Shopping Season

I wondered what day it was when I had to park my car in Antarctica and walk to the local grocery store. It was 11am on Tuesday. But the traffic suggested that maybe it was Saturday, and I was just confused. Christmas was over. The herd of shoppers had promised to return to their houses heaping with previous purchases and back to their desk jobs at their cluttered cubicles. But it seemed we were experiencing an extended holiday season. Thank you, corporate America.

Whining children were pushed in carts by their unconcerned mothers. Children that should have been pushed in carts, zigzagged incoherently in the aisle. Families shopped together in packs, stalking and hunting their next big purchase. This was what I had hoped to avoid by doing my Christmas shopping on-line.

I rationalized that the screaming children were still on Holiday break, and their parents couldn’t leave them home alone. Someone should tell them that a little bit of Benadryl and a ball gag goes a long way. And everyone knows that duct tape is multipurpose.

It wasn’t just the families with children either. Everyone was out. The senior shoppers walked painfully past the 50% Christmas decorations, debating on whether or not that $1 item was really worth that much. Everywhere I turned there was one standing in front of me--limping with a cane or driving a large Amigo. And then they would suddenly stop and block the aisle.

I wasn’t there to bargain shop. I had a list. I needed onions and milk and bread. I had a legitimate reason to be there. I worked Christmas, and it was my day off. I wasn’t on some extended Holiday. So get the fuck out of my way!

Apparently, this week was supposed to be a big Christmas shopping week. I didn’t get that memo. I suppose everyone had to spend their gift cards right away and scoop up all the cheap deals. Like they don’t have enough shit. I know I have enough shit. This is what turns people into Hoarders. These super bargains and advertisements touting how much we need something and how much we’ll save—when really we would save more by never buying it in the first place.

I prefer to shop between 11pm-7am. No screaming children. Empty parking lots. When I turn down an aisle, I don’t have to navigate around anyone except for the stockers. And they’re harmless—not like shoppers. Shoppers have poisonous fangs. They emit gases that make the aisles spin and your chest grow tight. And if they touch you—even brush past you, you could die instantaneously. If I look down any aisle and see that I won’t be able to keep a safe passing distance between me and one of those shoppers, I go to the next aisle.

It’s not that I don’t like shopping. I enjoy going down each aisle at the grocery store in consecutive order. I like to read the labels and touch new items. When I’m looking at non-food items, I’m attracted to silver, glass and bright shiny things. But other shoppers and their offspring make it a haven of death. I don’t like to feel that I’m being rushed. I don’t like someone standing too close or someone hovering behind me, waiting to get their leach hands on the item I just touched.

Or what about those shoppers who stand right in front of my brand of milk—1% Organic. Why couldn’t they be standing in front of the Lactaid milk or the eggs? It’s like they are doing it on purpose--to break me. So they can crack my skull open and eat my brains.

And those self-check out lanes. I’m okay with them unless someone is standing impatiently behind me. They sigh loudly, shift their weight several times and fidget. That makes me nervous, and then I can’t concentrate. Those are the same shoppers that start to scan their own groceries and send them down the belt before I have even started bagging mine. So I start throwing things into bags. When I get home, I discover smashed bread and injured tomatoes.

Shoppers are dangerous, so I lay low. I buy my things at night and make purchases on the internet. When I do go to the store, I wear camouflage and spray around the perimeter of my car with shopper’s urine. Because you can’t reason with a cannibal. They’re savages.

Zombie Nurse

When I work 3rd shift, everyday is like waking up with a hangover. Body aches, head aches. Nothing that Motrin or Tylenol can really touch. A constant fuzziness in my brain, like the grey matter started to mold up there. Put that Reticular Activating System back in the crisper would you? Oops someone forgot to close the cerebellum bag. Now it’s all crusty and dry. Damn it. I was going to use that.

Can’t get enough sleep--ever. After three 12 hour shifts in a row, I crash. I go to bed during day light hours, but don’t wake up until it’s dark again. The daylight never happened. It’s winter in Michigan; there’s no daylight anyway. In my dreams, I pop vitamin D pills like their M&Ms and visit long hallways filled with tanning beds and UV lights.

The zombie apocalypse is real. We are the living zombies. We eat. We sleep. Sometimes we shit and shower. We go to work. And then we do it all over again. Notice that glazed look in our eyes. bRaIns! BrAiNs! We can’t seem to wake our brains. So we crave yours hoping that if we eat your dayshift brains, we will feel the sun on our pale dead bodies.

I watch other people sleep. I’m the night shift nurse with the squeaky shoes that opens the door every hour to make sure that you’re sleeping. This is why you can’t sleep in the hospital. I can’t sleep, so neither should you.

“Are you having any chest pain?” I ask.
“No, not right now. I’m sleeping,” You say.
“I could have sworn you said you were having chest pain.”
“I was sleeping”.
“Does this hurt?” I ask as I punch you in the chest.
“Hey—Ouch!”
“Better get you some nitro. Let me get your vital signs. While we’re at it, we should get a troponin and an EKG.”
The phlebotomist jabs a needle in your vein while the respiratory therapist places cold electrodes on your chest.
“But it doesn’t really hurt that much,” You say.
I pump the blood pressure cuff up to 250mmHg.

When I’m not working, I have found that activities that used to be enjoyable have lost their appeal.

Instead of cooking, I point and click on Facebook’s Café World. I point and click an entire meal, watching virtual people enjoy gingerbread houses, pot roasts and gourmet duck. Wish I felt like cooking.

Instead of writing, I watch Buck Roger’s Episodes on Hulu.

Instead of going to the movies, I stream movies through the Xbox from Netflix.

Eating? Brains sound good. Otherwise I’m a little nauseated. Healthy choices like vegetables and fruits seem obsolete. I want brains and junk food. Brains and chocolate chip cookies. Brains and chips.

Why bother getting dressed on my days off? For that matter, why bother showering? I’m probably just going to get back into bed in a few hours anyway, so that I can sleep during those normal sleeping hours when it’s dark--instead of working under fluorescent lights. So off days become pajama days on the couch. Followed by more sleeping in the bed.

Naptime replaces all favorite hobbies, interests and relationships.

Corn Whores agree--Corn is Cheap

I’m convinced that Subway is working on global domination. No matter where you drive, there’s a Subway within a mile radius, touting their healthy choices. They are setting themselves up as the healthy fast food—a better choice. Don’t go do McDonald’s. Go to Subway instead. Subway is probably a healthier choice, depending on what you pick from the menu. However, the food is just as unreal and manufactured as any other fast food corporation.

Their sandwiches are loaded with processed lunch meat that contain hydrolyzed proteins and nitrate preservatives. Their 9 Grain Wheat bread contains high fructose corn syrup. The number one ingredient in their fat-free honey mustard dressing is corn syrup. It’s the second ingredient in their red wine vinaigrette. Lunch meats also contain corn syrup. Not to mention the lists of unpronounceable additives: disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, sodium phosphates), polysorbate 80, sodium tripolyphosphate, sodium diacetate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, tetrasodium phosphate.

Like any corporation that is striving to take over the world, they want to do it cheaply. Corn is a cheap ingredient. The fast food industry needs a source of cheap meat and cheap food products in order to make a profit. Lucky for them--corn is in everything. Corn is overproduced and unprofitable for farmers to grow, so the government must provide subsidies. What do you do with an overabundance of corn? You find ways to get rid of it. You hide it all food products. Read your labels.

Cows, pigs and chickens used to eat grass. Now they are fed corn. They are fed corn because they get fatter faster. How much corn do you think we consume? Are we being fattened up? I keep thinking there are giants waiting to feast on us.

One of the ingredients in Subway’s oven roasted chicken patty is “chicken type flavor.” It’s chicken isn’t it? So why would you have to put chicken flavor on a chicken?

The following is a menu item copied and pasted from Subway’s website. All red items are corn derived.

OVEN ROASTED CHICKEN PATTY Oven roasted chicken with rib meat, water, seasoning (corn syrup solids, vinegar powder [maltodextrin, modified corn starch & tapioca starch, dried vinegar], brown sugar, salt, dextrose, garlic powder, onion powder, chicken type flavor [hydrolyzed corn gluten, autolyzed yeast extract, thiamine hydrochloride, disodium inosinate & disodium guanylate]), sodium phosphate.

The grocery store gives us the illusion of choice. I recently watched a documentary Food Inc. Three corporations control 90% all the meat sources in the United States. So you may think that you have all these choices, but you don’t. Your meat still came from the same corporate slaughter house. Sick, corn-fed cows standing in 2 feet of their own shit.

You say that you’re a vegetarian. That’s all very nice. But our vegetables and fruits are being
controlled as well. Monsanto has been diligently working on patenting life. Eventually they will control our food source and choose what we get to eat. Monsanto has been suing farmers that reuse their seeds, because it’s an infringement on Monsanto’s patent.

I’m just as guilty as the next person. I indulge in fast food. I buy meat from the grocery store. If you close your eyes and really taste what you’re eating, does it really taste good? I did this with some grapes recently. It tasted sweet. Wet and sweet, but not much like a grape. Our food is being hijacked.

There are a few ways to get around this.
1. Move to a hippy commune.
2. Own your own farm and use heirloom seeds and raise your own meat.
3. Start your own hippy commune.
4. Buy fruits, veggies and meat from small local farmers.
5. Demand better quality food from stores & restaurants.
6. Support your local hippy commune.
7. Starve to death.

Links of interest:
Food Inc. http://www.takepart.com/foodinc
King Corn http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/

A side note. A couple years ago, I discovered I was allergic to corn. It was corn that was making me short of breath and wheezy. I’m not sure if this allergy is related to the genetic modification of our food or my poor genetic make up. Either way, I’m bitter because I can no longer indulge in tortilla chips, polenta and cornbread casserole. I can’t have it, so nobody else should either. But it has also made me an avid label reader. And it concerns me how much corn is in everything. Wheat and soy are also found in many food products. Both grains are listed in the top 8 food allergens. If I want to eat wheat or soy or corn, then I’ll chose to do so, but why must they be hidden in everything?

Suicidal god

My dog’s on suicide precautions. I had to take away all her eating utensils--even the chopsticks. So now she has to eat directly from the bowl. It doesn’t seem to slow her down. Then I hid the dirty shirt that she likes to drag around. Figured it could be a potential hanging hazard. It’s just that all she does is eat, sleep and lay on the couch with those sad eyes. Anytime I don’t do what she wants, she threatens to kill herself. She says she’ll do it too.

I tried to spend extra time with her. I let her know that I was there for her anytime she wanted to talk. But she wouldn’t talk to me. Just laid there and stared at me like she was dying. Then I thought, they have drugs for this sort of thing. Puppy Prozac. Doggy Diazepam. A Canine Cocktail for happy wagging tails.

So I took Judah to the doggy psychiatrist.

“I think she may have a drinking problem,” I explained.
The psychiatrist frowned and wrote something down.
“So she’s been drinking a lot of water?” the psychiatrist asked.
“No, not water.” I glanced at the dog and whispered. “You know an alcohol problem.”
Judah rolled her eyes.
“I noticed that there were several wine bottles in the recycle bin,” I said.
“And she has access to the wine?”
I don’t think the psychiatrist believed me.
“She spends a lot of time home alone,” I said.
“Is there anything else that makes you think that Judah is depressed?”
“She sleeps on the couch all day.”
I looked at Judah. She denied everything as we sat there in the office. She was even smiling and wagging her tail.
“She chews her nails too. I think she might be anxious.”
The psychiatrist recommended diet and exercise for us both.

***
As soon as we got home, Judah started to make threats. If I didn’t take her outside or give her breakfast or snacks, she’d slit her wrists.
“Whatever,” I said. “You don’t have any thumbs.”
Then she said, “Down the street not across.”
I handed her another biscuit.

The next day she spit out her doggy treat. It was one of those green dental ones.
“Who do you think I am?” she asked.
“The dog,” I said.
“That’s right. Thee Dog. Capital D. And everyone knows what dog spells backwards.”
“God. Little g,” I said.
“I’m calling the animal cruelty hot line.”
“Don’t,” I said. But I only half meant it. I was thinking about calling animal control myself. I’d slip her tags over her head and claim that I didn’t know whose she was.

Judah stared directly at my plate at my half eaten Porterhouse, medium rare. I was forced to saw off half a portion.
“It’s a little overdone, don’t you think?” she asked.
You eat rotten things. You fall asleep with your nose in your ass. You roll on dead things. But I didn’t say any of those things, because of her delicate condition.
“Be sure to make me dessert,” she said, eying the chocolate chip cookies.
“You can’t have those,” I said.
“Why because I’m a dog?”
“You’re allergic.”
“Pick the chocolate chips out.”
“I’m not picking--”
“I’m good friends with PETA. I’ll tell them you’re poisoning me.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She glared at me. These weren’t the sad eyes of depression.
I spent 20 minutes picking out chocolate chips. Her cookie was nothing but crumbs.
“Next time why don’t you make peanut butter cookies?” She licked her paws.
“Yes, Dog,” I said.