Archive: Opinions

Making my usual salad, I tore up some lettuce and put it in the bowl.  I blindly pulled a carrot from the bag in the fridge, delighted to find it was a nice fat one.  I pulled the bad pieces off a scallion and threw it away.  Back to the fridge for snow peas, mushrooms and a new bag of celery.  I pulled half the celery out and cut off the bottom, to make it easier to pull out an individual stalk, which I did before putting the bag back in the fridge.

I looked at the counter and my carrot was missing.  Overcompensating for my male can't see it if it's right in front of my nose disability, I still couldn't find the carrot.  I distinctly remembered taking it out of the bag, but I opened the fridge to see if I had laid it down inside.  No carrot.

Not under the bag of celery, not under the cutting board, not behind the bag of scallions.  Not in the sink, not in my hand, not in my pocket.  Nowhere on the counter.

I stood silently in the middle of the kitchen, thinking that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.  So I foot-pedaled the lid to the trash can, and there was my carrot, coated in coffee grounds.

Rescuing the carrot, I rinsed it in the sink, aggressively brushing it to overcome the seven second rule.  Now, I like to put the curve of the celery stalk over the round of the carrot when I cut it up, because the celery keeps the pieces of carrot from flying across the room as I chop.  So I grabbed for the celery, but it was gone!  A befuddled moment, then back to the trash can, where I had dropped the celery while rescuing the carrot.

More water, more brushing, and a little prayer that these vegetables wouldn't kill me if I ate them after their sojourn in the garbage.

There is so much that is soooooooo wrong with this incident.  Not the least of which is that losing weight has reduced my culinary life to being delighted that my carrot was big.

The mind is the second thing to go.  I can't remember the first.

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