Elbows On The Table is NYU Local’s humor column. Enjoy some great writing from our resident humorist Max Schieble.

Recently, someone told me that the McDonald’s arches in Arizona are colored turquoise instead of yellow, so as to better blend in with the state’s natural red surroundings. I looked it up. It’s true. Furthermore, it’s amazing.

Everything is better in turquoise. That’s what I’ve come to understand over the last several years and that is the wisdom I would like you to leave here with. Here’s a list of ten things that would be better in turquoise. Yes, everything would be better, that is what I said, but since that’s going to take awhile to accomplish, here are the ten things we should start with.

10. Taxi Cabs.

I know, I know; the yellow cab is an icon. It’s as representative of New York City as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Well, forget that. That’s unimportant. I know it’s a classic symbol, but think about it for a second: turquoise cabs? That’s beautiful! It’s a beautiful idea.

They wouldn’t be easier to spot (not easier than yellow is to spot), but they’d be more fun to spot (more fun than yellow is to spot), and more fun to ride inside (also, more fun than yellow is to ride inside). Include bananas as part of number ten. Turquoise bananas: both more fun to spot and ride inside than yellow bananas.

9. The Black Album (By Jay-Z, Not Metallica).

Kind of counterintuitive, I know, especially considering the whole fade-to-black-because-he-was-retiring aspect, but come on. It’s just a better color.

8. Ponies.

I don’t know. This seems good. My Little Pony does it. Did it. They had turquoise ponies. Who are we that we’re above MLP? I don’t know.

7. All Of The Power Rangers.

Screw it. Typically the colors are red, blue, yellow, pink, and black. Sometimes there’s white; sometimes there’s green; sometimes there’s gold. And then there was that bullshit in Power Rangers Ninja Storm with Tori, who was definitely turquoise, but they still called her the blue ranger. What was that, Saban?

Let’s go. All turquoise. Turquoise Ranger James; Turquoise Ranger Cynthia; Turquoise Rangers Carter, and Carla; and Turquoise Ranger James (a different James. James S.). That’s a team you don’t want to mess with. They would look sort of like scuba diving police officers from Atlantis. Or something.

6. Chocolate.

Okay. This one is a bit of a stretch. Barely, though. Chocolate is naturally brown, yes, but since when is anything naturally colored these days? Let’s make it turquoise. Or, conversely, let’s make it naturally turquoise! Let’s figure out how to do that.

One problem is that this might complicate some sexual innuendos. Not to mention a number of descriptions of Trey Songz.

5. Pants.

Pants. All pants. Let’s go.

Chairs, too. All chairs.

4. The Black Album (By Metallica, Not Jay-Z).

Kind of counterintuitive, I know, especially considering the whole album-is-black-because-it’s-metal-and-there’s-no-room-for-color-and-certainly-not-a-color-like-turquoise aspect, but come on. It’s just a better color.

3. The American Flag.

Initially, I was thinking just the stars should be turquoise, so our national colors would be red, white, blue, and turquoise. Then I thought maybe we should ditch the red stripes too, leaving us with just turquoise, blue, and white. But no, that’s not enough. We’re going turquoise stripes, stars, and square part under stars. We’re going all turquoise flag.

Then, hopefully all nations would follow suit, as we’ve come to expect. Soon, we’d all have the same flag. Would that mean we’d all be one nation? This piece just developed a much larger scope.

2. The Ocean And The Sky.

Here we are; number two. It’s time to go big. I’m talking seventy percent of the Earth’s surface, and one hundred percent of the above Earth. Both the ocean and the sky are practically already turquoise, if you think about it. They just need that extra push, a confidence booster, an affirmation. And the sky wouldn’t be some bright raver turquoise, or eight grade girl turquoise, but a nice light aqua, or teal. And the ocean could pretty much be the same, we would just stop pretending that water is blue.

1. People.

Okay. Hear me out. Forget about James Cameron, and the mess that was Avatar, and even the mess that was The Last Air Bender, not directed by Cameron, but based on the animated series Avatar: The Last Air Bender. Those people-things in Avatar were blue anyway. I’m talking straight up turquoise people.

Think: Nicki Minaj in Vogue.

Or, better yet, think: Skeeter Valentine.

But still: keep thinking of Nicki Minaj, in general.

Turquoise humans would be the best. It would be like real life Lego people, if Lego people were turquoise (file that as number eleven). Turquoise is just a very attractive color. People as a whole would look more attractive in turquoise. It’d be better than any of the numerous skin tones currently available. And if everyone was so firm on keeping this whole race-thing going, we could have different shades of turquoise. There could be teal people, and aqua, and light aqua, and celeste. And then chocolate being turquoise would be fine in terms of sexual innuendos and Trey Songz.

Think: Canadian CGI action-adventure series, ReBoot. That show ran for seven years solely off the strength of turquoise humanoids. Just try and remember one thing about ReBoot. You can’t. There’s nothing.

Plus, if people were naturally turquoise, everyone would look better in red, which was McDonald’s whole line of thought in the first place. Faded red, especially. Like, salmon.

Oh, man: think of how great red heads would look with turquoise skin. That’s the one. That’s why we’ve got to do this.

There. What a list. What a world that would be. It would be much better. It would be a much better world. Of course, now it occurs to me that were these things always turquoise, they wouldn’t really be that special. So forget it. Go away.

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