tasting impaired

I've had a terrible cold for the past several days that has left me feeling very much like an aspirin bottle...head full of cotton and safety seals firmly attached over each nostril. So I've been taking a good bit of Day-Quil to get through each work day. Granted, I could simply take some personal time, but I'm strongly taking sick days when I'm sick. Any day-off should be enjoyed to the fullest...therefore, I'm saving all my sick days until I'm healthy enough to enjoy them.

The problem I've found with Day-Quil, however, is that while it provides breathing relief, I really only have about a half hour of optimal tasting time. Sadly, lunch is the high point of my working day, so the ability to taste is of the utmost importance.

After a couple of un-tastable lunches and some trial and error with my nasal medication, I discovered that if two capsules were taken at precisely nine o'clock in the morning, my taste window fell at the exact time of my lunch break. A nearby diner was serving their famous crab-melt sandwiches...with fries... as their lunch special today, and these crab-melt sandwiches are my all-time favorite from their wide array of lunch time delicacies and appears on the menu very infrequently. So it was essential that I be in prime-tasting form for lunch.

As the noon hour hit, I grabbed my coat and made a dash for the front door, but as I was about to exit into the parking lot, my boss Vince called me into his office. “With the holidays coming up, I've decided to give you one last chance to improve your sales for the year,” he told me. “Here's a flyer that I've typed up outlining some great holiday sales that we'll be offering along with a list of potential clients in the area.”

He handed me the flyer and a stack of papers that had been printed straight off of yellowpages.com for every business within a 50 mile radius of the office. A quick glance at the clock above his desk revealed that my optimal taste window was rapidly closing.

“Now,” he continued, “what I expect you to do for the next two weeks is send each of these places a flyer and follow up with a phone call three days later. This mass marketing blitz that I've designed for you is certain to bring in a few dozen extra sales.”

Time was quickly ticking off the clock and rather than try and point out the futility of junk mail in an attempt to generate sales, I said, “okay Vince...since this is my lunch break, I really should get going.”

“I'm trying to salvage your job here and all you're concerned with is your lunch?!” he fumed. “Sit Down! You can take your full hour when I'm finished!”

45 minutes later, I was given a reprieve and headed out the door to my car. With the slim window of time left, I sped down to the diner in the hopes of salvage a few bites of crab melt that I could actually taste.

I hurriedly placed my order, waited impatiently for the food to arrive and, once sitting on my plate steaming beneath my nose, took that long awaited bite. Chewing slowly, I realized that I had lost my opportunity. The food had no more taste than what I imagined styrofoam would probably taste like.

I nibbled on a few fries until, reluctantly, I gave up the charade and placed a few dollars onto the table...leaving the majority of my meal untouched. Leaving the diner, I decided to stop by at the supermarket near the office and buy an apple, figuring that as long as I couldn't taste anything I may as well eat something healthy for a change.

'This cold had better be gone soon,' I thought to myself. Because I can only withstand so much healthy eating, and soon there would be a multitude of Christmas cookies to indulge in...which was clearly going to require that my taste buds be in top form.

a soy-based bounty

Years ago, my friend Jim worked at a fitness store. During this time, he was convinced that he had developed a health serum that was sure to keep all illnesses at bay. A co-worker felt a cold coming on and, at Jim's suggestion, she succumbed and tried his antidote. Soon afterwards, she threw up...thus nullifying any healing effects that may have resulted. Airborne hit the market shortly after Jim's failed attempt at developing a healing remedy, and he still holds them responsible for his non-millionaire status...completely ignoring the fact that his formula proved much more effective for promoting vomit rather than preventing illness.

He still keeps in touch with his vomit stricken co-worker and invited me along to her 'Orphan Thanksgiving Dinner'. Her circle of friends, all with family outside of the state, get together each year and celebrate Thanksgiving together. Jim is currently fighting with his older brother and refuses to attend any family function where he will be present. And, because my brother and sister were eating Thanksgiving dinner at their respective in-laws this year and my family was having a post-Thanksgiving dinner the following day, I accepted his invitation.

Once there, I quickly sought out a glass of wine and some appetizers while Jim caught up with old friends. A group of women were stationed near the wine bottles and, while pouring myself a generous portion of merlot, overheard one of them relating a story about her recent participation in a pro-abortion demonstration.

I imagined her to be of the hemp wearing, tree hugging, strict feminist variety and glanced up to see if my assessment was correct. I caught her eye and, appraising me briefly, she said, “Oh, and I suppose that you don't agree that a woman should have a say when it concerns her own body?”
Caught off guard, I stammered, “no, not at all. Tattoos, piercings, babies...hey, if it's your body feel free to run amok. I was just looking for the appetizers. Do you know if there's any of those little hot dog things? I've always loved those.”

She shot me a disgusted look and replied, “us vegans don't usually eat meat, seeing that it's murder and all.”

“It's not really murder,” I explained. “Well, I mean, I guess it is, but it's not like I personally murdered any of the animals in question...I'm just eating them. No sense in letting them go to waste.”

She just sat and glared at me. Clearly, while she felt that animals deserved to live, those sentiments didn't carry over to me. I quickly grabbed my wine and slunk silently away.
After the food had been situated on the dining room table and plates began to be passed around, I found out what vegans substitute for turkey...tofu. Or, to be more exact, a tofu, soy, and chickpea flour mixture, which is how our hostess described the bounty which she set before us. And here I had always thought that the term 'tofurkey' was nothing more than a joke.

Perhaps in response to the look on my face, the guy sitting next to me said, “don't worry, it tastes exactly like turkey. You'd never even guess that it's tofu.”

However, the tofu, soy, and chickpea flour turkey ended up tasting exactly as I feared it would...which is to say very un-turkeyish. And I could only conclude that the poor guy had gone so long without eating turkey that the true taste was nothing more than a distant memory.

I sat pushing the tofu turkey around on my plate and employed a 'hide it under the mash potatoes' technique in the attempt to disguise the fact that I had actually eaten very little.
I looked across the table at Jim and found that he was doing the same thing, mixing in his tofu with the wild rice instead of hiding it under the potatoes.

Later, as we were driving home, Jim said, “hey, I'm really sorry about that. I had no idea she was a vegan!”

“Don't worry about it,” I told him, as my stomach rumbled.

A convenience store was coming up as we drove down the road. Jim, apparently having the same thought as myself, pulled into the parking lot. Shortly after, we sat in the car eating our microwaved beef burritos and large soft drinks. We raised our styrofoam cups, toasting a meal that we could finally be thankful for.

dog dumping

After her boyfriend broke up with her, Gwen decided that a vacation from men was in order. So rather than throwing herself back into the dating scene, she chose to get a dog. And, finding a no-kill animal shelter near the city, she was soon the proud owner of a black terrier with white paws. She named her dog Raya...after her favorite type of Ugg boot. After explaining the origin of the name, I asked, “what's an Ugg?” In response, she simply rolled her eyes and said that men are completely clueless.

Soon after arriving home, she made a trip to the local PetSmart where several toys, a collar, food and water dish, and a fashionable pink leash were all purchased. “Shopping is the best kind of break-up therapy,” she told me.

She called a few days later. “Raya ran away! Can you believe it? I give this mutt a home and this is the thanks I get? Boyfriends are bad enough but now I'm even getting dumped by dogs!”

“Well, in all honesty Gwen, your track record with pets isn't all that great,” I said. “Remember that tropical fish you bought? It was dead the very next morning because you forgot to plug in the fish tank heater.”

“Don't go bringing that up again,” she warned. “They should make those things with some kind of alarm or little light that goes on so you know when it's plugged in or not!”

I decided that this wasn't the best time to point out that in order for an alarm or light to work it would still probably have to be plugged in, so I kept quiet.

“And to make matters worse, a few hours later I get a call from the shelter. It turns out that Raya ran away from me and went back there! It's like adopting a kid only to have him run back to the orphanage! How's a girl supposed to get over this kind of rejection?” she asked. “Look, I don't mean to cut this short, but I'm heading out.”

“So you're going back down to the shelter to retrieve your dog?” I inquired.

“No. I told them that maybe it's better if they keep her. Besides, I'm sure these dogs all talk to each other and I can't imagine what kind of horrible rumors Raya has probably spread about me. So I'm sticking to my theory that shopping is the best kind of break-up therapy and am headed out to buy some new shoes. I'll talk to you later,” she said before hanging up.

She ended up buying a pair of Ugg boots...the same kind that she had named her dog after. “In memoriam,” she told me.

Because while she does poorly in dating and dogs, her track record in shoes is unmatched.

happiness is only a day away

My friend Gwen’s foray into amateur psychology seems to occur each time she breaks up with whoever she happens to be dating at the time. So when the guy she had been seeing for three months ended their relationship, I knew that Gwen would once again be holding office hours.

Apparently, her latest boyfriend had shaved his head one day and told her that he needed to seek ‘redemption’ for his ‘past sins' and couldn’t see her anymore. When she asked what sins required a penance of self-induced baldness, he told her that she wouldn’t understand and that he needed to embark upon a ‘personal self-empowerment odyssey’ that had to be travelled alone.

A week later, she saw him with another woman whom she described as a ‘blonde tramp with excessive boobitude’. He had clearly found room for one other person on his personal odyssey. This led Gwen to empty her Carmel Latte onto his beige chinos. “So at least he’ll be that much damper while he continues down the path to enlightenment,’ she told me.

Since this outpouring of coffee beverages, she has devoted herself fully to all things of a self-improving nature…with the exception of her weekly dose of Desperate Housewives. Why Men Love Bitches, Women Who Love Too Much, and Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem are all titles which have since appeared on her Amazon suggested reading list.

“Clearly he was an unbalanced individual,” she told me a few days later, once her drink-hurling desires began to subside. “You know, I think it’s entirely possible that he was a polaroid schizophrenic.”

“Gwen, don’t you mean a paranoid schizophrenic?”

“And I had always suspected that he was bipolar,’ she continued, ignoring my correction of her previous diagnosis.

Her recent binge on self-help psychology books has her analyzing everyone…not just ex-boyfriends. Her Pilates instructor has suddenly developed obsessive compulsive tendencies. Her co-worker projects a deep rooted self-loathing upon those around her. And her mother should really begin dealing with the guilt complex that she has been harboring.

I was talking to Gwen on the phone the other day, describing the newest bone-headed measure my boss has cooked up to increase sales, when she suddenly asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I answered.

“No,” she said, “something is definitely wrong. I can hear it in your voice. You sound depressed. Look, I only want to help you before this develops into a full-blown manic depressive episode.”

“I highly doubt that any episodes are forth coming,” I countered.

“You spend too much time alone," she insisted. "When’s the last time you were on a date? You need to get out more often. Dr. Phil said on his show just the other day, ‘you won’t score any touchdowns if you’re sitting in the dugout’.”

“That’s baseball, Gwen, there are no dugouts in football. And anyway, I’m not in any dugout. It’s just a bit of a slump. Besides, I’ve been enjoying my alone time.”

“Look, the sports analogy isn’t what’s important here," she told me. "The fact is that all of your time lately is alone time. When did all this low self-esteem begin? When did it start?”

Listening to Gwen, it became very clear that overexposure to Dr. Phil had some very negative side effects. I sighed and, trying to humor her, said, “I don’t know…maybe it was that whole Atkins diet thing. I mean, you know how much I love bread…”

“Yes…and cookies, and muffins, and cake,” Gwen added.

“Yeah, yeah...well, as soon as carbohydrates became such a bad thing to eat, not only did my diet suddenly become that much worse but everything else seemed to follow suit. In fact, now that I think of it, nothing good has happened to me at all since this whole vilification of carbs. Rolls with dinner. Buns on hamburgers. Even pasta! Everything I enjoy eating makes me feel guilty. And if I can’t even be confident in the food I choose, how can I even begin to trust my judgment with members of the opposite sex?”

“This has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard you say,” she told me. True, Gwen is no psychologist, but her bedside manner could certainly use some improvement. “How am I supposed to help you if won't even take this seriously? Maybe you should just stop eating so many stupid carbs. Who knows, maybe you'll be happier.”

Her diagnosis complete, she launched into a tirade about Angelina's twins that she had read in People magazine. While listening, I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bagel. Sitting down at the table, I stared at it and began wondering if a cut-back in carbs could actually lead to a happier life. I took a bite as I mulled this over, figuring that happiness would have to wait until tomorrow.

from the congregation

Whenever I attend church, I can always find her sitting in the third pew. Once spotted, my mind tends to sway toward very un-Christian like thoughts. She’s gorgeous and, sitting so near the pulpit, it becomes very hard to focus on what sermon is being preached on any particular Sunday. Good Samaritans. The parting of the Red Sea. Love thy neighbor. It’s impossible to pay attention…though she is clearly a neighbor that I could easily love.

The problem, however, is that her husband always occupies the spot next to her. Which, from what I gather during the fragmented sermons that have seeped into my consciousness, is in some type of violation of one of the commandments. So I am relegated to observational admiration only.

Week after week, they’re there in the third row, dressed in their Sunday finest, this woman and her husband. And I began to view her much like I would a television show, once a week in one hour installments, filling in the blanks as to how I imagined her ‘outside of church’ life to be. What type of shampoo did she use? What was her favorite flavor of ice cream? Did she wear toe socks on cold weekend mornings?

These were questions I pondered during each Sunday service…though I knew that I should have been doing more church-like things, such as listening to the sermon.

Then one week, she arrived alone to church. ‘Perhaps her husband is on a business trip,’ I thought to myself. The following week he was absent again, and the week after that as well. I began looking for clues. And while some people, I’m sure, attended church for things like praying and for seeking eternal salvation, my mission was to figure out what was going on with my crush-from-afar woman.

Having only one hour a week to observe, my detective options were limited and, thus, consisted of trying to sit close enough to her in order to see if a ring was still on her finger. This, I felt, was a plan that even Sherlock Holmes would be proud of.

Eventually, I was able to find a seat that provided an optimal view of her hand. By this time, her husband had been missing for several months. And after some creative neck craning, I confirmed that all fingers were ringless. Clearly, the marriage was over and she was unencumbered by things such as husbands and joint checking accounts. I now had a chance at becoming the future second husband of someone whose name I didn’t even know.

The problem, as I saw it, was how to actually meet her. Sure, I had seen her in church…but how was I going to somehow turn this into anything more substantial?

Should I try to coordinate my exit with hers, exclaiming, ‘Wow! I see that we both believe in the same God. What a coincidence! Would you like to get dinner one evening?’

Or perhaps I could plan on reaching for the holy water at the exact same moment as she did so that our hands touched with, hopefully, ensuing sparks.

But as I went through various other options as to how I could create some type of holy-hookup, I realized that nothing I had conjured was likely to bring about the desired results. I was going to need some type of divine intervention. Divine intervention that I knew would probably go to someone else…someone who actually paid attention during services.

body by dq

Until I became an addict, I never realized just how available and easy it was to get a fix. Not an addiction in the cocaine or marijuana sense but, rather, to soft-serve ice cream.

A few months ago, while driving along, I passed by a Dairy Queen. It had been years since I last ate at a Dairy Queen, so I stopped with the intention of getting a small ice cream cone and soft drink. I had never been a large fan of soft serve ice cream, but felt that, with the economy in such bad shape, this was the least I could do to help stimulate it.

The colorful and tasty looking pictures on the menu board above the registers made me realize that a single, small cone simply wouldn’t suffice. So I ended up ordering a Blizzard…the Pecan Cluster one to be exact. And whether due to the pecans or the butterscotch syrup, I became a soft-serve ice cream convert. Ice cream that had previously been overlooked in favor of other, tastier, dessert choices now became an absolute necessity.

And it wasn’t until I became hooked on these Blizzards that I realized just how many Dairy Queens we have around the city. Previously, I would drive right by them, never even realizing that they were taking up retail space at the mall, and in the shopping plaza situated in between the Eckerd Drug and the Chinese dry cleaning place, and a mere half mile away from the public library.

Now I saw them everywhere I went. And every day as I passed one, I would suddenly find myself turning into the parking lot…justifying that a Blizzard was in order as a ‘reward’ for something that I had accomplished that day. For that sale I had made at the office. For letting that blue Chevy merge onto the highway in front of me. For only hitting the snooze button twice instead of my customary three times.

But as the rewards I tried concocting became more and more inane, I simply began telling myself that I ‘deserved' one and that ‘life was too short’. Because what could be more worthless than a life filled without M&M Blizzards? Or Butterfinger Blizzards? Or even the Oreo Blizzards, which aren't my first choice in achieving Blizzard bliss, but are still entirely acceptable as a last resort.

Near the end of summer, at perhaps the darkest hour of my ice cream addiction, my friend Jim returned from vacationing in Florida.

“You know,” he told me, “Florida is like a completely different world. The people down there are all so thin and good looking…at least compared to up here. Maybe it’s because the winters are so cold here in the North, and people spend half the year bundled up in bulky clothes...so they don’t worry too much about trying to stay thin. But down in Florida? You wouldn’t believe all the tanned, beautiful girls! And in bikinis year round! I definitely need to consider moving.”

That evening, as I stared into the mirror, I glanced upon the new waistline that Dairy Queen had given me and realized just how far away Florida really was.

why there's now less space in my closet

After tossing and turning for an hour last night in bed, I reluctantly had to admit that sleep wasn’t going to visit me any time soon. Giving up on this prospect, I turned on the television and flipped past several infomercials...which I try not to watch when sleep deprived. Products that I know are worthless seem like absolute necessities when I’m unable to sleep.

Months prior, I had seen a commercial for the Vac-U-Bag, which promised organizational finesse and space saving genius all in one little package. By placing items in the patented PolyFlex bag and then sucking the air out, 20 stuffed animals could be reduced to the size of a throw pillow. Another bag, which had been filled with over 35 sweaters, was shrunk to the size of a dictionary and placed onto a bookshelf.

‘How have I survived without this thing?’ I had asked myself at the time. And two weeks later, the Vac-U-Bag ended up on my doorstep...followed by three easy installments of $29.95. Unfortunately, once it arrived I found that I didn't own anything that was worth shrinking. I stuck it in my closet with the knowledge that I now had the power of shrinkage at my disposal and could begin purchasing accessories like stuffed animals and sweaters without fear.

But stuffed animals and sweaters never found their way into my apartment, and the Vac-U-Bag remains in my closet underneath the Christmas decorations and a box containing my old tax returns.

So because of this judgment lapse when sleep deprived, I try to avoid late night infomercials, and as I flipped through the channels...carefully avoiding anything that even remotely looked infomercialish, I came upon an episode of Deadliest Animal Attacks.

One unlucky guy shared the story of how half of his face almost got bit off by a snake. 'Apparently pet snakes don't enjoy being kissed,' the snake face-biting guy said. The next segment showed guy out with his buddies, drinking beer and deep sea fishing. He hooked a shark and, determined to reel his catch in, was pulled over the side of the boat and almost got his leg bit off.

But, as I watched, I couldn't help but feel a bit cheated. The show was called 'Deadliest Animal Attacks', and I had yet to see one actual person die. Story after story resulted in one survivor after another.

I really didn't feel I was asking for much...just one little death. And while I like to think that I'm a humanitarian at heart and possess a great deal of empathy and concern for my fellow man, I didn't want to hear about the guy that survived the bear attack...tell me the story about the guy that didn't. Surely there's somebody out there that had his face bitten off by a snake and didn't survive. Couldn't he have been featured instead of that other guy?

All in all, I felt that while the show was clearly living up to the 'Attack' part of the title, it was lacking on the 'Deadly' part. Resigned to the fact that no animals were killing anybody in this particular episode, I switched the channel...to yet another infomercial.

I stared at the screen, transfixed as the host made beef jerky and banana chips for mere pennies with a handy little dehydrator...'the perfect kitchen appliance' he said. And while I've never been an great fan of banana chips or beef jerky, I sat there in complete awe.

'How have I survived without this thing?' I thought, as I reached for my phone.