The Importance of Expectation

Bellevue, WA

It's been awhile since I posted, because I had a week and a half or so of fairly uninspiring stops. One unfortunate thing about this job is while I get to visit lots of different city, it's hard to write an entertaining piece about a city such as Omaha without coming off snarky, especially when I'm not even staying in Omaha (which I'm sure is perfectly lovely) but in some non-descript suburb of Omaha. Anyway, last week I got to stay in Rochester NY. Now I doubt that's inspiring much pitter-patter in your hearts, but I actually had a good time because I was staying in DOWNTOWN Rochester. The only thing I knew about Rochester was what my roommate Sparky told me (he's from nearby Syracuse) and he said that there’s this amazing restaurant called Nick Tahoe's Hots and they serve a world famous dish called the Garbage Plate. So when we arrived to our hotel, I threw my bags into my room and went for a walk in search for this supposed national institution.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations and how it often shapes the way we enjoy something. I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty sure there is a scientific ratio that describes our enjoyment of an event. Something along the lines of: Reality / Expectation = Enjoyment. For example: The other day I went to watch a movie called Men Who Stare at Goats. It starred George Clooney, Jeff Daniels and Kevin Spacey, actors who I respect and almost always enjoy. So you might say my expectation was pretty high. If I had to grade it on a 1 to 10 scale, I would say my expectation was about a 9. The reality was that it was a decent movie. It was funny, it had quality characters and though it kind of trailed off toward the ending, the plot was fun. So on a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate it at about a 7. That’s a fairly good score especially since I’m easily amused, yet I came out of the theater thinking, ‘Meh… it was all right I guess, but it could’ve been way better.’ So if you were to divide the reality score of 7 by my expectation score of 9, you would come up with an enjoyment score of about .78. And I’m thinking you need to have at least a 1 to really enjoy the movie.

Now compare that to when I saw the latest Indiana Jones movie. I went into that movie fully expecting it to be awful. The reviews were horrible, nobody I had talked to liked it and the only reason I even went was because of some wistful hankering for my favorite movie series from when I was a kid. So I’ll put my expectation level at about a 2. The reality was that it had over the hill actors, a ridiculous plot, geography that was dubious at best, and Shia Lebouf swing through the jungle with a troop of monkeys. Hmmm… so I’ll give it a 3. Yet somehow, I came out of the theater thinking, “Wow that was actually a lot of fun. I didn’t realize that you could survive a nuclear blast in a refrigerator and maybe there is a way to get from the Nazca Lines to Iguazu falls in a couple of hours driving a Jeep.” So there you go… my enjoyment score ended up at a 1.5. By the way, this theory works for almost anything: restaurants, hotels, first dates, whatever.

Sorry, I’ve noticed that I’ve digressed… I was talking about Nick Tahoe’s Hots for which my expectation was set pretty high. Walking up to it, I wasn’t exactly blown away. It’s basically just a greasy spoon set in a ramshackle brick building with a rusty metal sign informing the public that they now sell lottery tickets. It had a long Formica bar with fixed padded stools and huge grill maintained by crusty chef with a grey pony-tail. I ordered the Garbage Plate which is basically just a bunch of things mixed together on one plate. Mine had macaroni, fried potatoes and couple of cheeseburger patties. It was the kind of thing that would’ve been awesome after a 12 hour drinking binge or maybe if I had come upon it randomly, but at that point I wasn’t all that impressed. Once again, expectation triumphed over reality which left my enjoyment suffering. Ah well.

What I learned today: If you forget a book on a plane and they aren’t showing a movie (as many airlines aren’t anymore) and you’ve finished the crossword in the in-flight magazine, check out the bizarre products advertised in the Sky Mall magazine. It’s hilarious.

An actual product found in the Sky Mall magazine: Telekinetic Obstacle course. Yep that’s right! With this amazing product you can control a ball and make it work its way through an obstacle course by using only your brain waves. From what I can gather from the male model in the picture, you wear a silly head band and glare at a ball until it moves around a space agey-looking course. I don’t know what else to tell you. I told you these products were weird.