Charity

So, last night right after work I went to a taste test. Yeah - this is the kind of random stuff I do, mainly to never have a single minute to myself. Anyway, this deal was for charity. And, we should all be a little charitable sometimes, shouldn't we.

The company that was doing this research "hired" people on to eat their food, and then donated money to a charity of that person's choice. The only reason I heard about this in the first place was because my charity (The MN Navigators) asked me to participate.

So, I went. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I acted like a moron the entire time. It was all quite weird and akward. Firstly, I got there late. There was a lot of traffic, and I had never been to the big Catholic church it was being held at (dang, those Catholics are doing alright for themselves!), etc.

So, I walk in and see everyone already eating their stuff. The check-in lady gives me a strange look. Then she tells me that normally I would never be allowed to be in on the test for being late. But, I will this one time because some other people were coming late too. Goody.

The other people walk in. They looked like the teen girls squad from Homestar Runner. Now, I really don't care who I'm sitting next to when tast testing (as of yet, I still didn't know what I was supposed to be eating. I figured if it was radio active, I could just write my congressman.) but, it was obvious who the fish out of water was. The lady giving the test would smile at them and say "Right this way, ladies... and you (frowning and looking at me). Oh, no - its no problem at all that you're late. I can understand how these things can be."

So, we all sat down and were given a form to fill out. I had already filled out this form while I was waiting for the girl squad to arrive. This created a problem, as she didn't believe me that I'd already filled out the form. So, I filled out the form again to alleviate the (un-necessary) tension. However, this furthered the problem because I was apparently not allowed to fill out two forms. Finally, they found and ripped up my original form and we were ready to proceed.

The lady instructed us to eat a cracker and take a sip of water. We all did. Next, she told us to open our packets (to record the tast test data on). She watched me do it to make sure I did it right.

So, finally, we were each given a brownie to eat and tell our thoughts on. I at two small bites of it. The other girls ate all of theirs. Aparently, the later was the right thing to do. The lady came over to me to take my plate away. I took the brownie off of it so she could. She informed me that I wasn't allowed to take the brownie home with me. I informed her that I wasn't planning on it. She told me that I couldn't proceed with the test if that brownie was still in front of me. (Ah the complex rules of taste testing!)

At this point, I did what anyone normal, thinking person whould have done. I launched the brownie through the air onto the empty place setting next to me. Hey - I was frazzled and all I could think about was a way to get it away from me (without eating it) so the test could continue. Alas, this really proved that I was unfit for social interaction. I had now earned not only the test-giver's dissatisfaction, but the teen girl's squad as well.

They gave us another brownie to eat and comment on. For your benifit, here's a pictoral rendition of how different these brownies were from each other:

Brownie A


Brownie B


They were probably the same exact brownie. I was tempted to put the same answers for both, but I didn't. They seemed to taste different...

So, then she thanked the girls. I walked out pretty quickly. I was handed a check for myself, and told that my non-profit would also be getting a check. Sweet.

So, I spent half and hour eating brownies for charity. Yeah, I can do that.