oreo grande

There are, quite honestly, too many beautiful women on the DC metro.

And I realize that "too many" sounds like an impossibility. Too many beauti...? That's like saying dinner had too much mashed potatoes. What do you mean?

There's too many because I can't go a day without experiencing, and subsequently having to suppress, marriage proposal tourrettes.

And this isn't good proposing. It hasn't been thought-out.

There's no impassioned plea. There's no endearing puns. No holy metro-mony.

I haven't bribed the conductor to make a big romantic fuss about it, announcing over the loudspeaker: This is Vienna station, last station on the orange line. Please check to see that you have all your belongings and take them with you when leaving the train. And, will one lucky woman also take Chris? He doesn't know your name yet, but you'll recognize him as the man who is both staring at you lasciviously and making an exaggerated gesture with his hands. He wants you to know he's miming putting a ring on your finger, and not vaginal penetration.

I won't even flirt: Excuse me, but food and beverages are prohibited on the train. So I'm afraid your sweet buns aren't allowed.

And that line would work too. It's a solid line. The only potential problem arises when they're actually carrying food onto the train, in which case I would come across as an unyielding self-appointed authority figure. But if she's not respecting the no-food policy, she's clearly the sort of rebel I shouldn't be flirting with anyhow. A year or two into that relationship and I'd be desperately using my bare hands to tunnel into Arizona, with a heart full of fear and a colon full of heroin.

But none of that can happen, because this is bad proposing. Terrible proposing, conducted with the demeanor of a weakly enthusiastic man collecting signatures for an admittedly ineffectual petition – bouncing from person to person, eagerly clinging to anyone that isn’t purposefully diverting their eyes to the nearest wall. This isn’t true love, this is senseless love, founded on that wicked combination of proximity and mildly good looks from a specific and rarely-viewed angle. This is the kind of love that produces spontaneous bathroom sex. This is the kind of love that, in its wake, leaves you relieved to discover you’ve only just got crabs.

But I must point out that my fascination with metro women is not purely a thing of lust. Fleeting thoughts of marriage take a back seat to my primary interest: the unusually high percentage of attractive DC women, which I find to be an intellectual curiosity. I see myself as less a leering pervert and more a sort of Darwin figure, encountering, and being subsequently intrigued by, a population's phenotypic peculiarities. I don't know how the DC ladies do it. I have to take my hat off to them. Because I need something to hide what's going on in my pants.

So why don't I pursue anonymous metro women? It seems like a great idea. Surely the opportunity to be confronted by strange men is one of the biggest allures of public transportation. It makes the whole experience that much more charming.

I don't do it because admiring metro ladies is like shopping while hungry.

I was in Safeway the other day. I had already bought a ridiculous amount of yogurt.

Which is necessary because I'm in an unbreakable cycle of yogurt binging. An entire shelf of my fridge is dominated by yogurts, and the yogurts have even begun invading adjacent fridge territories. The pudding principality, for instance, is under great threat.

They've disrupted the natural order. It's a disturbance that necessitates an urgent remedy, and so I'll eat an astounding amount of the yogurts in one sitting (though 'sitting' isn't entirely accurate as I'm usually prone and moaning) - paring down their numbers to acceptable levels. It's a bit like hunters limiting the number of deer; however, crashing my car into a wide-eyed tub of yogurt has never been acknowledged as a probable risk. So the analogy has its limitations, but don't we all?

Anyhow, the yogurt cycle is perpetuated because, when eliminating yogurts, I always go too far! A once thriving yogurt community gets reduced to 3 or 4 flavors I don't really care for.

The only solution is to buy loads more yogurt. And it won't be the perfect number of yogurt. It will be too much yogurt. The perfect number of yogurts is a fantasy. A myth. It doesn't exist.

And so I come home bearing a surplus. Forced, yet again, to drastically cut their numbers in an unhinged yogurt-gorging frenzy.

But that hadn't happened yet. I was still in Safeway.

After I put way too many yogurts in my basket, I strolled round to the dessert chamber to check if the Miniature Cappuccino Eclairs were available.

Eclairs are tricky. If you're after an eclair, it's important you see a label on the pastry, or contact a store manager, to confirm it is indeed an eclair. Otherwise, you could fall prey to the doughnut bar scam.

A doughnut bar is like this:
http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/2010/06/08/2012061835.jpg

See? It's got the basic dimensions of an eclair. So you might think it's an eclair. You might bring it home and brew a pot of Columbian coffee. Get out your crossword. Your erasable pen. Your reading glasses. And a napkin. Because you're probably going to get eclair cream all over your chin!

Then you bite into the eclair and all you get is dough. That's puzzling. Maybe the cream is more towards the middle of this eclair.

So you bite again. Still dough. What the hell is going on here? You rip the imposter in half and there's no cream. Not even a trace. You've just wasted $1.25 and your morning is ruined. God, the crushing disappointment of it all.

Mistakenly buying a doughnut bar is like having sex with, what turns out to be, a transvestite. You feel more than a little betrayed. And it makes you wary the next time you think you're buying an eclair.

But then, a few hundred consumed eclairs later, you start to let your guard down. And that's when the doughnut bar gets you. That's when the creamless little trickster makes you his fool.

And when you're sitting there, dumbfounded, holding the lump of dough up to your eyes, thoroughly inspecting it in disbelief... you're left to wonder: why was an ordinary doughnut parading around like it was an eclair? There are two distinct shapes for two distinct types of pastries. Doughnuts are ring/nut shaped. Eclairs are vaguely cylindrical. Defying these accepted laws of doughnutry is anarchy. It's the work of devious provocateurs who've no consideration for the consequences of their arbitrary and cruelly deceptive baking.

Safeway's cappuccino eclairs are labeled. So I know they're eclairs. I was not in any danger.

This time, there was no cappuccino variety. Just regular miniature eclairs. I'd have to come back some other day.

But I really had my heart set on getting some kind of dessert. One might argue the tremendous mass of yogurt in my basket was enough dessert. But a man doesn't think rationally when he's just discovered there's no miniature cappuccino eclairs. No. He panics.

I began darting about Safeways in search of a replacement. Not necessarily an eclair equivalent (which would be a cream puff, if you're wondering), but rather a special dessert I could eat on the weekend.

I came across Oreos, which are astounding in their variety. There are Oreo cakes, Oreos with different types of cream filling, Oreos with different amounts of cream filling, Oreos covered in fudge coating, Oreo straws, Vitamin Enhanced Oreos and Oreo fabric softener / pasta sauce / toothpaste. There is clearly no limit to what the Oreo can achieve.

None of these Oreo products were diet-friendly, and so I began to leave the Oreo aisle, dejected. Until something caught my eye....

100 Calorie Packs of Oreos! How exciting! But was this really my best option? Is this worth the money?

I stood transfixed, like an RCA dog, intensely staring at the 100 Calorie Pack of Oreos. A heated debate was raging internally. Out of all the cookies in the store, why would I want these? Perhaps because Oreos have something special. Something that makes them better than those other cookies that look the same but are mysteriously cheaper. I could get those other cookies… but how would I know it's okay to dunk them?

I know I can dunk Oreos. But, wait a second, these aren't Oreos! They're Oreo thin crisps! Little chocolatey cracker things. With white sprinkles on them? What the hell is that? Is that supposed to replace the cream filling? Is this somebody's idea of a joke?

The raison detre of the Oreo is cream filling. What is the stated mission of these sprinkles? Because I'm not convinced they contribute little more to this cookie than a slight variance in pigmentation. If they were put there to assuage fears that the cream was utterly neglected, then they've failed miserably.

I was disgusted. And yet…these Oreo thin crisps could be the ideal Oreo alternative. Maybe, just maybe, dare I say it? Better than the original Oreo. The chocolate cracker would surely retain the distinguishing chocolatley Oreo flavor, but with an incredible new crispy texture! And these sprinkles… these poor misunderstood sprinkles. They deserved not a fraction of my ire. They are not a buffoon’s cream surrogate, but rather the final product of years of laboratory research. Begoggled scientists have managed to harness the distinctive Oreo cream experience and package it in sprinkle form. If I were to buy these phenomenal cookies – I may very well spend the rest of my life eating them. They will become the center of my universe. I will come home to the delicious embrace of these cookies every night.

But, then again… there isn’t any cream filling…

I was alternatively falling in and out of love with these cookies – which I’d never eaten – by the second. Having put the box of Oreos into my basket and then back on the shelf upwards of twenty times, it struck me:

These are just cookies. Just cookies. I don't need cookies. Cookies aren't going to change anything. I'm going to take them home and, if I even bother to try them, they're going to be boring little chocolate discs with flavorless white sprinkles on them. And half the cookies will probably have less than three sprinkles. Nabisco didn't get where it is today by liberally doling out sprinkles.

I put the box back on the shelf and ran out of the store before I could slip up and make a terrible decision.

Oreo cookies aren’t the answer, even if I’ve compromised for the more responsible 100 calorie variety. I only think they’ll be perfect because it’s what’s in front of me at the time.

And that’s all you metro ladies are. A 100 Calorie Pack of Oreo Cookies.

…..and what I need is some miniature cappuccino eclairs