paralyzed by produce

Every time I go to the supermarket, I find myself paralyzed in front of the peppers.

I stand there, mesmerized by the vibrant autumnal colors and think I want to be the kind of person who eats anthocyanins.

And so I buy a bag.

I smile smugly while rolling a dense, plump pepper around my palm. I can already see, in my mind's eye, the sharp blade of my favorite serrated knife slicing the firm flesh into little green, red, yellow and orange strips that I can snack on at my desk.

I am happy because I have found The Perfect Afternoon Hunger Antidote.

I think about this all the way to the checkout counter where I buy the peppers.

This is important, because at this point, I still believe I will eat them.

I drive home thinking about the summer I ate a red pepper many mornings on the way to work. Munched on it like it was an apple, cutting the top off and scooping out the insides so I could while away a 30-minute commute consuming carotenoids for breakfast.

I let myself pretend I am still this person.

I lovingly unload the peppers from their grocery bag and prop them on the top shelf of the fridge. Top priority. No crisper for you, I think. I understand that whatever I cannot see, I will not eat, and so I know better than to banish such beautiful peppers to the chilly morgue of the bottom drawer.

Sometimes I will think about cutting them up RIGHT THEN.

Except I've just been foodshopping and I am hungry. A sandwich is about to make me its bitch.

So I grab dinner, peppers forgotten.

The next morning, I am rushing out of the house.

Despite rushing out of the house every single morning since I was FOUR, I still have not learned that morning is NOT THE TIME TO ADD TO MY ROUTINE.

I open the fridge; a regular but futile activity I engage in while frantically assessing the (lack of) breakfast material.

I am not thinking about peppers.

I am thinking about bacon.

But I didn't buy bacon.

I almost never buy bacon because I want to be the kind of person who eats anthocyanins and not carcinogens but my groggy brain is more honest than whatever concerned citizen I turned into in the produce aisle yesterday. NOW the thought of gobbling raw, gassy peppers for breakfast is repulsive. But what about the afternoon snack? I can eat them then, I think, enthusiastically.

But fuck. They need to be assimilated.

I slam the fridge door, toss an apple in my bag and burst out the door like a gaunt greyhound in ketosis.

Repeat this entire scene the next morning.

Only now I am feeling slightly guilty over abandoning my beloved peppers. I am still repulsed by the thought of munching on flesh not dissimilar in consistency to a boneless index finger as a breakfast food, but the snack idea still seems ok. "I'll just BRING the pepper to work and cut it up there" I think. I even let myself imagine myself calmly walking into the breakroom during a relaxed afternoon, that's how much I like to fool myself.

I toss it in my bag with an apple and go.

Fast forward to quitting time.

When I reach for my car keys... and discover the forgotten bag of peppers, now warm, moist and eager to decay in the dank, fetid surroundings of my backpack.

Tomorrow, I say. Tomorrow I will deliver carotenoids to my cells.

The peppers, although more forgiving than most veggies, have wilted slightly from the forced hiatus in my dark bag. But they are not inedible!

At least not yet.

Sunday. Foodshopping day.

I find myself standing in front of the peppers. They look so beautiful, so... FRESH. These are firm peppers, unlike their abused counterparts in the fridge.

I buy a fresh new bag, thinking "THESE I will slice. The others, I will cook. Maybe in a nice marinara sauce."

Except I don't cook them. I watch their flesh get more and more wrinkled along with my brow as the weight of food wasting while countless starve carves little worried notches between my eyes and into my forehead.

Repeat AGAIN until the second bag has been usurped by a third bag in my pattern of serial abuse and slaying of red, green and golden peppers and mental puppy-kicking.

Now, THIS week, I'm trying something different. I'm avoiding the supermarket and instead playing a bizarre game wherein I will only eat whatever I already have.

I had a can of warm salmon for breakfast this morning.

And for dinner, artichokes.

*sigh*

So far, this plan is not going well.








(ps. I don't remember where I found these food ads but aren't they hilarious?)