Getting older means leaving behind some foods

A few weeks ago, I sat down to eat lunch at my desk, taking a few minutes to fuel up and get a break from working. It was going to be good – I had bought lunches at the grocery store a few days earlier and this one was special: Chef Boyardee canned raviolis, heated in the office microwave.

Those raviolis were a favorite in my childhood and early adulthood. Raviolis are among my top 10 foods and this was simple – microwave the little bowl of them, then sit back and relish the great taste.

Except . . .

That didn't happen.

The raviolis tasted bad. They were lukewarm (I could have reheated them, but the taste was so bad that it didn't seem worth it). I had accidentally bought some sort of "mini" raviolis that would barely stay on my plastic fork.

It was a major disappointment. Food that I had always thought highly of – and considered a treat – was terrible. It turns out my tastes have changed.

As a kid, I was very aware that adults had different tastes than me. Some adults liked things like liver and very few liked Rocky Road candy bars. But had you asked me, I would have assured you that even if I grew to like liver (I haven't), I would always like canned ravioli.

I don't. And it's not alone. As far as I'm concerned, canned ravioli goes with a few other "staples" that I liked (we liked, since I assume you're along with me) years ago that don't work with taste buds later in life.

Before we begin, a caveat. There remain some young-adult foods that I still like. Ramen remains tasty. Taquitos are very good. Macaroni and cheese remains good (although the microwave version is a massive step down from traditional mac and cheese). 

But others? There are some major disappointments:

Pizza rolls. These were fantastic in the 1980s, when you could pull a bag out of the freezer, dump a dozen or so on a cookie sheet and have ready to eat in 20 minutes. Maybe the taste changed, but more likely I came to realize they don't taste like pizza, but more like over-sauced, poorly wrapped biscuits with some sort of pepperoni-ish meat inside. Not great.

Bagel bites. The bagel version of pizza rolls. They aren't really bagels, they take more than a bit and they don't really taste good. But at one point, they seemed great. And kind of exotic, since they were bagels!

Pizza pockets. Mrs. Brad and I ate a lot of Pizza Pockets early in our marriage. A lot. They were cheap and they were a treat. You could microwave them (or cook them in the oven) and you had a slice of pizza! In a pocket! You could dip them in ranch dressing or some other dip and make them even better. Years later, I' tried them and they made me gag. Is it because the food is bad? Or is it that we overindulged in them when we were trying to get by on a few dollars a week? I don't know, but they're awful.

Chicken pot pies. No food was more pleasing to Young Brad (I capitalize both in case a rapper tries to take that name) than a Swanson chicken pot pie cooked for 40 minutes in the (avocado-colored) family oven, then eating it while watching TV as my parents were out for a Saturday night of cocktail parties or whatever they did. Try it now? It's overly breaded, the meat is questionable and the taste is subpar.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Thumbs up to ranking our fingers, from 10 to 1

Late last year, I finally had a procedure to fix my trigger finger. I won't bore you with details, I just want to highlight how cool the name "trigger finger" is. The best part was as it was healing, I could tell people I had an "itchy trigger finger."

The affected digit was the ring finger on my left hand, which got me to thinking. How important is that finger?

Which got me thinking. How important is each finger?

Which got me thinking. Could this be another column where I rank things?

Yes it can. Thus, today's list of power ranking fingers. For simplicity, I'll rank them for a right-hander, so if you're a lefty, just flip the script: When I say your right thumb, that means left thumb for you.

Got it? Even a southpaw should be able to understand that (or portsider. I learned all my synonyms for "left-hander" by reading about baseball as a kid).  And by the way, for sake of these rankings, a thumb is considered a finger. We have 10 fingers (unless you're former pitcher Antonio Alfonseca, who had 12 digits.)

The rankings:

10. Right ring finger. It's pretty weak and while it's important for a grip (you can't hold a golf club or tennis racket well without it), you can generally survive without it. A surprisingly low ranking on first glance, but stick with me.

9. Left pinky finger. Mostly for containment of pills or M&Ms or anything you put in your left hand. But it's replaceable and it's not your dominant hand.

8. Right pinky finger. Surprisingly important to hold things (such as pills, as just mentioned) and this is your dominant hand. Also needed for a pinky ring if you're a mobster or to show you're sophisticated while drinking something if you're British.

7. Left index finger. You need it to make a fist. You need this finger to pinch anything in your off hand.

6. Left second finger. Crucial for holding cooking utensils, since we usually need both hands for that. Also a key typing finger, since it's the backup for the left index and ring fingers. This is the Frank Reich of fingers, if you know NFL history.

5. Left ring finger. I experienced the loss of much of the movement of this digit and it was inconvenient but not disastrous. However, it's the finger for a wedding ring and Mrs. Brad may read this. This is an important finger.

4. Right second finger. We all think the same thing with this one and it's true: It's the flip-off finger. But it's also crucial for grip. Gripping and flipping is the second finger's motto.

3. Right index finger. The main pointer, which is important. Also, it's how you indicate you are number one. It's pretty important.

2. Left thumb. Crucial for grip, although if it's your weaker hand, you could probably survive without it. Survive, but not thrive. It's still very important.

1. Right thumb. The king of fingers. Lose this digit and you can't grab things. You can't snap. You can't give anything two thumbs up. You can't suck your thumb. You need this one.

You've got to hand it to our fingers. They're important. I'll let myself out.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Freezer disaster brings back memories of messing up the DR phone system

One of the biggest oversteps of my career at the Daily Republic resulted in me arriving at work the following day to see a phone company truck parked near the front door, a worker tinkering with the switchboard and the switchboard operator giving me a stink eye.

I had broken the phone system and they knew it was me. Yikes.

Decades later, I realize it could have been worse. I could have been the guy at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, back in 2020.

You may not know the story, but it makes my overstep seem mild.

Back in 2020, the folks at RPI were doing "groundbreaking" research on photosynthesis that would assist in solar panel development. The work was expensive and elaborate, but there was a problem. The research samples were intended to be stored at more than 100 degrees below zero, but the freezer had problems. Since this happened during during the pandemic, there was a delay for repairs, so RPI workers did everything they could to keep the freezer as cold as possible and put up a sign that said to leave it alone, even if the alarm was going off. In other words, don't open the freezer, just hold down a button to turn off the alarm.

Well, the alarm went off. It was irritating. It kept going, so a contract nighttime cleaner solved the problem.

He threw the breaker switch to turn off the entire thing, then went back to cleaning. Blessed silence!

Well . . . maybe not blessed.

By the time the RPI folks realized what happened, the temperature in the freezer had risen enough to spoil the samples. About $1 million worth of work and decades of research went down the drain.

Imagine his feeling when he came to work and saw researchers pulling out their hair, wondering what happened, while he knew there was video surveillance.

That's worse than my experience.

Back in the day, I merely liked sneaking onto the newspaper's overarching phone system and making announcements to the entire building in the hours after most workers had gone home. Mostly just the newsroom and the press workers were there, so I'd sing, I'd pretend to be a stadium announcer, I'd tell people to call their mothers.

There was no purpose to it, which is why it was slightly horrifying when I came to the office on a Wednesday morning to see all the hubbub, having messed around Tuesday night on the system. Donna, the beloved switchboard operator who was always nice, just looked at me and said, "Don't ever do this again." She wasn't smiling.

I didn't. And I never really got in trouble. I don't even know if the bosses knew it was me (Donna, of course, had innocently shown me how to do it when I asked her weeks earlier), although my role in such activities as chair racing and what we called "border-tape golf" made me a prime suspect.

Unlike the guy at RPI, I didn't cost the newspaper millions of dollars (hundreds of dollars? Maybe). I didn't have the media covering me. There was no lawsuit (unlike RPI).

The closest I got to payback was months later when someone had snuck a series of CDs onto a building-wide music system they had installed. I came in another morning and found the CDs on my desk, broken, with a note to stay out of the CD system.

I hadn't done it. But it seemed fair since I'd gotten away with the PA system shenanigans.

But let the record state: I think it was co-worker Matt Peiken who did it, not me.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Springing into action to change seasons to make sense

Spring officially begins March 19 this year, about five weeks after baseball spring training started.

That makes no sense. Because our seasons – which are based on how much daylight we get – don't sync with how we really view the seasons. Sure, March 19 will be the vernal equinox, when there will be 12 hours of daylight. Sure, summer will begin June 20 this year – the day with the most hours of daylight. Of course, fall starts when we get back to exactly 12 hours of daylight and winter starts on the shortest day of the year.

Hogwash.

We should be in the middle of spring right now. All our seasons should start at appropriate times on the calendar. It's time for the Stanhope Seasons Plan.

By the way, this is not necessarily connected to my longtime New Year's Day proposal, when we move that holiday to the first day of spring. But it could be.

So go with me on this as I propose new definitions for the four seasons (not for Frankie Valli, though. Hah hah hah). The good news? This plan fits with what your brain already knows.

Spring: Spring begins on the first day of baseball spring training, which is so obvious it's hard to believe no one has promoted this as an idea earlier. For the uninitiated, that's usually around Valentine's Day. I'd even be willing to push the first day of spring to the first day of baseball spring training games,  which is near the end of February. By early March we all think it's spring, right?

Summer: Everyone knows that summer runs from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend through the Monday of Labor Day. That's when we camp. That's when we take vacations. Ask a kid when summer starts and they'll tell you: That three-day weekend just before school gets out. When does summer end? Either when they return to school or after Labor Day. I'm old school. It's after Labor Day. Summer is simple.

Fall: Autumn obviously starts the day after Labor Day and goes until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the last gasp of fall, with Black Friday just sneaking in (I'm open to having fall end on Thanksgiving night if you think Black Friday is winter). We all know that Dec. 1 is really part of winter. It's absurd that Dec. 20 is still fall under the current calendar. No one thinks that's autumn.

Winter: If you're keeping score, you understand this. Winter goes from the day after Black Friday until baseball spring training opens. It covers the main winter holidays (unless my proposal for New Year's Day goes through), but ends shortly after the Super Bowl. That makes sense, right?

Want more proof? Under my proposal, here is the length of each season in days. You'll notice it makes sense: Spring is 100 days, summer is 100 days, fall is 89 days and winter is 77 days. That's as it should be, right? Spring and summer should be a little longer than fall and winter. 

We can keep our calendar (with the needed switch for New Year's Day), but let's change the seasons. Ignore that the Four Seasons had a hit with the chorus, "Let's hang on to what we've got." That's not only redundant (it should be "Let's hang on to what we have."), it's wrong in the case of seasons.

Change the seasons.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Hypochondriacs study is enough to make me feel seriously ill

A recent study from Sweden showed that people who have an excessive fear of getting sick – now called "illness anxiety disorder" rather than hypochondriasis – are more likely to die early than are those of us without the disorder.

Is that good news or bad news for hypochondriacs? 

On the bad side, if you have the disorder, you'll likely die earlier. On the plus side, at least you were right. Now everyone will feel guilty about snickering every time you got a cold and feared it is a symptom of a more serious illness.

What a quandary!

And is this conversely significant news for those who have excessive confidence in their health despite evidence to the contrary?

First the details: A study published in JAMA Psychiatry used data from the Swedish medical classification system, one of the few in the world that has a separate code for hypochondriasis . . . or "illness anxiety disorder." Researchers studied thousands of people from 1997 through 2020.

The study included more than 4,000 people with IAD and more than 40,000 others who were otherwise similar but didn't have the disorder. It turns out that people who constantly (and irrationally?) worry about illness died early at a higher rate and at an average of five years younger than those without the disorder. They were four times more likely to commit suicide and also died at a higher rate from circulatory and respiratory diseases.

We can assume this tendency has gotten worse in the internet age since we can all look up our symptoms on Google and find out that in some circumstances, we have symptoms of cancer or heart failure or the bubonic plague.

While ignoring the statement that they're likely symptoms of a cold.

But the question remains: Were the people in Sweden with IAD right after all? It seems like they were correct at least the final time (right before dying), but the question is how to address this.

An article on the study by The Associated Press highlighted a key challenge in addressing this issue: To be treated for IAD requires a medical professional to recognize it and tell the patient, who can be easily offended because they think the doctor is dismissing their suspicion of legitimate, serious illness. So IAD patients will often ironically disregard a specific diagnosis because they believe they're really sick and the doctor thinks they're lying. (Or they could be like the person in the old joke who is told they're a hypochondriac and tells the doctor, "Oh no, that too?")

My earlier question is about the flip side of this study. Does this study also mean that people who assume that symptoms are temporary and they'll be fine will be correct? Is the real finding of the Swedish study that people without IAD live five years longer?

I'm not suggesting that you should avoid going to the doctor, but does it help if you (like me) find yourself saying, "It's just a cold," every time you're sick and delaying treatment to see if something will just go away (which it often does)?

Medicine is complicated and our bodies are not machines. We know that smoking cigarettes increase the chance of cancer, that eating well and exercising is helpful, that vegetables help us and that sugar and simple carbohydrates aren't great for us.

But what about that cough? Or that new ache in your back? Are you embracing IAD if you worry that it's something serious – and perhaps contributing to your own early demise?

My conclusion: Who knows? I'm not Swedish, so it doesn't apply to me. And I'm sure this cough is just temporary.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.