Comments on: What Were They Thinking

By: healingmagichands

healingmagichands — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:14:42 +0000

Okay, I may be dating myself here, but I always thought of those items as “Sanitary napkins” because that is what they were referred to on the Kotex box when I was first joining the ranks of “real women”. Apparently the first name you learn for something is the one that sticks, because even though by the time I FINALLY reached menopause they were being called “pads”. Anyway, I never thought about the “pad” association because the name was attached to an electronic device and somehow my mind has never really connected electronic devices with menstruation even tangentially. I also missed all the jokes because I don’t watch all that much tv, mostly limiting myself to “Jeopardy” and I wasn’t reading about the iPad because I will never have one unless someone gives it to me and even then I probably wouldn’t use it much.

(Jim and I are about the only people in America who have a cell phone for which the minutes have run out and we didn’t even notice until t-mobile sent us an Email telling us this had happened.)

Anyway, this sort of association of words is what has made it virtually impossible for me to go out and look at all my crocuses and cry out joyously “Oh, you are all so gay today!” even though their unabashed greeting of the spring sun is gaiety itself. And I’m getting tired of it. When did the word “gay” become an insult? Because here in the lovely Bible Belt it certainly is an insult used by high schoolers to each other. And that is how they humiliate each other around here, I guess. When I was in school we were humiliated by being called names and treated like we were lepers or untouchables, and it was all sub rosa humiliation. No institutionally ratified humiliations like big ice cream sundaes was allowed. Actually, our school was so rural and so poor we would have had a hard time coming up with enough ice cream and whipped cream to make a decent human sized sundae, so I guess name calling and the caste system was enough for everybody. At least the ingredients were free.

So, I’m looking forward to the 90s tale, looks like you’ve been as attentive to the internet as I have been lately.

By: Polaris

Polaris — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:53:01 +0000

“It turns out that they don’t conduct market research at Apple, like we always thought they did. They do things because they’re too embarrassed to tell Steve Jobs that he’s a numbskull. Maybe Steve will suggest they lower the price to $4.99 and they’ll all be too embarrassed to tell him he’s being a moron. The only upside I can think of to this is that everyone in America will find it ridiculous — republican, democrat, independent. It will unite us, although it will probably not get a health care bill passed.”

ROFL. Comedy Gold! BL, if Apple brings the iPad down to $4.99, I’ll give up my self-indulgent Linux fixation and buy wholesale into the Apple way of life. You’re right, they should’ve seen the obvious iPad jokes coming from a mile away.

By: openpalm

openpalm — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:06:40 +0000

i love the tag, “when women are not in the room”…can’t wait for more in the series!

By: mari

mari — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:39:38 +0000

Lily, As much of a dork as you say you were, I would have offered you a ride home had I been your classmate. My mom – who has serious OCD – would have probably covered you in towels before letting you in the car. She might have even taken you to our house first so you could shower before bringing you to your parents. After which I’m sure she would have told me never to run for office, ever.

As for iPad…it’s well known that Apple has too many men on their payroll.

By: Emily Barton

Emily Barton — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:05:31 +0000

I have to admit that until I read all the reactions on FB, I actually thought iPad was a cute name. I didn’t make the connection at all (one of my x chromosomes must have been written by someone with bad handwriting, so that it resembles a y). But your high school story is horrible. I’d say the person who came up with that ice cream sundae “tradition” should be the one asking, “What was I thinking?” As if high school isn’t bad enough without that sort of added humiliation.

By: dadwhowrites

dadwhowrites — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:12:38 +0000

Must admit, my immediate response was to the dull, uninspiring, clunky sound of it. iPad. It’s like a big bag of cotton wool dropping. Amazing the difference a syllable makes if you consider ‘iPod’.

No-one ever elected me for anything at school. But at the age of 29, I was elected student rep in a CONTESTED election on my Masters course. Tragically, I think it was one of the proudest moments of my life.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:47:01 +0000

I’m such a man since that association totally passed me by until you pointed it out! In our school, humiliation definitely wasn’t food related. As a boy, I would not have minded having ice-cream thrown at me (unless everyone laughed, which is of course why it sucks).

By: Ben Daniel

Ben Daniel — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:12:19 +0000

Maybe Steve Jobs was looking at the success of the Adidas Teamgeist soccer ball, which was designed for the 2006 world cup in Germany. Its design always reminds me of the products I was embarrassed to find in my mother’s bathroom. Here’s a photo on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/adidas-World-Teamgeist-Finals-Soccer/dp/B000G16U9S

Ben

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:08:13 +0000

oh that made me smile. it is so funny and i can just see it. and you totally have my sympathy.

By: deborah freedman

deborah freedman — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:21:50 +0000

Oh Lily. So then, to wrap up the 70s, you went to college with a bunch of people who were at least as geeky as you…

I want an iPad, with a red case.

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:13:52 +0000

Well, I can safely say that I didn’t even register the name had any kind of association with feminine hygiene products. And then the puerile humour started and I thought ‘Really?’
And then I wondered if Apple had made a mistake and realised that Steve Jobs is just too obsessive to make that sort of mistake. So now what I think is that the lame joke will be run off it’s legs by the end of today, and at the end of the week the iPad will still be standing, having gained an awful lot of additional coverage via the ‘What were they thinking’ articles, the trending topics on Twitter and so on. And by the end of the year, the iPad will have redefined the vocabulary in the small part of the world that discusses such things.

You wore a hardhat to school? Excellent! But the public humiliation of being covered in ice cream is unfathomable. I have always been so glad that I didn’t go to an American high school.

By: Sandi Kahn Shelton

Sandi Kahn Shelton — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:11:27 +0000

Ohhhh, Lily. How do we ever survive high school? Any of us! I am going to be thinking all day at the image of you in a hard hat having to have chocolate sauce and whipped cream dumped on your head. Love your father’s sense of understatement.

By: brideofthebookgod

brideofthebookgod — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:51:44 +0000

I’ve been giggling about the name ever since it was first suggested; one of my (male) friends is an Apple fan and I’ve taken to teasing him about it; notice he hasn’t replied though….

By: charlotteotter

charlotteotter — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:39:45 +0000

Thanks for pointing out that the iPad is a ridiculous name.

Now, please explain to me the US of love of food-related public humiliation … I mean what is with the ice-cream sundae? And with throwing pies in people’s faces?

Seriously, if your 90s moment involves food and humiliation, then I will have to cry.

By: Cam

Cam — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:09:29 +0000

That I didn’t raise an eyebrow for even a nanosecond over the iPod name must be a sign that either a) a very busy day that allowed me about 2 min to read all news, not just the Apple announcement, or that b) I’m truly post-menopausal. Now I can’t wait to watch Stewart. Surely he will joke about this; after all, there weren’t any “strategery” type gaffaws in the State of the Union address.

If we had attended the same school and you showed up in a hardhat, I would have thought you stole it from my dad who insisted on wearing one when we were taking driver’s ed.