Pickled Nonsense: September 2011

28 September 2011

21 September 2011

Down With Hallmark, Up With Pickled

Today I went to CVS to purchase a birthday card. I hate picking cards out and usually go for the ones that are blank inside, but there were none to be found. Not wanting to purchase one of the many “humorous” cards with half-naked people on the front or tiny bug-eyed Chihuahuas wishing “Feliz Cumpleanos,” I was left with few options.

I don’t know at what point it happened, but I started searching through the floral cards with sappy messages; cards that said things like “You’re the most super person I know” and “Here’s wishing the most amazing person an even more amazing birthday.” Puke.

I wondered how often a card like that is given to someone simply because there is nothing else available. I often find myself giving cards to people I don't even like, so why would I want to get one that gushes about the receiver? If I did buy a card like this, I would have to make sure my personal message was more truthful than whatever Hallmark had to say.

I was so fed up that I quit the card search after twenty minutes. Lucky for you, this terrible experience has sparked a series of “post” cards that I have created; cards that can tell the receiver how you really feel, cards for fun, cards for occasions that you wish they made a card for. Send the link to one to someone special. It may not sing when you open it, but it’s free.

Stay Tuned.

18 September 2011

Gum King

The other day I went to Berkeley and Jensen's Wholesale Club to stock up on essentials like toilet cleaner and pistachios.

While I was in there I realized that I should buy some minty gum because I was down to two pieces and would hate to be stuck in a situation where I couldn't answer someone based on their proximity to me and possible rankness of my breath.

I grabbed a box of Eclipse and thought nothing of it until the next day.

Now I should say that usually I can be kind of miserly with my gum; I don't offer up a piece unless asked because then the gum-moochers all come out of hiding. They hear there is gum and suddenly I am surrounded with open palms "Oh, can I have a piece too?" Not wanting to come off as impolite, I begrudgingly share my gum and soon my pack of ten pieces has depleted. I am left with nothing but feelings of loss and regret. Because of this all-too-frequent scenario, I tend to be discreet with my gum consumption.

The day after my BJ's trip, however, I went into my bag to grab my gum after lunch and realized just how much was there. That little wholesale box was a treasure chest of gum, carrying 20 packs of Eclipse! I walked around my office passing gum out like I was some sort of king -- the King of Gum -- sharing my wealth with those less fortunate. My sudden generosity convinced me that I would make a great real king because I was so great at sharing without feeling bitter afterwards. How could I when I had so much to spare?

It's unfortunate that I wasn't born into royalty; the world could really use a philanthropist like me. If Prince Harry comes knocking at my door then I will at least entertain the thought of marrying him, purely for the sake of touching the lives of others through my countless hours of humanitarian work as a Duchess (definitely not for the sake of touching him and making gorgeous, royal ginger-babies together). Until that day comes, however, I will just have to stick to shopping at BJs.

The End

07 September 2011

Food Kicks

Some people think of the heart as the storehouse for all of their feelings, or if you want to be more scientific, the brain. I, however, store all of mine in my stomach. I know this because food has always affected my mood so powerfully that my feelings can’t possibly lie anywhere else in my body.

Food makes me happy, good food. Likewise, bad food can really ruin my mood, especially if the expectation is high. I can’t be held accountable for my actions when I don’t have anything good in my stomach.

Because of this, when I eat something that makes me happy, I tend to want it all the time. I go on these “food kicks” and, for a while, everything is great. I am uplifting to those around me, often singing and dancing because I am so overjoyed with life while my happy food is around.

A scene from my kitchen last week, sang to the tune of Color Me Bad's I Wanna Sex You Up

Soon enough, however, the food that I grow so fond of ends up destroying my life by turning the people I love against me. It can happen one of two ways:

One way is that the love dies off.

As a kid, my mother would see how happy a particular food made me (or maybe she just wanted to save herself from going to the grocery store seven days a week) and would buy me 12 boxes of Kellogg’s sugar smacks at once.

The problem is, she wouldn’t catch on until I was weeks into it; by the time she realized I was going through a box of sugary cereal puffs a day, I was over it. I’d eat half a box more and then never want to look at another smack again. This left me with a discouraged mother -- complaining about my wastefulness and the lack of space in our kitchen that was now crammed with cereal I would never eat again.

But sometimes it ends differently. Sometimes I don’t stop loving the happy food until it’s too late. I grow to need it. The daily helping of porterhouse steak with A1 sauce leaves me with an outrageous credit card bill, or the people I live with become fed up from smelling spaghettios with meatballs at 8 am every morning, or eating banana waffles topped with Aunt Jemima and vanilla ice cream for dinner four nights in a row. I'm so ruled by my voracious appetite that I can’t stop myself from eating a third grapefruit in a row. It’s like a drug for me, and the person I turn into isn’t pretty.

People become concerned; they think my propensity for the food-of-the-minute is unnatural and they whisper to each other about attempting an intervention before it’s too late.

I start sneaking the food into the house and hiding it in the back of the fridge or cupboard; slinking around in my own home like a common criminal just to get my fix. One day I am fine and enjoying life, and the next I find myself throwing up jalapeno nacho cheese and scrambled egg sandwiches all over the kitchen floor at 2 am. "How did I get here, where did I go wrong in life?," I wonder.