This past sunday saw me engaging in several activities. Housekeeping, doing laundry, cooking, eating a full box of chicken nuggets, drinking enough to make James Hetfield cower in fear, listening to some “interesting” internet radio, and catching up on some TV DVDs.
Did I mention cooking? Just checking.
Undergoing one of my bi-weekly guilt trips regarding my weight, I decided I would make a salad to eat during the week. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing I’ve never done before, right?
I might as well get this out of the way. What I do is more of a slaw than an actual salad, in that I just throw a bunch of shit into the food processor. Well, one item at a time, because my food processor is a pussy. Then I “toss” the final product. What keeps me from calling it a slaw, however, is that I don’t drown the contents in mayonnaise.
Anyway, I proceeded to mush up a 2 lb. bag of baby carrots, a head of lettuce (Iceberg, of course), a stupid giant cabbage that gave me nothing but trouble since I bought it, some cucumbers, and a red onion. A big one.
Then, because I didn’t want puree, I chopped up a couple of tomatoes and a couple of avocados. I threw everything into my gigantic plastic container, gave it a quick toss, squeezed a couple of limes into the whole mess, gave it another quick toss, and set it aside.
I contemplated. Something was missing. I mean, for your average rabbit, what I had so far created was paradise in a ridiculously large container, and well, with a few splashes of Tabasco I could find enjoyment in it, but again, something was missing. Meat! After all, to borrow a phrase from my brother in law, salad is what food eats.
I looked into the freezer. It now looked empty, after having disposed of my box of nuggets. All that was left were my ice cube trays, a bag of frozen veggies, a pack of tilapia fillets, a tube of ground beef, and an economy-size pack of stewing beef.
“Nah”, I said, “beef and fish are better left for other endeavours”. I peeked into the fridge, now much spacier since I took out all the veggies. I noticed two packages sitting way behind a bunch of containers. A two-pack of boneless, skinless chicken breast fillets I had put in the fridge a few weeks ago to defrost, and half a pack of bacon that had been sitting there for well over a month.
They didn’t look spoiled, and they didn’t give off any unpleasant odours, so I proceeded with the cooking. First, the chicken breasts. A little splash of oil, and in they went. I seasoned them with salt, pepper and cumin, took them over to the chopping board and cut them into little pieces even a small house cat would have considered bite-size.
Then, the bacon. I let it cook in its own grease, occasionally eliminating the excess over the sink. It, too, went through the chopping board and into the salad.
Bacon smells so fucking good. As if you didn’t already know that. Lucky me, I had just taken in 50 plus chicken nuggets, so I wasn’t hungry. But that bacon smell was compelling. I just couldn’t resist, and I grabbed just one little piece.
I gave the salad another toss, and put it away. I proceeded with the rest of my activities (and non-activities), and soon enough I went to bed.
I woke up suddenly with what felt like a cramp in my stomach. After half-muttering “oh shit”, all I could taste in my mouth was bacon. You know how the body lets you know what it was that hurt it? Anyway, I managed to fall back asleep. When the alarm went off in the morning, I didn’t even hit the ’snooze’ button. I barely made it into the bathroom. I’ll spare you the details. Thank me later.
The taste of bacon was still in my mouth, and after brushing my teeth I stepped outside for my morning cigarette. As I was smoking it, I began to think it would be a very, very bad idea to go ahead with my plan of eating salad all week.
I felt a little sick. Not enough to call in to work, but just then, work called me. “Can you come in early?”. Just my luck. A 12 hour shift in one of those days when a simple fart could ruin your whole day. And your reputation.
So now I’ve been eating off the lunch truck at work. It could be worse, I guess. If I hadn’t compulsively consumed the entire contents of that box of nuggets, I could be getting my nutrients via IV, at the local hospital. Sometimes, listening to that little devil that pops out beside your head can pay off.
The Iceberg.
