Lost Cause
September 25th, 2006
I’ve given up going to the health food store. To a certain extent, I feel disingenuous trucking around buying organic products at lunch, then heading home for a meal chock-full of conventional products, and maybe also some processed junk food and/or a restaurant meal. And honestly, I just can’t buy into the concept for any other reason than I am a small-minded jerk. The completely obnoxious, contrarian cynic in me is irritated by organic foods, like what, they think they’re so much BETTER than the peppers I can get at Publix? I am better than YOU, peppers.
I know it’s stupid, and again, I am small. So very small. And while my teeny constitution is part of my healthy exodus, it’s also that there’s this customer that I keep running into at the deli counter, no matter when I get there for my free-range assless turkey on some sort of sprouted grain. Honestly, she was the last straw in my fake-organic life. Every time I see her, I feel like she was planted there to torture me like some sort of bizarre SNL character.
The other customers look normal. There are even some people like me! Colleagues, even. Families. And yet: I get stuck next to the woman in head-to-to batik with the long fuzzy hair and ancient Birkenstocks. She always orders the same thing: a double shot of wheat grass juice, and every SINGLE day, without fail, she launches off on the same tirade about how wheatgrass is “the same as eating 2 and a half pounds of fresh vegetables, you know!”
And then she hovers while she sucks down the shots, and I. just. can’t. take. it.
For starters, while my wrap is being made, she makes comments to me about the woman who is making it: “She’s an artist, you know,” she nods knowledgably. “Look at the way she’s placing those sprouts! It’s BEAUTIFUL! She’s beautiful. The sprouts are beautiful. It’s pure artistry. Beautiful. Beautiful sprouts.”
Swoosh! Swoosh! goes her giant skirt. Swoosh! goes her hair.
“The water just beads off of my skin since I’ve been drinking four shots of wheatgrass every day!”
She rubs her arm gently. Up down. Up down.
SWOOSH! goes her bell sleeve.
The first time I asked for cheese on my wrap, she lectured me about the “mucal properties of casein-based foods.” Mucal? MUCAL. And every day since then, she asks me if I’m still consuming “casein and other mucus-based products?” It took me a few days to realize she meant dairy. Yes, I’m still eating dairy. I practically grew up on a DAIRY FARM, for God’s sake, I AM EATING DAIRY EVEN IF IT’S MUCUS.
I can’t take all the artistry, swooshing and mucus-talk. I can’t. I know not all health-food people are like this, but I keep getting STUCK with her, and although it’s my fault for not telling her to stop (I probably encourage her with my bizarre nodding and smiling and “wow, mucus?” mumblings), I no longer have any desire to think about snot-related products over my lunch hour.
I’ve taken to the Greek restaurant up the block from my office that I walk by every day. And though it’s not organic, and although the woman who takes my order over the phone is about 100-years-old, and also, completely deaf, forcing me to scream, “SMALL GREEK SALAD. EXTRA FETA.” “No no, EXTRA feta!” “No, not NO FETA, EXTRA FETA,” it works for me. And there is that time she insisted my name was Jennifer Morris and that I owed her $110 for a giant order of moussaka that Jennifer paid for with a bad credit card. Although she eyes me suspiciously and still believes it was me, I’ll take the fisheye over hearing about mucus any day of the week.
But the real reason for this long, drawn out foodfest is Freddy, the restaurant’s resident bird. Dude, have you ever been around a sun conure? This is my first, and I love hearing him murmur in a slightly lecherous tone, “Hey, pretty girl!” every time I walk by, even though I’m sure he says that to all the girls.
I’m a loud sneezer – picture the loudest, screamingest horking-snot sneeze you can imagine, and, I don’t know, amplify it. I’ve tried everything I can to stifle it. I’ve tried being all delicate-like, and I just end up sneezing more, and snotting all over myself. The only way to sneeze is loud, and is usually followed by something like, “Hoo!” or “Oy!” I’ve tried to fix this. Adam has begged me to fix this. I can’t. I recognize that right now most of you are thinking that you would rather eat birdshit than be around me, but this is just…well, it’s just the way it is.
Anyway. Today I walked by Freddy, and I sneezed loudly as usual. “GAAAACHOOOO! OY!”
And then he started practicing it, tentatively at first, “GAAACH!” “OOO!” “GAATCHOOO!” And then a random, “Oy!” He bobbed his head up and down up, up and down, “GAATCHOO! OY!”
He greeted me with “GAAATCHOOOO! OY!” all day today. And it was friggin’ awesome.
*Beck
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
22 Comments Add your own
1. Yez | September 25th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
I fell truly, madly, deeply in love with a sun conure at the Petco in Attleboro three years ago, and I’m not over it yet :-} I’d give almost ANYTHING to hear Georgie’s new sneeze!
It’s the “OY!” that makes it art.
2. Jen | September 25th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
I thoroughy enjoy your stream of consciousness style of blogging. Sometimes, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to pull all your thoughts together in the end into something that just makes sense, but you always do. You’ve got a talent.
3. Amandampc | September 26th, 2006 at 6:06 am
You are the best, THE best, humorous writer I have read on the Internet. Jen is so right – you really do have a talent. It is a gift and it is pure artistry (are you listening, beansprouts and wheatgrass woman?!)- very, very real. Thanks for your writing. Georgie is precious!
4. Heather B. | September 26th, 2006 at 6:15 am
I kind of want to be friends with you in real life for a myriad of reasons, but mostly so we can venture through Whole Foods together and tell the pomegranates and peppers that you are better than they are, no matter how organic and free of pesticides they may be.
5. Lawyerish | September 26th, 2006 at 6:18 am
I want to kill the wheatgrass woman. She should be shipped off to a commune somewhere.
The loud sneezing is a surprise! My husband is a loud sneezer, too. He could wake the dead. Although quiet sneezers are worse — my brother used to date this girl who had the daintiest little sneeze you’ve ever heard and you wanted to shake her and yell, “LET IT OUT, WOMAN!”
6. Beth | September 26th, 2006 at 6:21 am
LOL, honest to goodness. And you have no idea how badly I want you to post a sound file of Georgie “sneezing.” You should post one of yourself, too, just for reference. ;^)
Loud sneezers, unite!
7. Nancy | September 26th, 2006 at 7:33 am
Georgie sounds awesome!!!!
8. GG | September 26th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Hee! I often lament the fact that I don’t sneeze cutely. It would be much better if a giant green bird could imitate them, though. As for the wheat grass lady – aaaacccchhh! I think you should respond with something like, “Oh, yeah, I know it’s mucous, but I love a good booger now and then. Especially cow boogers.”
9. christine | September 26th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Oh I’m a loud sneezer too. And how effing cute is George? cute.
A greek family I knew in grade school had a pet parrot. This parrot was loved by all, except for the father, George, who was alway greeted with “Stupid George. Stupid George.”
10. TwoBusy | September 26th, 2006 at 8:53 am
The woman at the Greek restaurant might understand you better if you just said, “SMALL GREEK SALAD. EXTRA MUCUS.” You might have to specify goat mucus, but that kind of clarity could spare you the evil eye in the future.
11. Kathryn | September 26th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Girlfriend!
I pour my organic smooth vanilla Vitasoy soymilk on my Cocoa Pebbles with pride.
I buy organic to support (and hopefully grow) an industry in which I believe, and also to help pertpetuate my belief system. I use soy milk because I don’t believe in factory farming. Now, I’m used to soy and probably wouldn’t go back if I could.
I buy organic when I can because growing organically has little toxic impact on the earth.
Wheatgrass woman is an anomaly – we’re just not like that. Unfortuately, the organic movement has some of the most insipid press, and the advocates who are visible seem like weirdos.
Most discussion in the media concerning organic centers on taste. I can’t tell the difference, but that is not why I support the organic industry. I buy organic because it is better for all of us.
I’m of the mind that every little bit counts. Please don’t give up on your organic veggie wrap. Dump that organic milk (soy is a little extreme for most people) on those cruelly un-organic Froot Loops.
I hope that one day, pesticides and the like will be outlawed in the U.S. so that all fruits and vegetables sold in all grocery stores would be organic. Of course, I would also want agriculture trade with countries who use chemicals outlawed in the U.S. to be stopped, too.
Sorry about being so long winded. Did I make any sense?
Oh, and the sneeze? I hang my head in shame – I sound like an 80-year old man.
12. Leah | September 26th, 2006 at 10:35 am
It’s like you live in some sort of magical and enchanted but kind of twisted fantasy land or something. Dog condoms, chocolate whizzwangs, and now this.
13. Charlotte | September 26th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Ok, not fair. I actively don’t LIKE birds and Georgie had to go and be awesome. Maybe you could borrow Georgie and let him repeat, ad nauseum, the wheatgrass diatribe to Ms. Swooshie Birkenstocks. WIth some mucal inquiries thrown in.
14. Suebob | September 26th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
What a tribute to your sneeze! George!
You should tell wheatgrass woman to step off. She probably wouldn’t, but still…somebody oughta say it.
Of course this is coming from a woman who spent 45 minutes at the last party she went to getting lectured by some moron about some diet book and about how it was THE ONLY WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT BECAUSE CALORIES DON’T MATTER…and I was too polite to tell him that he was a) stupid and b) boring me to tears. My friend finally had to rescue me. I always think “Next time I’ll say something.”
15. dissed | September 26th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Extra feta, always. Tell Batikwoman you need extra mucus to back up a honking good sneeze.
16. Kristin | September 26th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
I had a bird named Jorje who flew out the window when I was blowdrying my hair. I still cannot think about him without getting tears in my eyes. He used to fly, blythe, around the house. Poor Jorje.
17. Jen W. | September 27th, 2006 at 8:55 am
I sneeze loud too, and usually add a “Whooo! That was great.” to the end of it. I commiserate with you. That bird imitating you? That’s hilarious.
18. sweetney | September 27th, 2006 at 10:26 am
dude, if wheatgrass is the same as eating 2 and a half pounds of fresh vegetables, man, i’m stocking up on that shit!
19. Tartine | September 27th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
OH, I love Georgie. He sounds so adorale. My granny had a parrot that would whistle as you and say “pretty girl.”
I don’t blame you for avoiding the wheat grass woman.
20. claire | September 27th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
that whole wheatgrass thing freaks me out. i mean, you’re drinking grass juice. that’s just foul. um, i’ve never tried it or anything so you know, maybe it’s good. um…
Georgie is awesome. i want a Georgie. Oy.
21. Sarcomical | September 27th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
shut UP.
you do NOT have an awesome talking bird.
and you did not just make me read “mucus” that many times.
22. Weight Loss Guide&hellip | October 1st, 2007 at 5:18 am
Weight Loss Guide
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting
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