunch.

However, I am proud to say that after six years of graduate school, thousands of hours of pre- and post-doctoral training, and hours of standardized tests with cut-throat pass rates, I do indeed recall two theories. Actually, apparently not so much "theories" as "effects." The first one is the Zeigarnik Effect. The gist of the ZE is that we tend to continue to think about tasks that we have not completed. So if you are working on a complicated project at work, for example, it will plague you until you have finished it. I suppose this makes sense, except clearly Dr. Zeigarnik did not have a sufficient sampling of true obsessors in his research study. For those of us who would be outliers for Zeigarnik's bell curve, there is always a reason to continue to ruminate over a task, even if it has been completed, graded, published, and engraved in stone somewhere.

The other effect comes from Dr. Garcia, a researcher who perhaps was a childhood finicky eater (an early "foodie" perhaps?) and made it his life's mission to prove to his mother that he wasn't trying to personally shame her by not eating his vegetables. Cue "The Garcia Effect." This theory posits that we develop aversions to certain foods--and similar foods--after a bad experience with said food. So if you ever became physically ill after eating, let's say, cottage cheese, you may have a lifelong, literal distaste for cottage cheese. And, perhaps, yogurt or rice pudding. This is one of a long line of social science theories that is seemingly so self-evident, any parent of a three-year old could have come up with it. The example that is commonly given to illustrate this theory is that someone who has a bad experience with tangerines may also avoid oranges and clementines. Considering most of us cannot tell the difference among these three fruits, I would say it is a safe bet we would avoid all of them if any of them ever sickened us.

I have my own theory about social science research theories: Most researchers could save years of effort running complex statistical models if they would spend five minutes around actual people. Or, more specifically, children. My daughter was once greatly traumatized by a smidgeon of basil on her penne-with-butter at a 5-star restaurant. Had it not been for our dear Dr. Garcia, I would never have been able to anticipate that the mere sight of a single sesame seed, spice, or herb would be enough to ask the waiter to extract the offending particle with surgical tweezers. And if I ever want to see my child's face drained of all color, I merely have to ask if she would like to have some pineapple. "Remember I tried pineapple and didn't like it?" she agitatedly reminds me... Yes, in 2008--a half a lifetime ago! Well done, Dr. Garcia, well done. Hmmm. I have a readymade sample to observe (my kids) and a Ph.D. in psychology. I am going to obsess (thanks, Dr. Zeigarnik) until I come up with my own Effect.

Portion Control

For the past few months, I have had the good fortune to have my weekday take-out lunch assembled by a particularly heavy-handed worker at the assembly-line style restaurant, Chipotle. This has meant my daily salad has included more than the average dollops of roasted chili-corn salsa, shredded vegetable-based rennet cheese, and sustainably raised chicken. A coworker who frequents a different Chipotle branch (and, hence, has never experienced the topping-overload from my unselfish server), informed that her location normally charges extra for especially hearty helpings. I’ve hit the jackpot with this plastic-gloved altruist who the manager has entrusted with doling out the cubes of pepper adobo steak, naturally raised pork carnitas, slowly braised barbacoa (no idea what that is), and fajita vegetable toppings. Too bad he doesn’t wear his Chipotle-issued nametag so I could properly credit him for his largesse.

I actually didn’t pay too much attention to the heft of my salad toppings until a few weeks back, when I opened my salad at my desk to find it to be limp and concave, as though its very soul of chicken chunks had been extracted and replaced with a mere spattering of foul morsels. I had grown accustomed to mounds of marinated chicken, smoky pinto beans, and tomatillo-green chili salsa; now, a sad pothole of romaine lettuce mocked me from the take-out container.

Last week, my salad savior was still not at his station, causing me great pains, hungerwise. One day he was at the cashier station, which did me no good at all. Later in the week, not anywhere to be seen. I considered specifically requesting his ingredient-scooping services, to see if maybe he had been relegated to pork-chopping or lettuce-shredding duty. But not only was I intimidated by the fast assembly-line pace of the environmentally sensitive fastfood chain, I couldn’t quite figure out what to ask and whom to ask. I rehearsed various scenarios in my head: “Excuse me,” I would ask the tortilla warmer/rice scooper (first in the assembly line), “Is the guy who sometimes works the chicken/cheese/salsa shift available to service my order?” The Chipotle I habituate has workers from all over the world, so my internal rehearsals usually involve me repeating the same request several times, getting louder and making more dramatic hand-gestures with each attempt, while the restaurant goes silent, E.F Hutton-style.

Probably if I had never experienced the glory of a salad that weighs more than a newborn, I wouldn’t have thought the more recent version of my $6.42 salad to be deficient in any way. But, knowing that it has indeed been possible to make virtuous salad-eating into an extreme sport, I just wish I could experience that roughage high just one more time…..

Hoard, Hoard Again

Being in the line of work I am (psychology), I have conducted many informal self-assessments and have a reasonable sense of my behaviors that would be diagnosed as clinically pathological, and the habits I have that can be categorized as "loveable". So it is with professional confidence that I share a proclivity of mine that falls squarely into the latter category: I like to accumulate food and food-related products. Not to the extent where you cannot enter my home without tripping on heads of cauliflower, but more in the "why buy one when you can buy two or  three?" mindset.

I have very little interest in food that has been prepared or cooked. I like to make some meals and have had success despite my refusal to follow a recipe or use any measuring implements. Rather than have to deal with putting unused raw food into a ziplock bag, I tend to cook however much is included in the pack I purchased. Whereas my husband will meticulously measure a "portion" size of spaghetti for each family member and put aside the rest, I just throw the entire packet in the boiling water, whether it be for one person or an entire soccer team. And for the mounds of leftovers that invariably remain at the end of a meal, I am just as happy to dump it down the disposal and let it do its magic. The satisfaction never dissipates of witnessing machinery pulverize waste until there is no longer evidence that you have wasted (sorry, starving kids in far-away lands....). And I have never been the type of parent who cared too much whether my children ate everything on their plates. So I don't see my issue having much to do with fear of malnutrition or emaciaton. Trust me, these are not problems ever seen in my bloodline.

Rather, I overbuy. I wouldn't have thought much about the number of packets of rice cakes, boxes of Organic Raisin Bran Clusters or pounds of English Cucumbers that I buy if a cashier at Trader Joe's hadn't once asked me if I were preparing for a camping trip. True, he may more have been referring to my slightly unkempt hair and rustic-looking ensemble, composed of layered cardigans and a baggy skirt. And come to think of it, I may have been going through a beefy jerky phase at the time. Perhaps, even though it was mid-day in the middle of a work week, and I had a badge on a lanyard indicating I was in the process of a work day, he thought I was going to grab a canteen and ditch my office in favor of a tent and Coleman grill. For the record, nature makes me sneeze and wheeze, and animals smaller than wildebeast make me nervous.

But, the cheerful cashier had a point. I do not have a family of 12 who require more than a bag or two of bags of capellini in a given week. I do not have a catering business on the side. I live in an urban-ish area and actually live .3 miles from the aforementioned Trader Joe's. Truthfully, I do not believe there was ever a time when I needed Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil when it was not stocked on the shelves. So it is bewildering, even to a licensed mental health professional like myself, why I cannot approach the checkout line without 3 bags of shredded parmesan cheese (in my defense, once in February 2006 TJs was out of this cheese and I had to come back the next day for it...).

And the compulsion is not limited to store-bought food. Sugar-substitute packets, condiments, napkins and plastic utensils are not safe from my paws. I do, however, draw the line at those little packets of salt and the high-sodium soy sauce packets. I am not a big fan of sodium. No matter where I have worked, the top drawer of my desk has been devoted to packets of unused condiments. And they remain unused until the day I switch jobs, when they are promptly thrown away. You would think there might be some sentimentality involved in ensuring that these little packets of spicy perfection are passed on to a worthy soon-to-be ex-coworker. But no. Maybe there is a tinge of disappointment in my never becoming "known" in any job I have had as the seasoning go-to person. I am not one to self-promote, but I have learned the hard way that a reputation is not earned through silence...

Supermarket Hits and Missus

     I have grocery shopping down to a science. And I pay for groceries by credit card. I have a system for food shopping that ensures I always have the necessities stocked (olive oil, Honey Nut Cheerios, diet Hansen's ginger ale), but leaves room for me to exercise my creative spirit. Trust me, feeding your inner artiste at the grocery store does not lend itself to budgeting. Impulse buys like venison or steel cut oatmeal do not seem to go on sale with any regularilty. So I email myself a grocery list and add items by re-forwarding the message to myself with the added items. As an aside, not only is it fun to get so much email (even if they are from me), but attempting to decode the final list on my Blackberry with all of those forwarding headers embedded in the text while pushing a shopping cart requires superior multitasking skills. 

     I have described my modus operandi for grocery acquisition to give a sense of how such a precise and complex system cannot include an option for "estimate price and go to ATM machine." Did George Bush (the senior) estimate the cost of pork rinds and take out cash to buy them at the grocery store? Of course not, he let the scanner do its magic and the snack got paid in some way that did not seem to involve cash. Ok, I don't have an entourage to buy me things... but maybe someday... Anyway, although George H.W. Bush was bewildered by the modernity of a scanner back in the 1980s, I embrace this wonderful machine and how it levels the playing field for cashiers throughout the supermarket industry. Gone is the need to ask the customer where an item was found so the cashier could go check the price. Just scan the items and move along. It;'s a beautiful thing.     So, except for one time in recent memory--an attempt to locate rice cakes in a local market in Phoenix (don't ask)--I can find my way around virtually any chain market in any major, left-leaning metropolitan area in the US. I'm that good. So I do not need to enlist the help of stock people, managers, or deli counter workers. If I am craving a quick hit of prepared sushi, I avoid having to converse with the market's resident sushi chef and go with whatever is already displayed. Don't bother me when I am in my element. 
     So you can imagine my frustration when the Grande Finale of the shopping experience--the Check Out--is marred by the cashier's inevitable awkward attempt at interpersonal relations. The cashier has undoubtedly heard me mutter about how slow the line is, sigh loudly, say (to no one in particular) that a new lane should be opened, and curse at the woman in front of me paying by check. Do I seem like someone who then wants to have the pronounciation of my name clarified? It never fails that the crackerjack cashier looks at my credit card and asks me: "Do you need help out, Mrs.--is that Le-veeeeen or Le-viiiiine?" First of all, unless you are going to announce my name at the Academy Awards or present me with a Nobel Prize, do you think I care how you pronounce my name? Let's have a little less chatting and a little more scanning.. And--and this is the killer--why does the cashier assume I am a "Mrs."? Did he google me on his Sidekick when he was pretending to look up the code for eggplants? 
     This attempt at connecting with customers was undoubtedly forced on cashiers during a mandatory staff training, but I am not there to be profiled, I am there to buy paprika and cottage cheese. It drives me batty not only because of the sheer irritation factor, but also because there is no equivalent for "Missus" for the Misters of the world. Until there is a term that identifies a male's marital status, let's just keep it all neutral. Ms., Mr., or how about "Hey, you?" It irks me so much that it almost makes me want to remain anonymous by paying cash... almost. 

The Food Detectives

Just to be clear: My children have no genetic predisposition toward neatness or
finickiness. They also do not have any modeling at home for being sticklers or,
for that matter, even remotely tidy or noticing minutia. You could say we live
in the macro, not the micro. So you can imagine my bewilderment at the acute
attention to detail that both of my children display when it comes to anything
that mars the aesthetic perfection of their food.

My children both hold the integrity of their food up to the highest possible
standard. As an example, a Trader Joe’s soy corn dog that has imperceptibly
separated from its stick requires a dissertation-like analysis from me to my
daughter as to how it tastes the same and has to be separated from its stick in
order to eat it anyway. My son, noting that lima beans were replaced by edamame
in a favorite recipe, will sulk until my evil eye threatens him to take at least
a few grudging bites.

Again, these are the very same children who have no problem holding a chewed
piece of gum in their hand until they remember to hand it to me to be discarded,
have no qualms about going through the day with pizza sauce stuck to their chin,
or lick melted chocolate from a crumpled wrapper. But when it comes to the
tiniest imperfection in their food, all bets are off.

A recent example involves my son taking great offense at the presence of a tiny
white speck in the paella his father just spent two hours making (from a recipe
in the NY Times, no less). Although my son had just enjoyed two helpings of the
paella, the third serving revealed a less-than-pureed something-or-other. “What
is this white thing?” he asked, motioning to a tiny whitish seed-shaped item in
his paella. After spending several minutes explaining the intricacies of a
paella recipe and the sophisticated flavor that results from many disparate
ingredients mingling together, I say in my most neutral voice, “It must be an
almond” (which I knew from first-hand experience because my role in the
paella-making was to puree almonds, spinach and garlic).  “But I don’t like
nuts,” my son pointed out, carefully avoiding the offensive speck while
finishing his third helping.

Earlier in the weekend, my daughter, who ritualistically eats Honey Nut Cheerios
in a yellow bowl, on a white tray, with a spoon and 2% milk, shrieked in horror
while having breakfast. Conjuring up images of fingertips being found in
fast-food chili, or the horrors of the egg farms, I took a deep breath and
inquired as to the reason for her distress. “LOOK!” she screamed, pointing to a
tiny brown fleck on an “O” of her Cheerios, “TAKE IT OFF!!.”  Try explaining at
6:45 in the morning to  a 4-year-old that the speck of faux-honey-nuttish-oat on
the Cheerio is just an extra dose of the faux-honey-nuttish-oatiness that she
professes to love. While it is a part of my motherly duty to educate my children
to the random unpredictability of life, it also is not beyond the job
description to give up and pour a new bowl of Cheerios.