"Ever Wonder..."

Ever have one of those days? You know the one. Where you just lay there and think about stuff. Typically, when I do that, I end up awake for hours just thinking about weird stuff. 

I get to wondering. Then I wonder if other people ever wonder about the same stuff I wonder about. Like tea. Seriously, has anyone ever wondered about tea? It's a leaf that you boil in water to release the delicious flavors. I enjoy tea hot and cold. It's good stuff. Little bit of cream and sugar, maybe some honey...mmm mmm! 

However, my mind starts wandering at about that point. How many different leaves do you suppose they had to boil before they decided the leaf from the tea tree was the ideal choice? I mean, did someone try boiling leaves of poison ivy or poison oak? How do you think that went? 

Same thing with coffee. We call it "coffee beans" but it's really seeds inside a fruit. How did it ever occur to someone to grind up what is basically a cherry pit, boil it and drink it? How many different fruits do you think that guy experimented with? "Today I'm gonna boil up kiwi seeds, tomorrow I'll try acorns. There's got to be a great drink to be found!"

Chocolate. Chocolate isn't sweet in it's natural state. Vanilla can actually be kind of bitter before it's refined. And, through personal experimentation, ferns don't taste great either. But maybe if they're refined like chocolate and vanilla??

What about eggs? You think someone saw a chicken pop a squat, leave this big oval thing (it could've been poop for all they knew) and decide "hey, I wonder how that tastes!" Raw eggs really aren't that tasty. You figure they tried the shell first too? Maybe they boiled it up along with that critter they saw scurrying sideways on the beach. 

Speaking of which, the lobster is as ugly as the crab. Only they had to dive deeper to find that thing. Scallops. Hhmm. How the hell did someone figure to try THAT thing?! Mushrooms. Seriously? Who thought of eating those? Where do we come up with these things? You think someone was out camping and a yeti was "psst...try the 'shrooms dude. Oh, and some are poisonous and some are mind altering. Nope, I'm not gonna tell you which ones are which. Bon apetit."

I can't help the stuff that goes on up there. I do understand that necessity is the mother of invention. I get that but what "necessity" required humans to invent things like eating raw oysters? Seriously. Was there a famine and the people of Atlantis shared with we normal folk the secret of oysters? Is that why their civilization can't be found, because they're under there snickering "hee hee, we got them to eat that crap. Suckers!" That's why no one can find Atlantis now, I bet. 

Escargot! Seriously?! What, exactly, is the nutritional significance of eating snails? And who's the lunatic that started the trend of eating garden pests? I'm the one that's "troubled" but the "sane" people come up with these foods? You know what, I'm just gonna go back to bed now