Day 8: December 19, 2013

Enjoy a belated birthday present from a good friend: a trip to the movies to see the Hobbit (spoiler alert: it was amazing).

You are both really bad at the timing thing, so you’re running late. Even so, you decide that you must have popcorn and a coke icee. Because you’re at the movies. And it’s your birthday (sort of). And seeing the Hobbit in IMAX 3D (!!) demands an extra serving of sugar (icee) and a bit of salt to cancel out the sugar (popcorn).

(You’ll want to question this logic at some point, as it is definitely not sound and you are definitely still hypoglycemic, but today is not a day for logic.)

You ask for smalls: small popcorn and icee, please! You say it proudly as if smalls make everything okay. But the girl at the counter gives you pause:

We don’t have small icees, she says, only mediums or larges.

Conundrum: do you explain that these terms—small, medium, large—in this context—containers of deliciously awful syrupy liquid—are relative terms?

She’s staring at you, asking if you want the medium instead?

Your mind goes to sophomore year biology and the terms “hyper-tonic” and “hypo-tonic” and the fact that they can only be used when comparing two things (this also makes you remember your alternating hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic conditions, and you try to remember which way the icee pendulum swings).