There are three big things that I remember seeing in the movies before I saw them in real life: sex, communion, and throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it’s done. Needless to say the last one horrified me the most.
Even in the context of a rom-com, I couldn’t imagine anyone who eats so little spaghetti and is such a devil-may-care character for this to be a reasonable thing to do.
“But” some people will say “it works.”
You know what also works? Tasting the spaghetti.
And what happens after you throw the spaghetti against the wall? Do you leave it there? Do you clean it up? Do you display it like a trophy from a big-game hunt? Do you leave it as a snack for Santa?
Imagine, for a moment, if we extend the logic of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it’s done to anything else: “Just throw the green beans against the wall to see if they’re soft enough.” “Just slap the steak against the fridge to see if it’s medium-rare.” “Just toss the children I’ve been fattening up in the basement to see if they’re ready.” Completely absurd.
“But” some people will say “it’s just fun.”
Throwing spaghetti against the wall is fun in the same way that riding a unicycle to work is fun. It’s fun in the same way that lighting your entire house with tea lights is fun. It’s fun in the way that cutting your toenails with a chainsaw is. That communicating by carrier pigeon is. Throwing spaghetti against the wall is fun in the same way that driving a 1979 Ford Pinto in bumper-to-bumper traffic while smoking a cigarette, pissing into a beer bottle, and not wearing a seatbelt is fun.
Throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it’s done represents an absolute compromise of common sense in the name of whimsy and makes a spectacle for spectacle’s sake. It’s a self-indulgent performance art that derives pleasure from its own absurdity, recklessness, and sheer disregard for other humans.
It is my firm belief that the people who throw spaghetti against the wall are the same people who would’ve thrown tomatoes at medieval people in the stockades.
I would not trust someone who throws spaghetti against the wall to be the godparent of my child, to watch my cat for a weekend, or to wear black to a funeral. These people are unadulterated loose cannons that make the choice to live their lives in a rose-colored haze and slowly depreciate the resale value of their house. These people find delight in subverting social mores bringing a whirlwind of chaos wherever they go. Just like Zooey Deschanel, Steve Jobs, and Lucifer did.
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