Tag Archives: passion

The One With Ross’s Sandwich

Thanksgiving leftovers = delicious. Ross thinks so too.

  

“That sandwich was the only good thing going on in my life!”

The one thing Ross looks forward to after thanksgiving is his thanksgiving leftovers sandwich. Monica makes it just for him. He was so excited to have it for lunch at work but when he looks in the fridge it’s gone!! Ross couldn’t believe his eyes and he was beyond upset. He storms into the coffee house and tells everyone the terrible news. “Well what did the police say?” asks Chandler sarcastically. Monica offers to make him another but Ross is still upset. He decides to leave a nasty note for the person who dared to eat his sandwich. Phoebe writes him a note that would scare anyone. The next day at work Ross’s boss asks him about his recent well craziness and wants him to see a psychiatrist. Ross explains that it was all because of a sandwich and his boss recalls that he ate that sandwich. Ross questions whether he saw the note on the sandwich saying it was his and his boss had indeed seen it. He then tells Ross he might find the rest of it in his trash can. This did not go over very well with Ross at all and he has a little outburst (by which I mean his yells could be heard throughout the city). His boss sends him to the psychiatrist and Ross is given a pill for his anger and has to take a leave of absence. After taking the pill, Ross doesn’t even care about his sandwich anymore.

Well obviously our friend Ross has a little bit of an anger issue, but instead of focusing on Ross’s irrationality I would like to focus on the actions of his boss. Why are people compelled to take something that belongs to someone else? I’m not talking major theft but the little things we do maybe everyday. We snag that last french fry off our friends plate without them seeing, we borrow our friends clothes without asking, or we take a movie from a friend and forget to return it. These little things can sometimes get the people we’re taking from more worked up than we  would expect. It was just a sandwich that Ross’s boss took. One sandwich. Ross could have gone and gotten another sandwich anywhere. But this wasn’t an ordinary sandwich; it meant something to him. His boss didn’t realize this and his mistake of eating Ross’s sandwich turns into a large problem than he thought it would. We can’t just assume that the person we are taking from won’t care at all because that thing you took might have meant more to them than you will understand. Bottom line: if you want something that’s not yours either get your own or ask the person to share.

 

The One With All the Football

I have two words for you: sibling rivalry.

Ross: “Um.. Monica and I aren’t supposed to play football.”

Joey: “Says who, your mom?”

Monica and Ross: “Yes.”

Our friends are celebrating Thanksgiving and Joey suggests to play a nice game of touch football. Well, little did he know. Monica and Ross aren’t allowed to play football and boy is it a great story. Every Thanksgiving in the Geller family had a touch football game.. that is until Geller Bowl 6. As Monica was making the scoring touchdown, she elbowed Ross straight in the schnoz. She claims it was an accident but of course Ross believes it was intentional. Monica recalls that her team won the bowl but of course Ross argues that the touchdown didn’t count due to the “illegal, and by the way savage, nose breaking.” However, neither of them won the bowl because their dad threw the Gellar Cup into the lake on account of his hatred of their incessant fighting. After that incident, their mother banned football. Back to the present, the two discuss and decide that it’s time they play again. So of course, Ross and Monica are the captains and the game gets pretty competitive. There’s name calling, a surprising half-time player trade to make the teams men vs. women, numerous touchdowns and missed passes, and all of this leads to a tie. It’s down to the final play. Rachel, the worst player, is wide open in the end zone while Phoebe is being surrounded by all three men so Monica puts her life in the hands of fate and passes the ball to Rachel and she drops it, no I’m just kidding she catches it and scores the women the winning touchdown!! The celebration begins until Chandler points out that Rachel was five feet short. Phoebe then questions if the ball is still in play and before you know it Monica and Ross are on the ground fighting over the ball. Everyone goes inside to eat but the brother and sister stay outside for the rest of the night, it even starts to snow.

Now I’m an only child but this seems to be the epitome of sibling rivalry. The two are willing to wait outside clenching onto a football until their toes go numb. Neither won wants to admit defeat. I think that this is something all siblings will come in contact with multiple times throughout probably their entire lives. But don’t just rule me out since I’m an only child, I’ve experienced this too with my cousins. There is this unspoken competition to be the smartest, the funniest, the nicest, the prettiest, and so on and so forth. You never feel this way with your friends, only with your family. I think this is because the only people you want to please in life are yourself and your family, mainly your parents. You just want to make them proud. When there’s someone else who could potentially be better than you at something, you feel that your chances of your parents having pride in you get slimmer and slimmer as theirs just inflate. You can’t help but want to compete with your siblings. I also think sibling rivalry stems from your unconditional love for your sibling(s). You know that no matter what happens, or who wins, you’ll still love them and they’ll still love you. Sometimes this isn’t the case but I like to be optimistic and think it is. Ross and Monica were able to eventually get over their rivalry and they genuinely love each other. I think this can happen in any sibling relationship. Not having any siblings, I don’t have to deal with this rivalry at such a strong degree as those with siblings do, but like I said I have dealt with it in other ways. I hate it because I love my cousins and I don’t like feeling like I have to be better than them and getting upset when they do something right that I couldn’t but sometimes it’s hard not to be jealous. That’s it! It all comes from jealousy. That nasty little green monster inside all of us. We want to be the best in the eyes of mommy and daddy, and when we aren’t we get jealous of the one who is. Since I am a only child (for the record I just accidentally typed lonely child– it’s true we do get lonely), I would like to hear from those of you who do have siblings with your thoughts on this topic. I know all of you have probably wished at some point that you could be like me, but trust me, you wouldn’t like it.

PS ONE WEEK ‘TIL BREAK!!

The One With The Giant Poking Device

Everyone is afraid of something. It’s impossible to be completely fearless; there’s got to be something that creeps/freaks/grosses you out. But when do these fears become irrational?

Joey: “Ugly naked guy looks awfully still..”

Phoebe: “My God, I killed another one!”

Poor Phoebe has a toothache that prevents her from eating Rachel’s delicious brownies. She is advised by Chandler, Ross, and Rachel to go to the dentist. Phoebe is astonished that they would suggest such a terrible thing. She claims that there a curse on her which makes someone she knows die every time she goes to the dentist therefore she’s scared to make an appointment. Later at Central Perk, Phoebe tries to eat an apple and when she can’t she decides she’ll just have to take her chances and go to the dentist. After her appointment, she rushes to Monica and Rachel’s to find that they are both still alive. She then proceeds to use Monica’s phone to call everyone she knows and make sure they’re still alive. After all the calls are made, Phoebe does a little happy dance because no one was dead… or so she thought. Joey stares out the window at ugly naked guy and realizes he isn’t moving. Phoebe freaks out thinking she killed him. Joey notices the window is open and hatches a plan to create a poking device so that they can find out if he really is dead. The friends use a bunch of take-out chopsticks and create a pole that just reaches in ugly naked guy’s window. They start poking and luckily a few seconds later ugly naked guy starts swatting at the stick. The curse was lifted!

Sure, like I said we’re all afraid of something. Whether that something be spiders, the dark, dying, skydiving, or whatever doesn’t matter. There’s fear in everyone, but sometimes we can get caught up in fear that shouldn’t really exist. By this I mean, most of us have that one fear of something that we would would never happen or would never be true but we’re scared anyway. Take for example a zombie apocalypse, the end of the world, Phoebe’s fear of the dentist, my fear of haunted houses- all of these can be considered irrational. We know that the world won’t end any time soon, that zombies aren’t real, that going to the dentist won’t kill someone you know, and that haunted houses aren’t really haunted and no those people in costumes aren’t going to eat you. Yet even though we know all these truths and see the holes in our fears, we’re still afraid. You may not agree with my definition of an irrational fear and that’s fine- these are just my ideas. Even though these fears are irrational, I think they contribute to our personalities and that they aren’t necessarily bad to have. I’ve always had the fear of someone coming in my room at night and killing me. Every day I wake up still alive. I consider this to be my irrational fear because even though I know there is a very slim chance of me being murdered in my sleep, I’m still scared it could. I don’t think this irrational fear is bad. Sure it makes me paranoid, but my paranoia is good in my opinion because it means I’m cautious of myself and my surroundings. Phoebe’s fear is irrational as well but it’s a part of her quirky and compassionate personality. She loves everyone she knows and doesn’t wish death upon any of them. So in the end, irrational fears may not be the scariest thing in the world because that honor goes to ugly naked guy.

The One Where No One’s Ready

People tend to argue over the stupidest things sometimes. We know that the fighting won’t get us anywhere but we do it anyway. No one likes to give in to their opponent. It’s a type of immaturity that we never out grow.

“I’m Chandler. Could I be wearing anymore clothes?”

Chandler has made the chair in Monica and Rachel’s apartment his own for the time being, but when he gets up to use the little boy’s room, things take a turn for the worst. Joey sits in the chair. Now this causes a catastrophe and not one that Ross can handle at the moment.  Chandler claims since he never left the room and Joey very well knew he’d be coming back that the chair is still under his command. Joey argues this saying that the chair was empty so it could be anyone’s. Ross is able to convince Chandler to go get dressed for their outing. While he’s changing, Chandler hides all of Joey’s underwear. When he gets back to Monica’s, Joey is still unwilling to leave the chair. When Ross finally makes him, Joey takes the cushions with him which are the “essence of the chair” according to Chandler. When Joey sees that his underwear are missing, he warns Chandler that he is going to do the exact opposite to him. Just a moment later in comes Joey wearing all of Chandler’s clothes. And let’s not forget the fact that he was going commando.

This kind of  bickering and the consequential acts of outdoing one another are immature and pointless. Yet, people of all ages partake in this, what seems to be, beloved pastime. People are always bickering and usually the argument is never actually settled. You always come across that one married couple arguing over something that seems to be a serious matter.. that is until you get closer and hear that it’s about who was supposed to turn the lights on the front porch off. Neither person will admit that it was his or her responsibility and the argument just dies out. Why do people pick arguments over the most minimal things? Do we just love drama and confrontation? I mean, our culture does, after all, love reality television which is all about the drama. Are we just bored of normal conversation so we decide to nitpick and spice things up? I don’t think making each other mad is a good means of creating excitement. You know what, I think we argue because of our lack of communication and aversion to listening to others. People aren’t able to express their feelings well when the other person isn’t listening and this causes confusion which can lead to argumentation. Or maybe it’s that people just don’t communicate with one another. We just assume that they can read our mind and know that that’s not their chair to sit in. Now my friends have developed a system to avoid Joey and Chandler’s confrontation. Before you leave your seat you simply announce “fives” and this reserves your seat for five whole minutes! Alas, not even this can stop the arguing. My friends will still bicker over whether the person actually said fives or if the person ran out of time. However, it would have saved Joey the exhaustion of putting on Chandler’s entire wardrobe.

The one where Chandler crosses the line

People lie all the time, whether it’s premeditated or it just happens, it’s not something we can deny. We all tell little white lies on a fairly regular basis. We leave information out of stories, we make up excuses, or we just flat out don’t tell the truth.

In this episode of our beloved series Friends, Ross digs up his old keyboard and shows Phoebe some of his compositions from his teenage years. Phoebe is astonished by his talents however Monica and Rachel are wishing they had ear plugs. Of course the two of them just play along and agree that he hasn’t lost his charm with the keyboard. Ross takes their praise so literally that he replaces Phoebe as Central Perk’s entertainer. After one of his performances, the amount of costumers dwindled down to only a few. Phoebe loves Ross but she misses playing her music at the cafe. The girls then decide to tell Phoebe that they’ve been lying and that in reality Ross sucks. Phoebe proclaims to Rachel and Monica that Ross just isn’t appreciated in his time and that she’d give anything to have that. So they figure ‘why not?’ and Monica breaks the news to Phoebe that she sucks too. Classic Phoebe thinks they’re just saying this to make her feel good but little does she know that she has it completely backwards.

Our friends Monica and Rachel have been telling a little white lie all along. They pretend that Phoebe is a great musician just to make her feel better about herself. People do this a lot. Lying to people to make them feel better just has some sort of appeal to us. We are compassionate, empathetic, and sympathetic beings (for the most part) and this contributes to the feeling that we don’t want to let someone down or crush their dreams or all that they’ve worked for and love. We want people to do their best and we don’t want to be the ones to tell them that their best isn’t quite good enough. So instead of telling people the truth (that they suck) we instead tell them what they want to hear (that they’re a prodigy). But if it was you who wanted someone else’s opinion, would you want them to be honest or would you just want them to say what you want to hear? I know it’s hard to take constructive criticism. It makes you doubt yourself and feel like you aren’t good enough, but it will help you become certain and be good enough. If we say that we’d want the honest truth then why don’t we give it to others? Because we don’t want to see the sadness and disappointment in their face, we don’t want to be the person who put it there, we don’t want to tear down their self esteem; we want them to succeed? Telling them a lie isn’t going to lead them to success; it will just hold them back. People need to be more like Joey and always speak their mind (even if they aren’t exactly sure what the heck they’re saying).

The one with the girl from poughkeepsie

Just a heads up: the title of this post isn’t directly related with the content. However, it is the title of the episode from which the content derives.

Monica takes her new position as head chef but she isn’t quite ready for what that entails… a bunch of employees who love to bully her. None of them listen to her instructions or do what she ever so politely asks of them. Instead they like to make a practical joke out of her. Monica doesn’t have the courage to stand up for herself and enforce her commands. She then hatches a plot to hire Joey and stage his firing in order to scare the other workers. When Joey falls through with the plan, she realizes that she must fix the problem on her own. The employees continue to bully her until she finally has the last straw after being locked in the freezer and having marinara sauce spill all over her clothes. She finally tells the employees that they need to start listening to her. Joey helps persuade the stubborn crew by going through with their original plan. Once he was fired, all the other workers took Monica seriously and she finally was the boss.

Confrontation just has a negative connotation to it from the start. We associate confrontation with conflict. Quite frankly, this is because with conflict comes an impending confrontation. For Monica, the conflict was the lack of respect from her employees. There was a confrontation that needed to be had, but she chose to avoid it like the plague. People don’t like confrontation. Maybe because it’s more aggressive than a simple conversation so we back away from it. I feel like these days people are more willing to let things slide rather than actually fixing the problem and making it better. Honestly, I am probably more guilty of this than Monica. At least she finally confronted the workers. I haven’t even confronted my roommate about her late-night Skype conversations. Or her excessive phone calls to her needy boyfriend. And the list just keeps going and it’s never going to stop, or at least decrease, until I can scrounge up the guts to tell her that those things are just not okay. Why don’t people of the 21st century like confrontation? All throughout history people have loved confrontation. Just go through a history book and look at all the wars that we’ve fought. Now everyone is anti-war, casualty-averse. I suppose this aversion to confrontation is good in that sense, but not in our singular, individual lives. If you aren’t willing to confront someone, then you’re never going to get anything done. For me, I avoid confrontation because I am afraid I’ll be shot down or that I’ll offend the ‘confrontee’. Confrontation may also be avoided due to laziness. People just don’t feel like starting an argument with someone else and this isn’t something that can be done for you. Confrontation is something that everyone just has to suck it up and do. It’s what makes us independent; makes us learn to stand up for ourselves and do things on our own. It teaches us that if we want change, then we have to make it happen. Confrontation doesn’t only have to have a negative connotation; it can also have a positive one. It helps us become individuals. So I guess this means I can’t have Joey come and tell my roommate off for me anymore. Rats.

The one with the introduction

So if you haven’t already guessed, I am a Friends enthusiast. As a matter of fact, the show debuted the year I was born, 1994. I’ve always had a special bond with Friends. Perhaps it’s because I grew up watching it with my mother every week. Or maybe it’s because when I was three I concussed myself whilst dancing to the theme song. Whichever one floats your boat. The purpose of this blog is not for me to smother you with ravishing reviews of each episode, season, or actor. Each week I will select a particular scene from an episode. I will provide a brief summary of the scene including particular moments or details that I believe are relevant to the topic I wish to discuss. The scene will be related to something that I might have experienced or that everyone experiences at some point. My goal is to explore common situations presented to us, the lessons that we learn, and the generalizations or assumptions that we all make. So let’s begin!

In The one with the hypnosis tape, the gang meets the fiancé of Phoebe’s eighteen year old brother Frank. At first the group, mostly Phoebe, was excited for Frank. The second they met Alice, or Mrs. Knight as Frank calls her- force of habit, their opinions change. I’ll give you a hint, Alice was once Frank’s teacher and is twice his age. The group doesn’t let their feelings show… that is until Frank and Alice begin kissing- then came the dropping of jaws and the twisting of foreheads in disgust. Mrs. Knight confronts the age issue and Phoebe makes a comments that she thought they didn’t realize it. In response, Alice tells her that when it comes to love, age is but a number.

First impressions can often affect our judgements dramatically. We always hear the idiom “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” but for some reason that’s almost impossible to do. We judge everything by how it is presented to us for the first time whether we want to or not. Anything new that we aren’t accustomed to or anything that we do not know enough about gets judged almost immediately upon first encounter. The group judges Mrs. Knight and her relationship with Frank based on her age, her interaction with Frank, and her attitude towards their age difference. When we observe others, we subconsciously evaluate their actions, appearance, and attitude. We then take these evaluations and create our own standpoint on the subject. I will admit that I am very guilty of this. If someone says they haven’t, they are lying through their teeth. I think that making judgements is just an inescapable part of life. We are all entitled to our opinions. However, with these assumptions we need to be fair and give things a chance. We can judge them by their cover, but we have to let them reaffirm or change our views. People aren’t very willing to have their opinions changed. Phoebe was dead set against her younger brother marrying a woman who was twenty years his elder. Instead of giving Alice a chance to show that their love should be accepted, Phoebe forced her to call off the engagement. Why are we so quick to judge but so unwilling to have that judgement tested? Are we scared it will lose its validity? This then brings upon the notion that people don’t want to be wrong; that we always want to be right, to have the last word, to be invincible. Now, that may be taking it a tad far. I think that all of this judgement and stubbornness comes from the underlying thought that we can never be wrong because if we are that means that we have failed ourselves or that we are, ourselves, not just wrong about that one thing but that we may be wrong about everything else in our lives. Maybe if everyone was as oblivious as Joey, none of this would matter- but we’re not.