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Have I mentioned I'm on a diet? Yep, it's been over a week now. Funny just how long a week can be when you're in denial,
as I have been. I deny myself cookies, I deny myself pizza and, most of all, I deny myself doughnuts. But I hold out hope one day modern science will devise a doughnut low in fat and carbohydrates, full of
protein and vitamins and better for you than a pile of spinach. Hey, it's possible! Remember, this is a country with alcohol-free beer, meatless hamburgers, sugar-free candy and decaffeinated coffee!
Which leads us to ask the burning question -- what's the point? And what's next? Shirts made out of 100-percent cotton with no actual cotton content? Fake carrots? No, those are good for you and they only
mess around with stuff you actually enjoy. That means cigarettes, adults beverages, anything fried or covered with chocolate and cheese. As the little old lady in the TV commercial asked, "Where's the
beef?" I'm afraid I have the answer. It's in a test tube in some sinister laboratory being turned into little pills. On second thought, maybe putting food in pills is actually a good thing, because you can
skip the parts that have been rendered unattractive via technology. Like, taste, smell and appearance. Well, enough about food. Have you ever noticed whenever you're not supposed to do something, like eat
jelly doughnuts, you spend all your time thinking about them? Just like when I quit smoking, I spent every single minute thinking about the fact that I wasn't smoking a cigarette. I would get up in the
morning and my first thought of the day would be: Hey, I'm not lighting up my first cigarette of the day! Boy, aren't I a good girl? Then, as the day would progress, I'd think things like: Now, I'm not
buying another pack of cigarettes. And now I'm going to not go smoke a cigarette in order to reduce the stress that's giving me the urge to pelt innocent bystanders with sugarless gum. Then I'd say to
myself, Boy I sure am glad I'm NOT smoking that nasty, evil, smelly, cancer-ridden, filthy weed. Yessirree. I was constantly -- and I do mean constantly -- thinking about how I was NOT smoking. And that,
in a nutshell, is why it took me 20 years and approximately $7,000 worth of Nicorette gum to quit. I have a hard time forgetting what I'm not doing. Which is why I have trouble staying on a diet. Because
right now I'm not
eating jelly doughnuts, pepperoni pizza, French fries, cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese, waffles, pancakes, potato chips, chocolate-covered cherries, cheese Danish, chocolate malts and lots and lots of other stuff that's oh-so-bad for you and tastes-oh-so-good .
And I'm thinking about it. My theory is if God didn't want us to eat them, He wouldn't have put them right here in my pantry behind the packages of chocolate chip cookies and Cocoa Puffs, right?
Ok, ok -- forget it. Well, all that food talk's made me kind of hungry. Guess I'll go in the kitchen and fix myself a small, unsweetened bowl of long-cooking oatmeal, awash in protein powder (which, by the
way, would make a wonderful wallpaper glue). And while I'm eating it, I'll keep remembering how I'm not eating those nasty old Belgian waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, or French toast with real
maple syrup and crisp bacon strips, or fluffy three-egg cheese omelets with corned beef hash on the side.... |
