Why aren't we allowed to have food fights?

There has always been that one epic episode in every Disney or Nickelodeon series we watched when we were young that depicts a food fight. When I watched those specific episodes I remember literally being jealous of the actors, because they actually got to participate in the combat, even if they were supposed to be acting. Since then I have always wanted to be a player in one of these horribly messy battles. This didn’t end when I was young either, even last year, during my senior year, I daydreamed about how awesome it would be to have a food fight in our cafeteria on our last day of school.

Spaghetti would be the ideal meal, kind of like that book, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” The noodles would have elasticity and could be flung completely satisfyingly. The red sauce would stain and stick, making it look like a war zone reenactment. There would be yelling, screaming, laughing, and surprise. There wouldn’t be anything like chicken wings that would be disgusting and potentially painful. There would be soggy garlic toast, grapes used as squishy bullets, and milk cartons that would create blowholes of white water when they landed. The little buds that compose broccoli heads would make everyone green and speckled. And finally the pudding for desert would have incredible slinging capacity and velocity, and would land with a “slop”. It would be a perfectly balanced meal.

It would be completely spontaneous, there would be no permission slip needed, no thesis paper submitted to describe the emotional necessity. We would clean it up, or at least I would, it would be completely worth it. Just to have ten minutes where our childish habits could be completely freed without time to consider our actions, for once in our lives we would just do something for the kicks.

But people are too afraid to get messy and our teachers are too afraid of letting us get messy. The faculty, and some of the “mature” students would also take our perishable mess as a personal attack to both them and the school. We would get spoken to about how we represent the school and our community and this was against the posted morals. They would get disgusted and deeply offended, like we called their religion dumb or their lifestyle unmotivated. They would try to look at us in disgrace, but what they forget is that they, and the world around us, are human. We only have one life to live, so why not have a food fight? Who cares if we make a little mess that requires some Clorox, rags, and water? We’ll never have an opportunity to have one after we’re gone.

My dream would be that people who read this go out and do things which are against the “law”; whether it’s family law, school law, friend code, diet plan, or reading list. I understand if you’re afraid of heights and don’t want to sky dive, because I don’t either, or if you’re too ticklish to get a back massage. I’m not necessarily talking about utilizing the world and everything it has to offer, but I think you should do things you instinctively want to do. Even if you can’t find a reason you should do it, don’t try to debate whether it’s appropriate. In exchange, the outsiders who don’t believe in spontaneous joy, should not judge others who jump into a pool with their clothes on.

There are several things in our generation that are judged because they break social laws. You no longer should touch anything unhealthy at all; you shouldn’t eat ice cream for dinner because it’s not a balanced meal. You shouldn’t drink diet coke after you work out (I don’t even know why, people always just tell me that). Basically you should never ever be unproductive or even worse counterproductive. You should never sleep in until noon, or spend the whole day on the couch. It seems like now everything you want has to be justified; that’s why we fake sick. You would lose lots of respect from your boss or you coworkers, just because you wanted to stay home one day instead of bettering the company. Even if some people knew in the back of their heads that you weren’t coming to work because you didn’t want to come, it makes everyone feel better if you say you’re sick.

The reason that I chose to blog about this idea of pointless fun was because of this picture I came across this morning while looking at “The News in Pictures” at Yahoo.com. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and I highly recommend randomly going to it when you’re bored. It’s the picture book version of the news and then some. They always have pictures of the wacky fun things going on in the world, that don’t even make a sentence in the news broadcasts, because they aren’t important enough apparently. But, I believe this news event is plenty important enough. I wish there would have been videos of this all over CNN and Fox News just to show people that it’s okay to have fun sometimes.

It’s the world’s largest tomato fight! It’s been happening annually for 64 years in Bunyol Spain. People are not really sure exactly how this enormous red fight began, but the story says that when two rich men were going through the poor city on horses, some young boys pick up tomatoes off a stand and chucked them at the men. Apparently the boys came back on the same day a year later, the third Sunday in August, and started another tomato fight with their own basket of tomatoes. Now more than 20,000 people participate every year and they travel from afar to participate.

For La Tomatina the city ships in truck loads of the weapon; there are over 150,000 tomatoes, which is about 90,000 pounds! The tomatoes are specifically grown for the festival, they have no good taste, nor is there a lot of money spent on their supplies. The local stores and residence board up their homes and the fight is nationally televised throughout Spain. There is a week long festival that proceeds the fight, to bring the town together. The fun can officially start once an attendee can make it up a greased pole to retrieve the ham, which is tied to the top. Once the ham hits the ground, the festivities begin. The fight actually begins after the crowd is drenched with water from water cannons and then ends after sixty minutes, which is marked by more showering from the water cannons.

The rules are: You can’t rip opponents’ clothing, you can’t bring in bottles or cups which could easily injure others, and you should crush tomatoes in your hands first before throwing them so they aren’t painful. After the fight is over fire trucks sweep the town and direct all the water into the old aqueducts, and viola! The city is clean! When asked why they kept celebrating the holiday Spain replied, “There is no political or religious significance to La Tomatina, it's just good, messy fun.”

Resources:

*http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/spanish-festivals/la-tomatina-tomato-battle-bunyol.htm

*http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Spain-hosts-64th-annual-Tomatina-festival/ss/events/lf/082609tomatina/im:/090826/ids_photos_wl/r2341503942.jpg/#photoViewer=/090826/ids_photos_wl/r1536500472.jpg

*http://www.donquijote.org/culture/spain/fiestas/tomatina.asp