Choppin Broccoli-I Like to Make Green Not Eat It

My disdain for green food, unless there was sugar involved, started with Brussels Sprouts and grew from there. Above  is a picture a friend sent me representing what my food pyramid would look like-when we were protesting the government change from pyramid to ‘plate.’* (And by protesting, I mean we bitched back and forth via email a few times-what? all the sugar makes me lazy).

I am not your typical woman, I haven’t had a vegetable since the 70’s (unless you count deep fried), and I don’t like drama, or sugar coat if there is drama. As a result, most of my friends are and have been men.  There is no jealousy between men and women friends. (Maybe, occasionally sexual tension, but they usually do something stupid, like a stripper, or remember to tell me they’re married, and that feeling passes quickly–at least on my end).

If I disagree with a male friend, we usually just walk it off and don’t harbor grudges. And in the off chance I do hold a grudge, they were wrong. End of story (I kid).  We usually say what’s bothering us and that’s the end of it.  Female friends, there tends to be more jealousy, and a passive aggressive tone, which I have trouble relating.  I pretty much think there are two options: passive/aggressive or aggressive/aggressive, guess which one I am?  I also tend to be an extremist, so there might be something middle of the road but, I’m not really sure what that would look like.  But I also recognize it.  According to Forbes:

A surprising new study titled, “Pushing in the Dark: Causes and Consequences of Limited Self-Awareness for Interpersonal Effectiveness,” shows that people fail to recognize whether they’re behaving too aggressively or too passively in the eyes of others. Unfortunately, this limited self-awareness can have serious consequences.  Amy Morin

We were vacationing with family friends at Epcot Center, during one Easter break in high school, when my nightmare was realized and memorialized through song and corresponding hand gestures.  It was a boat ride through The Land, which highlighted growing food and eating right for your body. My sisters and family friends, all aware of hatred towards vegetables, made me go on this ride and mockingly sang to me, “Veggie, Veggie, Fruit, Fruit!” the entire time.  And further still mocked that they didn’t see any dancing Twinkies or French fries.  I’m pretty sure I broke out in hives from the torture and the close proximity my body was to healthy foods (albeit, dancing and signing vegetables and fruit), but they were lifelike enough.  (My off topic comment on my favorite part of that trip was when we were standing at a television window bank at Epcot making a restaurant reservation (think Best Buy, only the the agents on the televisions could also see us-Epcot was progressive (or working for the NSA early on)-and my younger sister, Laura, did not believe they could really see us, so she flipped the lady taking our reservation ‘the bird.’ Laura almost had a coronary when the lady said, ‘Hey little girl, that wasn’t very nice.’)

In my defense, I have tried salad, but found it to be nothing more than crunchy water.  And, crunchy water that I had to add a pound of croûtons, bacon bits and gallon of ranch dressing to make it tolerable to choke down.  I have convinced myself that lettuce is just crunchy water that I have to add a lot of stuff to in order to make it editable.  I cannot count the number of times I’ve been at lunch with a male counterpart or male friend, and without fail they place the ‘salad’ before me and the steak in front of the male. (insert) Eye roll and plate switch. This episode has happened enough, that I came up with the phrase, ‘I like to make green not eat it.’

My food pyramid would look like cotton candy, corn dog, French fries and Twinkie.  I eat like I’m at a carnival—every day. Interestingly enough, I remember reading some years back, that our bodies are decomposing in the ground at a slower rate due to all the preservatives in our food.  I have no idea if there is any truth to it, but again I justify my Twinkie intake.   Twinkies are the new Botox.  When Twinkies briefly went off the market, I was panicked, and bought twelve boxes, they have like a shelf life of 100 years.  Those boxes however, did last me, until they went back on the market.  I have been told numerous times that I should donate my body to science.

I used to get my car washed at the same place every week and the guys there would do a French fry count.  ‘Hey, this week we only found six fries.  Good Job!,’ they’d joke with me.  You can always find at least three old fries in my car at any given time.  I knew it was a stressful week when they’d say, “Did any even make it in your mouth this week? We found enough throughout the car to make an entire box of large fries.”   Comedy routine included with upgraded wax.

Everyone thought that when I bought the ‘Maserati,’ it would curtail my pension for drive through, it did not.  Although, I will say that even living in Scottsdale where Maserati are like Hondas in other cities, it still must have been unique to drive through.  “We don’t get many of these cars through drive through, what is it?,” was a common phrase, especially at Long John Silvers.  Don’t judge.  I still love that place regardless of the caloric intake and negative stigma.  Or my personal favorite, “Your parents don’t mind you getting drive through in their car?”  Apparently, the glow of a McDonald’s drive through window, at 4:30am on the way to Tucson for a 7:30am case, is the most flattering light on the universe.

And my last comment regarding my hatred for the edible green stuff, I once broke up with a guy who kept trying to get me to eat broccoli on dates.  Ironically Chopping Broccoli is one of my favorite SNL skits.  My older sister, Amy and I will quote that randomly to make it other laugh.http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/d/dana_carvey/chopping_broccoli.html