Rejoicing in ‘abnormality’
Without the abnormal life would be much less interesting
COMMENTARY
Meghan Youker

No longer will I correct myself.

Pop is pop. Not Coke, not soda but pop.

So go ahead, laugh and mock me.

I’ve already accepted your ridicule. Just know that it’s pop in my strange, “abnormal” world.

Because I haven’t decided that being normal is all its cracked up to be.

After all, if only “normal” people existed, where would the fun be in diversity? The interesting in the average? There would be no excitement in the unique, no drama in the boredom of everyday life.

Society needs strange behavior and randomly odd people, situations and comments.

Without them, what would we do and who would we gossip about?

Granted, in seventh grade it was imperative that you be one of the average kids in Mrs. Anderson’s American history class. Not the fat kid, the kid who knew every state capital, or the kid who couldn’t figure out how to pronounce the big words.

You had to be, you know, seemingly like everybody but the fat kid.

But which popular eighth grader decided it was so cool to be normal anyway? And why, years later, are so many of us still listening to him?

Because as a society we strive to be accepted and are too quick to judge those who seem abnormal. We strive to do what other people do, think what other people think and say what we assume other people want to hear.

I had a friend tell me the other day that she is more normal than I am. I am still not sure what this was meant to imply, but details considered, I suppose she had me beat.
So yeah, I wear contacts. And yep, my parents are divorced.

Regretfully, I can’t claim Texas residency or say I’ve been to the Alamo. I dip chicken strips in honey mustard instead of gravy and protest every variation of Whataburger. So if detesting episodes of American Idol make me abnormal, then hey, abnormal I must be.

Not necessarily a bad thing, though. I never said I wanted to be entirely normal. There is something interesting about the unique differences between people.

Take that annoying girl in your 9:30 criminal justice class for example.

The class would just be bad if that weird girl to your left didn’t ask such stupid questions all the time. You may despise her presence, but know that she’s the only one keeping you awake.

So wake up. Pretend that girl doesn’t bother you.

Rejoice that there are some odd, abnormal people in the world and that not everyone wears Abercrombie.

Meghan Youker is a sophomore broadcast journalism major from State Center, Iowa.

She can be reached at (m.m.youker@tcu.edu).