Friday, May 12, 2006

I'm easy to brainwash

Gee Wye Bee Are Eff Vee. GYBRFV. Get your bedroom ready for vacuuming. Instilled at a young age when dad called this acronym out in advance of his weekly chore. I still think of it now as I pick everything up off the floor getting ready to vacuum. (one of my chores)

The Ritz Carlton Hotel is a place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission, we pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambiance. The Ritz Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well-being and fulfulls even the unexpressed wishes and needs of the guest. (This is the credo - from memory, I swear I did no googling. Every employee must memorize it. I ceased working there in 1994.)

Why choose unhappiness? This also came from my father who would say this after I had, oh I don't know, smashed my toe in the car door or something. It used to infuriate me. Then it just poisoned my mind and so now whenever I'm unhappy, I'm forced to look at how much of that I'm choosing. And let me tell you, it's a lot of choosing. I've also learned since that other people do not really want to hear this either, especially after traumatic events. (You don't want to know.)

Once I read that milk was for babies and that nowhere else on the planet do we have adult mammals drinking the milk, (I'm smiling about using "the" right there, but I don't know why) I immediately gave it up. The only milk I'll have now is if em's chocolate cake is in the glass at the same time.

No Pink Chicken, Ever. After the food handling course and certification in California, I'm a chicken preparation nazi and rarely if ever order it out. Rarely have it in for that matter. And anyway I hate the whole bone thing. I have to be ravenous to chomp on a drumstick or eat spareribs. Bones are ucky. Precooked, pressed, frozen chicken fingers are okay. (I know, so white-trashy, what can I tell ya?)

20 comments:

Kevin said...

And here I was gonna invite you over for dinner: Grandma's Secret Pink Chicken and Milk Casserole. Dee-lish!

Joel said...

I am soooo with you on the precooked processed pressed chicked chunks. Mmmmmm...no bones = Good

Snooze said...

As always, what you share from your random thoughts is just fascinating. I can still remember my canned speech from working at Science North as a teenager, 20 years ago. Amazing what we can't get out of our minds.

Lee said...

> No Pink Chicken, Ever.

Yeah. I like my men older too.

And less sunburnt.

St. Dickeybird said...

Awww, Lee beat me to it!
:)

Jason said...

My mom used to call cereal, milk soup.

toobusyliving said...

I had to take a two-day safe food handling course when I was managing a chic little brasserie in Calgary - it was after we had a very unfortunate outbreak of...I don't even want to think about it.

Anyway, I was so fed-up with their message that basically all food that is not well-done is poison that during our lunch break on the first day I ate a big plate of steak tartare just to "show them," if that makes any sense.

Chunks said...

My Pape used to always say "Laugh the whole world laughs with you, cry, you cry alone you potlicker!" Funny how some things stay in your memory. I also remember the initiation pledge that we had to recite in Grade nine, which makes me laugh.

Cats also have milk, but only because humans give it to them. Cows' milk is meant to grow baby cows, but I still drink it. I like milk.

Costco has boneless, skinless chicken breasts and if you cook the pink out, they are wonderful!

CoffeeDog said...

Chicken on the bone is more tender and grills better, IMO.

Milk, does a body good. I am on a calcium kick.

Patricia said...

i could (and often do) eat chicken every day. love the stuff. grilled, baked, stir-fried. i drink skim milk every day, too. can't get enough.

the "choosing happiness" thing is huge. right up there with "so and so makes me feel a certain way." i've tried to eliminate this thinking and it's helped me take more responsibility for my reactions to life. i choose to feel a certain way. i choose to surround myself with people who will most likely make it easier for me to choose happiness. some days it's word games. some days it's helpful. like so many things, it's a habit to be nurtured.

nice, thought provoking post.

Anonymous said...

I promise on my honour to do my best to God, the Queen and my country, to help other people at all times, especially those at home.

I don't think I will ever get The Girl Guide Promise out of my head. 26 years and counting.

Jane

GayProf said...

In theory, I like the “Why choose unhappiness?” notion. Using it, though, after slamming your hand in a car-door seems a bit extreme. I mean, that involves a great deal of self-denial to ignore a potentially broken hand.

I hate chicken with bones. It creeps me out, but I have food issues.

Anonymous said...

You've really got me thinking now about how strange it was to pledge to God, queen and country. So I checked and the updated version isn't so different:

I promise to do my best
To be true to myself, my God/faith and Canada
I will help others
And accept the Guiding Law.

The Queen's been replaced with Canada but they're still pledging to God/faith.

Jane

dpaste said...

We used to fight over the chicken drumsticks when I was a kid. They remain my favorite part of the bird. I never liked milk. Still don't.

St. Dickeybird said...

Coffeedog - "chicken on the bone is more tender"

I now have coffee all over my keyboard.
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
:)

dantallion said...

Just the thought of pink chicken is enough to surpress my appetite completely. Grosses me out, that.

Anonymous said...

For some reason, I memorized this statement on my toothpaste 35 or 40 years ago:

Crest has been shown to be an effective decay-preventative dentifrice that can be of significant value when used in a concienciously-applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care. From the Am. Dental Assn.

Anonymous said...

I drink about 2 litres of milk a day. In my family chicken nuggets were a food group. I always choose unhappiness when I hurt a body part. (Saying "owie, owie, owie" out loud really does help.) I still think of the phrase "how many sleeps?", which I learned in kindergarten, whenever I'm calculating how many days until something.

Cooper

r said...

Now I know where that phrase "why choose unhappiness" came from.

And yes, I am one of those whom it infuriates.

(So I guess that's what I'm choosing when I hear it?)

Anyway... "Things could always be worse" is something I live by. It sounds negative, but really isn't.

Not into pink chicken, like milk with cookies, cereal and cake, and chicken fingers with honey mustard dressing is the bomb.

(did I really just say something was "the bomb"? Shoot me now.

Tallguy said...

Good thing I never eat chicken! And turkey would just about kill me, I think. Never touch milk either... so have to be so careful when eating out. People put the darndest things into their food!

Do you know what they make chicken nuggets out of? Do you really want to know?

Funny what we will put into our mouths, if we don't have to go out and kill it and clean it. Batter everything and deep fry it, and it's all good! hahaha