Saturday, July 23, 2011

A case of mistaken identity

I'm baaaack.


I am pretty knowledgeable about outdoorsy stuff. Dr. Dad is, in fact, working on (or has? I can't keep up.) his Advanced Wilderness Medicine Certification. That is something legitimate that doctors can obtain. He is so prepared for a post-apocalyptic wasteland it's not even funny.

Anyways.

One of my friends, the future senator, texted me the other afternoon: "What is chinaberry?"

Chinaberry? Clearly it was a type of berry (duh) and I felt like I'd seen it advertised in homeopathic health miracle plant cure type advertisements. I texted back, with my outdoorsy skill and prowess that it was one of those hip, super-healthy plants akin to acai. Everyone loves acai, right? He didn't respond, so I figured he'd gotten a great big jug of chinaberry juice from Weaver St Market and gone about his day.

Later that night, I was relaying the story to some girls I had over for a wine & baking night. (Have you ever had moscato wine with homemade choc chip cookies? Mmmmm.) None of them knew what a chinaberry was either, they decided to look it up on Wikipedia.

There is a whole subheading titled "Toxicity" about how poisonous and deadly the Chinaberry is to humans. A whole paragraph detailing "if you eat this you are so dead for real."

And I had just told the future senator that it was a super health food.
And he hadn't contacted me since.

In a panic, I called FS while my friends were giggling at my mistake and his possible demise (see: wine). The conversation went something like this:

Me: OH MY GOD ANSWER THE PHONE
FS: Hello? R?
ME: ARE YOU OKAY DID YOU EAT THE CHINABERRIES?
FS: What are you talking about?
Me: Chinaberries, I said they were a super health berry but they're not, they're really deadly and if you had any you should call poison control right now. Are you okay? Did you eat any? I'm so so sorry I just assumed they were like acai please don't die-
FS: I was asking about Chinaberry, the new store above Starbucks. I wanted to know if you'd heard of it.
Me: Oh. A store named Chinaberry? No, um, I haven't been to Starbucks in a while. So you didn't eat any? You're okay?
FS: So you don't know anything about the store?
Me: OH YOURE NOT GONNA DIE THANK GOODNESS. I've got to go drink wine and bake cookies, glad you're alive byeee.

I will probably catch a substantial amount of grief when I return to the Hill for my woefully wrong assumption about the plant/store and my complete meltdown/freakout.

Moral of the story:
Acai berries: Good
Chinaberries: Bad
Also, know the context of a question before you make an ass out of yourself.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! This is a brilliant story haha love it! Glad he is okay!
The Internet Garbage

Rachel said...

This is brilliant!! =) So glad your friend isn't dead! =)

Anonymous said...

Okay, thank you for have seen my blog, but I can't read yours now :D
(I'll do when I totally wake up)
(Sorry for my english :D)

FabiƩnne said...

nice :)
thanks for the wonderful comment!
x
THATGIRLKIP

Charlotte B said...

OMG that must have been so scary! I will remember for the future that chinaberries are deadly!! Thanks for your comment on my blog btw. Great blog and great post, I am following,follow me too?? xx

Anonymous said...

This makes for an adorable mini adventure!