YUMMY YUMMY

Honoring the saying, “You are what you eat,” I decided to prepare a super-duper salad for my dinner. With a nod to my vegetarian friends, it was truly a masterpiece of greens, and spectacularly colorful red, orange, and purple vegetables. I also added a handful of nuts, and to top it all off, I added a few grapes and an avocado.

What a treat, until 2 a.m. when I woke up and my usually iron-clad stomach announced that I had swallowed a football. That could not be. Although I had thrown everything into my salad except the kitchen sink, I knew that pig skin would never pass my lips.

I was feeling pretty awful (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), and for awhile I lay there trying to reason out why my body was rebelling. After all, I had eaten purely healthy food.  Not to panic! I knew the discomfort was situated much to low to be a heart attack, and that burping was not a symptom.

Perhaps, I should not have watched CNN News while devouring my meal. Maybe, I shouldn’t have added irritating Presidential twitters to my salad. Well, it was obviously a case of indigestion, which is a very rare occurrence for me.

I knew it was time to take something to relieve my discomfort, and remembered that I had some old Zantac somewhere in my medicine chest. I stumbled into the bathroom, but  really didn’t want to turn on the overhead light. I knew if I did that, I’d never fall back to sleep. The night light would suffice.  I pulled out several old packages of out-of-date cures for ailments I never had, but felt that I needed just in case.  

Finally, I found the box of Zantac. I took one.  I didn’t care how old the pill was. I only hoped that my stomach would stop demanding attention and let me go back to sleep.

I woke up the next morning. That was the first good news. And, the discomfort was all gone. I went into the bathroom and looked at the Zantac box. The pills had expired way back when, but as long as the expiration date wasn’t stamped on my stomach, I didn’t care.

I kept the pills and threw out the rest of the salad. Had lamb chops, a baked potato and cooked vegetables for dinner. My stomach was very happy. Yes, I am what I eat.  So it goes.

Esther Blumenfeld (“I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.”) Winston Churchill