FOOD
★★★★★ (3 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing food.
Food is an obligation, and I don’t like obligations. After all these years, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have to eat food to stay alive. But what still bothers me is the overwhelming amount of flavors available. A grocery store’s infinite array of options is too much for me. At most, I think there should be about ten flavors of food. My favorite flavors are strawberry, pot roast, toast, Froot Loops, Necco Wafers, Pepto-Bismol, any ice cream, chocolate, butter, and Slurpees. I know those won’t be everyone’s favorites, but maybe somewhere in there is a compromise we can all agree on.
And I don’t need all these different textures either. Two or three would be enough – a liquid, and then a paste maybe. Chewing is a hassle, and I’ve never been very good at it. And it gets in the way when trying to have a conversation. If everything went down with the ease of a liquid or a paste, there would be a lot more time to talk and get to know one another. Who would argue against that?
It was only after I discovered an alternative to solid foods that I realized how much solids bothered me. While my wife was sick, they had to feed her with mush and also intravenously. The mush was surprisingly good in its simplicity. And once, I siphoned a sample off the IV. Not bad.
A famous food question is: If you were stranded on an island and could only have one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Easy. Whatever food is in the shape of a boat or a working plane. I can’t think of a food like this off the top of my head, but there are so many weird foreign foods, I’m willing to bet something fits this criteria.
Probably the worst thing about food is having to eat it alone. I have been doing that a lot ever since Rosie passed away. On the days when it’s most difficult, I’ll take my plate out to the street and set up a table there in the hopes someone will join me. Mostly people just stare or cross the street to avoid me. Once a guy sat down but because he thought it was a bus stop.
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing Garbage Pail Kids.
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P.S. Tonight I’ll be appearing at the May Monthly Rumpus event. Most of my family is dead or incarcerated, so please come and support me. I’ll be reading from the book I’m working on. It’s an autobiographical work about my week as a doctor. Hope to see you there!