2016-1015-haircutHi, it’s me, Jenn, also known as Cider.

Just back from a fun weekend away with college friends and it inspired me to tell you some ridiculous stories of things I didn’t know that were apparently obvious to everyone else. First of all, the story of how I got the nickname Cider.

I went to school in New England, the land of apple picking, and an intense love of fall and cozy things like, say, drinking hot chocolate or warm cider on a chilly day. Anytime apple cider would come up among friends at school I would insist I didn’t like cider. Now honestly, I don’t think I really remembered drinking cider ever, but I just had it in my head that I didn’t like it. For all I know the last time I tried it I was 4 and had no sense of taste and was a complete idiot, like most 4 year olds (BNev’s daughter excepted, obviously). Anyway, I was mocked mercilessly for refusing to drink cider.

We ate in small dining rooms on campus rather than a big cafeteria (you hush, it was part of the charm… they have changed the dining system a lot since I graduated and it makes me sad when I think about it). This was before every high school on earth had fountain soda machines in them – we also didn’t have them in our dining room. We had pitchers of whatever they were serving that day – sometimes some kind of punch or tea, etc., and of course there was water and milk available from some kind of contraption too.

One night at dinner I poured what I thought was some kind of punch or juice in my glass and sat down to dinner. I drank some and couldn’t tell what it was. I said, “Hey what is this, some kind of juice? It’s really good!” And my friends died laughing because it was cider. They thought I was joking at first and when they realized I wasn’t they laughed for basically the rest of the meal. I did, in fact, like cider. Then and there my nickname was born.

This weekend we made these pieces of art in memoriam to my ridiculousness:

Here are some other things I honestly didn’t know when I went to college which my friends “educated” me on while making quite a bit of fun of me. Please tell me if you also didn’t know any one or more of these, so I can feel like less of an idiot in retrospect. Thanks, friends!

  1. I didn’t know that you could get free refills of soda at fast food restaurants. I literally thought this was a prank when I was first told. I thought someone was trying to trick me into asking for more soda and that I would surely be laughed at. This was before most fountain soda machines were just freely accessible in the dining room of fast food eateries. I know, I know. Eyeroll.
  2. I didn’t know that “a dunkin donut” was a thing. I mean I knew the chain, but I didn’t know that plain cake donuts were called “Dunkin donuts”. Did you? I mean. I had no idea. This one was particularly amusing to my army brat roommate who pointed out that it’s not like she was a New England native (neither was I) so I should have known.
  3. I didn’t know that “have it your way” was the slogan at Burger King because at one point it was the first fast food place where you could actually request what condiments were on your burger, I guess McDonald’s et al would tell you to go jump in a lake if you didn’t want every single topping on your sandwich.
  4. I didn’t know Cindy was a nickname for Cynthia. I still claim this is insane; (a) it shouldn’t be and (b) why would I know it was? It makes no sense! I’m still about 30% convinced this is a trick that most of society is playing on me.

As you can probably tell from the prevalence of terrible foods involved in these facts, I did not have the healthiest eating habits in college. What are you gonna do? I think I made $2 an hour at my work study job. SIGH.

Tell me a story of something you didn’t know below so I can feel better.