Bugs in the rice.

There are times in my life when it is undeniably obvious that my childhood, though an exciting adventure, was very much bizarre.

When I came back to the United States for boarding school, there were things that I knew were different about my upbringing, no one had to tell me that.

Though my friends and I had tried to stay current, we were definitely out of touch with current culture here in the US.

What caught me off guard at times, still catches me off guard sometimes, are the little things that I just assumed were normal. The things that pop up out of the blue and throw me off a little, and remind me that though I have been in the states for most of the time for the last 15 years, the desert and community that I grew up in is still a big part of who I am.

One day, late in my college career, my junior or senior year, I was down in the athletic training room fulfilling my clinical hours. I was treating a student athlete when she said, "You will never guess what I found in my rice, it was so disgusting."

Me: "were there bugs?"

Student athlete: "How did you know?"

Me: "It's not that unusual to have bugs in the rice. Just throw it in the freezer for a couple days, it will kill them. Then when you cook the rice the bugs will float to the top and you can just skim them off."

AWKWARD SILENCE

Student athlete: "are you joking? I'm not freezing it and skimming the bugs off, I'm taking it back to the store for an exchange."

Me: "Why would you do that? If there are bugs in your bag, there are probably bugs in the whole shipment, so the bag you exchange it with will have bugs too."

Then I looked up from what I was doing and noticed that about five people were staring at me.

"You are so weird" someone said.

"What? It's not normal for there to be bugs in the rice here?" I replied

"No Cate it is not normal"

"Oh, I didn't know" was all I could think to say.

And still pretty much anytime I throw rice into a pot I am still amazed that there are no bugs.