Sunday, February 05, 2006

based on a true story

mother and daughter step out of the house. it is bright and sunny outside.

achoo!!

the sneeze begins a much repeated and overplayed conversation.

daughter: it's the sun, i tell you.

mother: oh really. and how does the sun make people sneeze? explain yourself, daughter.

daughter: the light triggers something... and then... i can actually feel the sneeze coming on...

mother: oh, daughter! you crack me up. sometimes i question your science background! you know better than that... your explanation makes no sense. it's all in your head.

daughter: but mother, i've observed and analyzed my sneezes over the years! i know what i'm talking about.

mother: more than a nurse does? let me ask you something... can pepper going up your nose make your pupils constrict? can light entering your eyes tickle your nose and make you sneeze?

daughter: but it does!!! i feel it!

mother: prove it, daughter. prove it. your explanations are weak. where's the evidence? you know, it's probably psychological.

daughter: just wait, i'm gonna look it up and prove you wrong...

mother: yah, you keep saying that...

so after many years of skepticism from mother, daughter finally bothers to do some research on this strange behaviour to prove mother wrong. she's a bit lazy so she decides to just google it. sure enough, there are plenty of sun-sneezing links. she goes through a few of them and picks one with sufficient information. she emails the link to mother. she tells mother to check her email and stands behind mother while mother reads the article.

mother: look at the name of this site! madsci?? you expect me to trust a source called madsci? and who is this author? anyone can put an MD or a PhD beside their name. where are his references? i don't see any. statistics, where are they? my goodness. there is nothing in this article with sufficient proof. nice try, daughter.

daughter: oh please! he tells you that he's read articles from medical journals! so what if he doesn't reference them? this is obviously not an academic paper, so you can't call his writing style wrong... and why would he lie? besides, the explanation makes perfect sense! and i don't have to search those journals to know those articles are there. who's looking for such a hardcore scientific breakdown anyway? i just wanted to let you know that there was such a thing.

mother: look at the language he uses! i could interpret that to mean mere speculation. if i don't have stats, references, hard evidence... you can't expect me to believe it's true.

daughter is getting peeved. very peeved. when did mother lose her sound judgment?? what is mother learning at school?? is she getting brainwashed to the point where she feels that she must apply scientific methods to everything, including conversations with daughter?? mother should know better than that. and mother should not forget that daughter is just like mother and will not have the rug pulled out so easily from under her. mother is getting carried away. time to fight fire with fire.

daughter: scholars are divided on the Old Testament, and no one can conclusively prove that Moses even wrote the Pentateuch, so i guess we can't believe that either eh?

now daughter is also getting carried away.

mother: oh c'mon, you can't make that jump!

daughter: so let me get this straight... you really don't believe this article? you want me to take the time to go through some medical journal to find a paper to prove to you what this article already states??

mother: yes! exactly!

daughter: forget it! it's not worth it to find you an academic paper just so you can critique it and find some sort of flaw for you to undermine the validity of sun-sneezing.

daughter storms off. she knows she is overreacting, but at the same time, mother knows daughter well enough to know what buttons to push, and daughter believes that mother has aggravated her on purpose. but that's ok... two can play this game.

a couple of days pass... daughter finds out from someone that there is actually no conclusive evidence that MSG is bad. daughter doesn't even bother to confirm this because she is solely intent on figuring out a way to pushing mother's buttons and knows that mother is very much against using MSG.

daughter: did you know that there is no conclusive evidence that MSG is bad for you?

mother: of course it is, don't be silly.

daughter: nope. you can look it up, you won't find anything.

daughter knows she cannot verify this but keeps going anyway.

mother: too much sodium is bad for you. at least with salt, your sense of taste can tell you when you've had too much. MSG is dangerous because you can't taste how much sodium you're actually ingesting.

daughter: yah yah, but where's your hard evidence? where are your references? at least that guy on madsci had an MD and a PhD on top of that... where's yours? you're only an RN, so you're less credible than him.

mother begins to rant and rave, and daughter can't remember anything mother says for the next little while except that mother's voice is really really loud.

daughter smiles :)

mission accomplished.

--

an hour later: daughter goes to mother's room to keep mother company and eventually falls asleep while mother continues to study (because mother is a very good student and daughter is a delinquent in comparison). once again, all is right with the world.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of MSG, here's something I posted over at Overheard: If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn’t veryone in Asia have a headache? =)

Anonymous said...

Based on a true story or based on a personal story, Sounds like someone I know. =)

grace said...

haha, yah exactly... and you'll never guess who i found out that MSG info from :) likin' Overheard, btw.

nony... how did u know?!?! hehe

Anonymous said...

I... have no idea. So, who was it? =) (oh, and thanks!)

grace said...

alice :D :D :D

Anonymous said...

oh, but of course! =)