Sunday, November 9, 2008

Culturally Oblivious?

Every Sunday night, our little group of research techs (5-7 of us usually) get together for dinner, usually with some sort of theme.  Tonight, for some reason, was pizza.  After 5-6 years of college life (depending on how you count), I thought that I had pretty much come across all the different forms of pizza imaginable, including everything on the gradient from make it from scratch pizza (like my mom makes) through pizza delivered to your door, with the in betweens ranging along a laziness gradient from picking up dough from our favorite local pizza joint, to buying dough in a bag from the grocery store, buying a premade crust, and heating up a frozen pizza.

Well my friends, apparently I am not so worldly as I had believed.  Tonight, for the first time, I came across pizza dough in a cardboard can.  Courtesy of that creepy dough boy dude.  As a well educated, scientific minded, practical sort of guy, I was like, 'No problem.  There's a little tab here on the side, obviously I'm supposed to pull it, and the top will come off or something'.

Alas, this turned out to be rather a major understatement.  Shortly after pulling the tab, the whole thing came apart in my hands, divulging a whitish blob of dough and producing a loud bang.  Upon closer inspection, after my heart rate returned to normal, I concluded that the contents must have been stored under pressure, which puzzles me.  Consulting Eugenie, apparently this storage method for pastry and dough is pretty common.  That's what I get for my cavalier assumption of comprehensive knowledge of the world of pizza.

At dinner, conversation turned to music, and people were quizzing each other on songs and artists and the like, especially with regards to country music.  Feeling somewhat left out of the conversation, as my knowledge of country musicians is next to non-existent, as you will soon agree, I wracked my brain trying to come up with the name of a singer that was country.  Nothing.  A set of furrowed eyebrows and a good bit of head scratching later, I though finally I had received inspiration:  

"What about that Bon Bon guy - Bon Jobi or something like that?"

*uproarious laughter ensues*

Apparently it's Bon Jovi, not Bon Jobi (either way, what the heck kind of a name is that?  How do parents come up with this stuff?).  And he's not a country singer, although I could swear the one time I saw a picture of the dude he was wearing a cowboy hat.

Who knew?  Who knew. 

8 comments:

Eugenie said...

I was quite confused when you where trying to explain how a pastry can scared the crap out of you...

oh silly sheltered theo... :-P

And Bon Jovi? How the heck did you screw that up?!

Transient Theorist said...

HEY :-P

I was really close, okay? b and v are really similar. Spaniards pronounce v like b, so maybe I just was using a spanish accent, or something. Or maybe I only ever saw the dude on spanish television? Who knows.

Anonymous said...

Yes, culturally oblivious for sure :p
Did you know biscuits come in packages like that? I won't make fun of you for being scared though. I KNOW it's going to happen and I still freak out.

Karina said...

lol! I can see the whole scene playing out far too well. I always thought it was so cool when the can popped!

My most mortifying pizza moment was in RFC when the woman I was working with said one night, "Bummer, I really wanted to use my pizza base (prebaked crust) tonight but I don't have any canned spaghetti." Huh? Why do you need canned spaghetti? "Oh, you spread it on the pizza base and put cheese on top." Eeew! Gross!

PhizzleDizzle said...

Eugenie once said in a comment on my blog that you could be pretty culturally oblivious (response to a post of mine about how my husband doesn't know anything about pop culture).

I think she's totally right. Funny story! Bon Bon....haha. And his parents are totally normal. His name is Jon (Bon Jovi -- born Bongiovi).

Transient Theorist said...

@sarcozona

Biscuits too? What will they think of next. We always made biscuits with my granny's recipe, rolled out the dough, and then used a floured wine glass from the special china cupboard to cut out round circles of dough...

Transient Theorist said...

@Karina

Did they seriously put the spaghetti on the pizza too? Ick.

Transient Theorist said...

@PhzDz

Sigh. So my naivete is becoming well known even on the internet? Alas. I learn new things all the time, and keep thinking that maybe someday I'll actually not be so oblivious. But apparently that day is yet to come.

Bongiovi. I get it now. Like Don Giovanni? Probably the music is not so similar though.