I have been eating crap for dinner. Not literal crap. If I were eating literal crap, that would mean I have pica. If I had pica, that may be an indication that I have some other mental disorder. But even if I did not have a mental disorder and I was eating literal crap for dinner, I think that I would end up having some other issues (especially since I am airing this fact to anyone who cares to read).
I have been eating poorly. Is that a better way to phrase it? When it comes time for me to eat dinner, I am usually busy. It is later in the evening. My wife works several nights of the week. I find myself alone. I find myself hungry. But I find myself busy. And, more importantly, I find myself lazy.
I am sure there are many others out there who connect to this existential struggle. You are all alone at home. Perhaps you live by yourself. Perhaps the others you live with are gone. And you find yourself hungry. It is not a great hunger. It is a little growl in your stomach, a little pull at your tongue. You are doing something. For me, this something is generally working. I am trying to get work done. I am trying to do chores. I am trying to achieve some goal I have been trying to achieve for the past decade. And as I try to achieve this, I get discouraged. I think, “Aww shucks, life sure would be better with a Klondike bar.”
Though some of you may not find yourself in this exact situation, we all struggle in many ways. You may find that it isn’t discouragement that drives you to the fridge. You may find that it is boredom. You may find that you are exhausted. You have spent the last hour flipping through movie after movie on all seven of your television streaming services and you have found nothing to watch. So, you go to the fridge. Whatever has brought you to this moment, you go to the fridge.
And what do you do? You stand at that fridge. You pull it open. You look inside. And what do you see? Well, if you are honest with yourself, you see a lot of food. You see a lot of things that you could eat. But in your mind, you are thinking that there is absolutely nothing to eat. Absolutely nothing to eat and woe is you. Woe. Woe. Woe. Now, after some time of looking and deciding upon nothing, you leave the fridge. You sit down. You go back to your tv. You go back to your chores. For me, I go back to whatever work I am doing. And. . . (It is an exciting drama, isn’t it? I write books about crazy things happening to people, and nothing I can come up with can come close to this dance we do with our refrigerators).
And about five minutes after I sit down, I get up, I go to the fridge, and I look in again. Now, this goes on an indeterminate number of times. I may do it twice. I may engage in fridge opening and fridge peering fifty times, but eventually, eventually, I grab something. And because I am a lazy bum, I grab something that does not need to be cooked. At first, these things are something I want to eat such as hard salami. When I become more desperate, this thing turns into pepperoni. When the fridge has been emptied of all its pepperoni by little Gremlin that lives in our house (me), I move onto less interesting things.
Is there rice in the house? Eat three bowls. Is there cheese? Eat the whole block. Is there a bottle of ranch dressing? A cup or two will do. These are all second-tier foods. I am desperate, but I am only a little desperate. As those of you who are familiar with foods know, it tends to disappear when you eat it. One second it is there, you grab a handful, and it is gone forever. At these points in time, life gets interesting. I can no longer have a piece of salami. I can no longer eat a bowl of rice or take a quick swig from the ranch bottle, I must settle for less. I must settle for so much less. First comes the carrots. Then comes the broccoli. I have been known to carry around a bottle of olive oil and empty it in one night. Why? You’ve got to eat, baby. You’ve got to eat. Even if you are eating crap.