The Finite

Purdue assigns all of us a “career ID” which I’m led to believe is SOP for all colleges. The mangled remnants of our name become our username, email address and key to practically anything requiring electronic authentication for Purdue. Mine is boring, it’s just my last name. Apparently I applied early enough to avoid having a number assigned or my first two letters of my first name prefixed to it, thus avoiding the fates of those with common last names like Kim or Smith.

But I was in the computer lab the other day when someone behind me noticed whose documents were coming out of the printer.

Guy: “Tank”? Who’s named Tank? That’s an awesome-

At which point a 5 foot tall skinny Asian girl, came and took the printouts

I think we can assume her last name was “Tan” and that her first name began with a ‘K’. The system is a weird formula. I was silently grateful her last name wasn’t “Chin”.

At dinner one night, Brooke noticed the “cutest little thing” over by the dessert bar. Garnish kiwis decoratively cut into miniature fruit baskets.

Thus began an hours-long debate on the definition of cute.

We came to several conclusions:

Anything used by, worn by or having anything to do with a child is immediately cute.

Covering anything in kittens must invariably increase its net cuteness. This is known as the Chaisson effect.

fun-size candy = not cute
mini candy= cute

This one surprised me, chicken nuggets are -though they’re potentially small versions of bigger pieces of chicken- not cute.

It was decided that tiny lethal missiles, because of their excessive propensity for harm, are not cute.

This one I saw coming. All mammal babies, miniature versions of functional things, like smart cars and dollhouses.

All mammal babies. That includes vicious puppies and lion cubs, even if they’re eating you, are cute. Apparently they aren’t “excessively” harmful.

Another interesting effect: Babies in leather jackets are cute, but babies in fur coats are not. I disagree. I think they’d look like the world’s smallest pimps.

Another thing I have to mention is when beings that aren’t human act like they’re people. See any Pixar film for proof.

The moral of the story is: if you want to make something cuter, either make it small or cover it in kittens.