No Lies, I Love Fries

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Today I happily stumbled across the knowledge (a perk of being a librarian) that it's National French Fries Day. To celebrate, I feel morally obligated to share this unflattering selfie of me rocking a sweatshirt that's completely preposterous for someone my age to be wearing.

It's age-inappropriate because until I Googled it today, I didn't know what the saying "Fries Before Guys" really means. Thank you, Urban Dictionary! Luckily it just refers to the unwritten law that your fries (female friends) should always come before guys you are "romantically" interested in. In retrospect, it's an obvious play on the slogan "Bros before hoes."

Having to choose friends over "dating" interests isn't something that comes up too frequently in my world, but it's a sentiment I can get behind...girl/lady power and all that.

I obtained this awesome sweatshirt from a much-younger than me theater friend, Emily. She must have seen me continually eyeing up her sweatshirt during rehearsal (it was part of her costume) and offered it to me at the end of the show's run.

I eagerly and unabashedly accepted her gracious offer. I love this sweatshirt because:

a) I really do LOVE fries
b) It's a great color
c) I love snappy (if not fully-understood) slogans

An extra-awesome bonus that I didn't know until I got the shirt is that it is super soft and lightweight. 

Actually, I wasn't THAT far off in my interpretation of the shirt...I just thought it meant that fries are so awesome that one (if for some reason faced with the choice) should chose them over "guys." Yes, this is a rather heteronormative statement but I was going with a symbolic reading that "guys" stood for whatever other awesome thing you might want. Really, if you have a romantic/sexual partner that for whatever reason is making you chose between them and fries, that person is probably pretty lame and it isn't much of a choice. And it would be a horribly dull rom-com. 

At least that was what was floating around in the back of my mind when an even younger theater friend (the talented and precocious, approximately 11-year-old Sadie) asked me what my shirt meant and I replied, "It means I really like French fries."

Oh yeah, did I mention I REALLY like fries? It's not like I have them on a daily basis but they are my go-to going-out junk food, especially on a post-show theater outing. I'm not too-particular about what type of fries. Sweet potato fries are my favorite, but I'm open to almost anything. I do like to be a fries minimalist and prefer my fries with just ketchup or hot sauce so that yes, the caloric impact is minimized. I'm also totally open to other fried (non-meat) junk food, but fries are awesome because they are almost always an option and even "bad" french fries are usually good.

In an attempt to be a little more thoughtful and deep (I was a Comparative Religion major in college after all, so I was trained to bullshit) "Fries Before Guys" could be seen as a celebration of the splendor of the mundane. A recognition of the bounty in the everyday. An exhortation to self-actualization over mindlessly subjugating one's needs to a cultural norm.

Or hey, F*#k it. I'm a runner, fried carbs are good. I can't run a marathon on love. 

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