Posted on

Dill pickles

Today I steered clear of McDonald’s, I eschewed Little Panda Chinese Take-out, and I… uh… didn’t go to Subway. I also misplaced my thesaurus. Where is that thing?

Lunchtime found me at the salad bar, and I loaded up the smallest container with vegetable matter. It’s usually busy in the market at noon, and today was no exception. A garrulous, bald-headed man was at the salad bar too, chatting with someone about the federal deficit. Then he turned suddenly and gesticulated at me with a styofoam cup full of chopped pickles.

“The pickles are good, eh?” he grinned, and I noticed that his red sweater was held shut with an oversize safety pin. “Dill pickles. No garlic!”

“Er… yep,” I remarked cleverly.

“This place is great! Lotsa healthy food here. Dill pickles’re great! Not like those other places… the other places… like greasy foods. Not like here. Other places like… with pizza… and… other places like, uh…”

He trailed off, deep in thought, and I filled in the silence, “Like McDonald’s?”

“Yeah, like McDonald’s,” he nodded vigorously. “That stuff’ll kill ya. Fulla grease. It’ll make ya sick. Yer payin’ to make yerself sick, huh? But this place is great! Lotsa healthy stuff here. Why’d ya want to pay to make yerself sick? ‘Cause greasy food like that’ll make ya sick. I never eat there. This place is great!”

He continued enthusiastically in this vein as he paid for his cup of pickle chunks. Twenty-five cents. After paying, he wandered off to strike up a friendly conversation at the wine shop. I paid for my salad and trudged back to my cubicle to continue working, and I wondered why I couldn’t be as enthusiastic about salad as that guy seemed to be.

Maybe I need more pickles in my life.

Posted on

Sonnet #2: When in this smelly takeout stand…

With lashings of apologies to William Shakespeare, here is my sonnet number two:

When, in this smelly takeout stand with flies,

I all alone will eat the tofu plate

And forgo beef heaven and the soggy fries

And look upon my belt and all I ate,

Wishing me like to one with fish to cope,

Feasting like him, on tuna maki, pressed,

Desiring this ham sandwich that I could ope’,

With what is most unhealthy, not possess’d;

Yet in these food fairs that I have been prizing,

Hap’ly I think on cheese, the cracker’s mate,

Like to the oozing lava that’s arising

From bubbling platters from the oven’s gate;

For thy deep-dish pizza such health brings

That then I have to loose my sweatpants strings.

Posted on

Sonnet #1: Shall I compare thee…

It has occurred to me that I don’t write enough poetry. To rectify this woeful situation, I have decided to compose a series of sonnets. I’ll stop at the first fatality.

Shall I compare thee to a stilton cheese?

Thou art more fragrant and more likely to melt:

Rough wax does bind the squishy lumps of grease,

And rounds of curds do fill the bloated belt:

Sometime too hot the oven glows,

And often is the pale complexion burned;

And other cheeses melt into wet floes,

By broilers or the bubbly pastas churned,

But thy eternal cheddars are not fatty

Nor lose the lovely waxiness thou ownest;

Nor shall Ronald use you on a patty

When in the line-up at McD’s thou groanest.

So long as cows do milk or goats can baa,

So long lives this, and this makes you go “AAAAA!”

Posted on

A question of procedure

If you keep a bag of chips in your desk’s file drawer, do you file it under “C” for “chips” or “M” for “Miss Vickie’s”? Or maybe it should go under “Y” for “yum”.