I Don't Know What to Think Anymore

Notes on the Issaquah Brewhouse: For the women’s restroom, would you choose the door marked “barley” or the door marked “hops?”

It snowed again on Saturday, and the most remarkable thing happened. I was walking along and I happened to look down at my coat, where I saw what I assumed to be a piece of plastic confetti in the shape of your stereotypical snowflake. Everyone knows snowflakes don’t really look like they do in the pictures, with the symmetry and the points and all that, right? Right?? They’re just lumps. My whole life I thought, Sure, no two snowflakes are alike, because they’re all lumps of frozen water, that get frozen in random, asymmetrical and unpredictable shapes. I don’t know if it’s the climate around here or what, because that’s the only kind of snowflake I’ve ever seen. Even in London and Glasgow, that’s what it was. I assumed a stereotypical snowflake was just a myth, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. When I saw this anomaly on my jacket, I picked it up, fully expecting it to be fake. When it melted in my hand, I think my brain exploded. The world of conflict and suffering came to a grinding halt around me. You mean to tell me, snowflakes actually look like snowflakes?

I may never be the same again.