Grey's Area: Why Grey's Anatomy Would Fail in Real Life

Ever since procrastinating schoolwork rejoicing in my free time, I've gone on a bit of a Grey's Anatomy binge. Sure, I'm still hurt that George is gone, but as long as they don't kill off Christina, I'm far from boycotting the show.

However, majoring in how to be a pretentious prick English, my brain can't help but scream over the inconsistencies and the "this would never happen in life" moments. Don't get me wrong, I adore this show. It taught me that "clear!" meant something other than what you say when you fucked up on an Etch-a-Sketch. But there's just something about the long, melodramatic moments that are just...c'mon guys. What surgeon would spend two hours having sex in the on-call room after 30 hours on the job, sans sleep?

And so, I present to you: What happens in Grey's that would result in a "why are you telling me this?" look in actual life:

1) Long speeches about why someone's life sucks.
Not that we're all a bunch of apathetic humans, but I've found that once someone asks what's wrong, the accepted response time is twenty seconds, thirty tops. I mean, even when my to-do list is "think about doing laundry. Cry about how many dirty clothes I have," I tend to check out mentally once someone's rant goes into the minute range. So I can only imagine what a doctor with a full day of surgery would be doing if some intern went on a "I can't get a girl, life is so hard" rampage. Not to mention, these speeches almost always begin and end the exact same way. Sure, this is the way we were taught to write essays in middle school. But if I hear someone say something along the lines of this, totally genuinely, expecting some sort of sympathetic response:

"Yes, Meredith I'm sad. I just watched an entire family die in my OR, with the exception of a poor, lost daughter, who, by the way, you were supposed to make room for, if you weren't too busy with your precious heart surgery. I may or may not be homeless because Owen and I haven't had a legitimate conversation in over a week, I haven't been able to get Dr. Weber to even look at me, and I have a mentor who might just hate my guts and want to humiliate me in front of all her residents. So yes, I'm sad because my career is going straight to hell, I'm sad for my dead patients, I'm sad for me, Mer. I'm human. Humans get sad sometimes."

...I would start counting how many times "sad" was uttered in that speech. This may or may not make me a terrible person.

2) Realizing what someone did by a mere look.
Yes, reading body language is a skill that some people have a great knack for. But the number of times these doctors have waltzed into a room, heard a simple "hello," and realized that so-and-so told what's-her-face that her husband died is a wee bit too psychic. Maybe there's some superhuman surgeon power I'm not aware of, but normally, you need a little more context before you can read what a person has done, or what they are feeling.

3) Working for 30 hours straight, then waking up looking like a supermodel.
This is the point I'm most lax about. Yes, this is prime time television. As a general rule, we enjoy watching beautiful people have not-so-beautiful fights. But every single major actor in this show is drop dead gorgeous. Not only that, but they make it a point of how beautiful they are. Last time you checked, how many McDreamys and McSteamys did you see waltzing around a hospital?

This is where I give Scrubs the upper hand. Once Eliot Reid decided that she was a "whole new person" who wore a crapload of eyeliner and blow-dried her hair, the writers showed us how miserable it was getting up at 3:00 in the morning for the sole purpose of looking like a rock star doctor.

As a side note, April Kepner would not last two seconds as chief anything. But that's a whole other blog unto itself.

Namaste. 

The Hair Saga, Part 4: Killing the Beast

Ever since I was fourteen year old, and mother nature decided to grand me with this gift...

...My daily routine has consisted of one goal: killing the beast that is my hair. Tenth through twelve grade was seemingly entirely devoted to spending over an hour burning my head with a flat iron, pouring chemicals into my hair to straighten it once and for all, bleaching the shit of my highlights, and thinning it with what felt awfully similar to a razor.

And every time, my hair would get angry and grow back with a vengeance. And with every trip to the hair salon, my hair's reaction time would grow faster. I swear, the stuff is like Pavlov's dogs: every time it smelled chemicals, or burning, the general of my hair army would shout out to his soldiers:
"Okay, listen up you guys. There's going to be an attack on us today. We may look like we're already dead, but just stay strong. Resist the bleach, my fellow dead skin cells, resist the bleach!"

And so they did. They resisted the bleach. As the smells would get dauntingly closer, my curls would retreat to the place where hair is free to roam. They became so organized, so good at defensive tactics, that all the "no-fail" straightening product in the world would fail, sending my hairdressers into a sputtering mess of "but I--that has never--why would it--are you human?"

Well, friends, I've discovered that instead of continuously bouncing back, my hair has found its breaking point. Once we reached the farewell to my black hair, that was it, it was closed for business. While I had became convinced that nothing in the world could halt the attacks from my hair, halt they did. Bleaching my entire head in August was the final straw--and so, my hair decided to turn into straw, refusing to grow, or braid, or do that cool flippy-thing that so delightfully happens by accident.

Nothing. Nada. I'm pretty sure the hair has reached nursing home status, complaining about how it had to work so hard, shooting out of my head mere seconds after leaving the hair salon. "I grew ten miles in the snow, missy, and this is the thanks I get??"

Not so say that my hair cooperates nicely, and I hop out of bed looking like Jennifer Aniston. My roommate still gets a kick out of the fact that when I wake up, my hair literally sticks straight up in a ponytail, or does this:

Houston, we have a problem

And, if I straighten this dead mass on my head, in the words of my roommate: "then you just wake up looking like a troll doll."

And so, I'm left with this floppy, no-longer-angry-but-too-tired-to-cooperate bundle of straw.

Don't kill your hair, kids. Troll dolls are scary.

Namaste.

Texting 101: Grammar Nazis

There's something about single-letter words that our generation adores so much. And while I understand the pain of typing "you" back in the flip-phone era, the iPhone is smart enough to realize that "yu" is not some alien form of cheesecake, and is, in fact, the person with whom you are texting. Yet even during the "let's-make-everything-ridiculously-easy-and-let-technology-rule-us-all" phase, those who text still insist on avoiding vowels like the plague. Normal people would shrug and figure their texting partner was in somewhat of a hurry--maybe they had to buy some bananas, or rush over to a Scrabble game.

Some people are not normal people. Some people are grammar nazis.

 I have a perfectly stable relationship with the letter "U." It gives me useful life objects like umbrellas and unicorns. But as soon as I get a text with the letter "u" replacing the pronoun, my brain immediately flashes into something akin to this:

This side of the brain is not a happy place. This is the side of the brain that spends an hour alphabetizing books and cries "WHY, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SHINY, COULD YOU NOT ADD TWO MORE LETTERS TO THAT WORD??"

It turns out I am not alone in this sentiment. The "U" vs. "you" debate has been the subject of many angry YouTube comments--it's nearly as heated as the "your" vs "you're" debacle.

And so, for the safety of the friends and family of grammar nazis, I've compiled a list of what not to do in these dire situations. Spoiler alert: I've done some of these. Permission to murder me with a pitchfork. Except please don't.

1) Do not replace letters with numbers.
As a complete math-aphobe, this one really sets me aside. Maybe you're telling me you're going to a xylophone concert, and all I see is "2Xy...lophone." Suddenly, I'm taken with the fear of solving 2xy to equal a phone. I could be staring at your text for hours, unable to realize that the xylophone concert ended an hour ago.

Not to mention, it actually takes more time to press the little button that takes you to the numbers than it does to type "to." Go ahead, time yourself. Numbers are the tortoise. You are the hare.

2) Omitting question marks.
If you're asking me, "what have I done to deserve this" [insert bad action here], I'm going to picture Bella Swan giving that cold, heartless stare. I mean, isn't this just a little cringe worthy?:
WHY CRUEL WORLD, WHY.
Question marks have loads of personality. They are the key to any strong pathos. Use them to your advantage. Yes, the curvy lines going all straight can be daunting, but even the predictable exclamation point is better than nothing.

3) Using ellipses after a complete thought.
When I see "I think I'm going to buy some oranges..." I expect a grocery bag filled with oranges, bananas, grapes, the works. That text was the beginning of a continuing thought. Those three dots are the literary equivalent of you standing in the grocery store thinking "hmmm, what else can I buy to keep us through the week?" I'm going to assume statement is going to end with a larger list of food, unless of course it ends with "then I'm going to prison for two years," in which case, we need to have a serious talk.

Ending your sentence with an ellipses is like a giant neon sign that says "TO BE CONTINUED, DEAR READER." So then, guess what, I see you buying those oranges, and I expect the story to be continued. Don't think you're just cloning your periods, you sneaky little bastard. We know better.

And remember: Practice safe sentences. Use semi-colons.

Namaste.