When I was in college, I wrote a weekly column called “Sunny Side Up with Amanda Doran.”

Stay with me.

This is pretty weird but it’s an interesting peak into life 9 years ago. This piece is from “The Towerlight,” Towson University’s student-run newspaper. The following was published on September 3, 2009 but is still, I think, kind of humorous. I’ve made some small changes but mostly, this is the same piece from my senior year of college. It kind of scares me how similarly I think, although, I do not have a hybrid, I think sporks do neither task well, and I can barely believe I entertained the thought of a mullet.

 

“Some Hypotheses Regarding Hybrids”

I think about the recently expired “Cash for Clunkers” every time I enter my wad-of-tape Jetta, which has recently decided to lower its miles per take by 60 miles, increasing both my trips to the gas station and haunting regret that I couldn’t afford to take part in the recent tax credit program. “Cash for Clunkers” has certainly also increased talk about hybrids… and oh, how I wish I drove one and so does my Discover bill.

But instead of wasting time yearning for a Prius I have been trying to think of other hybrids that deserve recognition in order to encourage myself that I too have a hybrid or two in my life, even if my car drinks gasoline like it’s beer at a Friday happy hour.

I imagine one of the first examples of a hybrid goad back to Greek mythology with Pan, half-man, half-goat. In the animated version of “Hercules,” Danny Devito verbally delivers a stellar impression of the mythic man-goat, solidifying the genius of such a creature even in our day and age.

Additionally, I recall that there are hybrids in plant biology if I can correctly think back far enough to when I didn’t take only English classes. But the hybrids that are more capturing in science are the hybrid animals. As Napolean Dynamite pointed out to all of us a “liger,” half-lion, half-tiger is deserved of favorite animal status.

I’ve also read up (on a not-so-reliable website) that “zorses,” and “zonkeys,” and “zonys” are possible zebra combinations. I guess a lot of the animal kingdom wants to mate with the zebra. I can’t wait to hear about zumans or humbras (zerbra and huma) and I trust that the “National Inquirer” will report on one in due time.

Just yesterday for lunch I packed a serving of asparagus and a yogurt cup. Did I arm myself with two whole different utensils?

No, I packed a spork, the underrated combination of a spoon and a fork!

I was able to stab and enjoy my asparagus then scoop and enjoy my yogurt with just one tool.

While we’re on the topic of dairy, half and half, milk and cream, is maybe the most pronounced and common hybrid of daily life.

The realization took me back to my days of wearing “skorts,” a 90s hybrid of a skirt and shorts. These were typically denim with the shorts revealed in the back and the skirt dazzling up front.

And as my train of thoughts go, I started to think of the mullet, a hybrid haircut often referred to as “business in the front, part in the back.”

A mullet is the ideal haircut for attention-getting because everybody likes to point out a good, old-fashioned mullet.

Furthermore, I suppose that secondary colors could be seen as hybrids as well. Purple is simply a combination of blue and read and orange is just yellow plus red. But this raises the question, who says that, blue, and yellow came first?

What if they had made sporks before traditional utensils? What if we were all just zumans with black and white stripes but human qualities? When noticing hybrids, it is valuable to point out that any of these things could have just come first and not been slapped with the hybrid label.

But since we’ve decided that combinations of things must be labeled as such, let hybrids reign. I hope they bring back “Cash for Clunkers” when I’m not student teaching and I actually have a paycheck again.

I already know my ultimate hybrid goal: to drive a hybrid car to a driving range with a hybrid golf club, wearing a skort, rocking a mullet, a spork in my lunchbox, and a liger waiting for me at home.