Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Nine Words, Sixteen Years, and Still No Comeback

Okay, so I've changed my mind about chia seeds in my oatmeal. I admit that I have some tricks to wanting chia seeds in my oatmeal because I tried it once and didn't like it all that much. First, I was hungry this time. I hadn't had many carbohydrates all day, if you don't count the little packet of peanut butter that's labeled honey but doesn't have any honey in it at all. I looked at the ingredients after I'd eaten it and found that it was filled with sugar, only a teaspoon, but even that's too much for me. Of course I would crave peanut butter packets with sugar in it. Second, I added fruit to my oatmeal that already had little seeds in them, blueberries. I figured chia seeds would have the same consistency of the little seeds in the blueberries. Strawberries might work too. Haven't tried that yet.

So, I figured I could have some oatmeal before I go to bed which is the absolutely worst time for a hypoglycemic to eat sugar, but there you have it. I wanted something. It was probably the craving effect of that teaspoon of sugar I ate with my peanut butter. So I got out my tiny bowl, not my tiniest bowl, but one of the tiny ones. I should be okay. No diabetic coma tonight, I hope. If you don't hear from me again, I take it all back and I don't recommend even a tiny bowl of oatmeal for a hypoglycemic just before bedtime.

I am an adrenaline junkie with these risks I take, I tell you. I added a quarter cup of quick oatmeal, two tablespoons of chia seeds, a tablespoon of cinnamon, a half teaspoon of stevia, and a half cup of frozen blueberries and then I microwaved it to melt the berries. I poured boiling water to cover it all and waited five minutes before I stirred it up. Then, horror of horrors, I added a half tablespoon butter and a tablespoon or two of half and half.

I was raised with butter and cream on my oatmeal. So sue me.

Once years ago, I was in the little kitchen of a corporate job making myself a bowl of oatmeal when a skinny minny, a total stranger, came walking into the room. She took one look at my oatmeal and said, "Now that's a healthy meal."

I want to tell you that fat people do not appreciate hearing judgements about what they're eating, not even positive ones. We just don't. I was quite a bit heavier then, but I was in the seven years of no-man's land before any doctor actually tested me for thyroid issues after I suddenly gained weight. Mostly, the doctors yelled at me until I finally found a good and curious doctor who responded when I said I was exhausted all of the time. Seven years is a long time to be exhausted all the time. That was when I finally got help.

So, I smiled at this skinny minny in the corporate kitchen and tried not to thank her for her approval of my breakfast. I was an apologist back then. It came with offering too many 'thank you's as well.

Now, you know a conversation has stuck with you when you remember the look on a total stranger's face after nine words and sixteen years.

I reached into the fridge and cut a thin slice from the stick of real butter that I had brought for my breakfast, figuring that most of that butter would be gone by the end of the week because other people would steal it. Why the hell is there always someone who steals your labeled lunch and yoghurt out of the corporate kitchen? There is a place in hell for these people.

Skinny Minny got a new name when she saw what I had added to my oatmeal.

"Butter? That's so disgusting," she said. At that moment, she became a food Nazi.

Now, I wasn't yet going through menopause then or I might have said something rude and gotten fired for it. I kept it to a deep eye roll. I remember being disappointed that I couldn't say something smart and demeaning to make her feel like the ass that she was, but maybe there's less valor in striking back. I'm not sure. I can say that I'm still disgusted by this woman's condescending and judgmental behavior toward a total stranger.

Maybe there's a place in hell for food Nazi people as well.

And I still eat my oatmeal with a little bit of real butter. Julia Child ate real butter. See, I still don't have a good comeback for that food Nazi bitch, but I know how to live, don't I?

Thank you for listening, jb

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