Queue Fun
You know where I have lots of fun? Lining up at the grocery store. The fun is all in my head, of course. Many fun things are all in my head. That's a little concerning, I admit.
I always try to figure out what the person in front of me is like. Their personality, values, political leanings, how they think. And you can glean a lot more information than you would think. That is if you pay attention to mundane things like this and are willing to stereotype, jump to conclusions, stretch credulity, walk a fine line between truth and fiction and completely get the person wrong. The great thing is I never know if I'm right or wrong. Who cares? I'm not their shrink.
One day I had this lady in front of me. She was buying a pound of fatty bacon and hidden underneath it was a container of hydroponic lettuce. It wasn't until she moved the items to pay for them that I saw the glaring food dichotomy. My mind went crazy.
She was super thin skinny boney and was wearing kind of raggy type clothes. Obviously she was a tree-hugging health nut who didn't have a job and usually ate birch bark sandwiches.
But then why these two items? And such polar food opposites? It wasn't just ordinary lettuce. She went out of her way to pay more for lettuce grown in water. Is this kind of lettuce healthier than normal lettuce? Doesn't lettuce grown in soil also get water? Questions for another day, I guess.
The bacon wasn't even salt reduced. It was the normal fatty, artery-destroying kind. What kind of a mind would consume such completely opposite foods? What's the rationale? Let me guess. She was making yin yang salad?
After much careful thought for about 3 seconds, I decided that she came in from her home in the forest to attend a dinner in the big city. It was with her parents, who she needed money from. She wanted to make a healthy salad but knew she had to include a city-type food that would appeal to her obese dad.
I bet you she was also hoping the really clean, healthy salad would counter balance the death-laden bacon. But is this how the body really works? Picture this…
We are now in the stomach with Chompsky, the General Manager of food intake. "Okay, everybody, we have some…yes, some bacon coming in. Tumus, get on the blower to cholesterol and let them know some bacon is on its way". "Chompsky", Tumus said, "we email all those notices now". "Whatever, just let them know. Wait a minute, hold that email. I think we have…yes, I think it's…yup, salad coming down. If I have to guess I'd say hydroponic. Hold off on cholesterol, let's contact the brain and recalculate. Let's see - 8 oz of hydroponic salad and 3 oz of bacon. The brain says to subtract her age, add her weight and divide by her I.Q. Okay, now we take the square root of her waist size plus…wait a sec, cue the eyes, what kind of car does she drive? What? No car? She lives in the woods? Oh good Lord, we have to recalculate everything now".
I've never heard this going on in my stomach. I guess we all fool ourselves sometimes. Tonight I ate 10 extra yellow beans to counter the beer and brownie I am eating. See, even I eat contradictions. Maybe the whole universe is based on contradictions. Life/death, good/evil, Boss suits/socks with sandals. I guess those contradictions keeps life interesting. Come to think of it, have you ever met anyone without contradictions? They are probably boring.
N.B. The above story actually did happen. I don't make these fascinating stories up out of thin cyberspace. Nothing but 100% Canada AAA truth on this site. No additives, cereals or bull poop of any kind.
