ok. well this is a funny story -- true basis, but not wholly true
Damn... I was hungry.
I hiked down to the fridge once again, just as I had already done a hundred times before.
Somehow I kept expecting the refrigerator dwarf to somehow restock while I was away for those few milliseconds between the light going on and off inside the recess of the fridge.
Not surprisingly though, the fridge remained mostly unchanged. I think that there was a little more GREEN last time around that was covering the leftover spaghetti that someone else left a few days ago. You would think that eventually even mold would run out of stuff to eat.
There was a tiny bit of milk on the top shelf - expiration date:
March 15
Wait a second!..... What month was this?
Pending finding a calendar, I was going to assume the milk was okay --- but there was only a few drops left.
So I had a useless amount of dairy in the fridge.
And as noted earlier, the spaghetti was straddling the line between a starch and a vegetable...perhaps a yeast.
Who knows.
So rounding out the rest of the food groups were Easter Eggs, which should have been stamped with a year when I colored them; something resembling cow brains (which I am classifying as a meat product), and mayonnaise, my least favorite lard-based foodstuff.
Also included was tuna, ketchup, beer, and something that resembled chocolate-covered ranch dressing.
ICK.
There was no question that I was going to starve to death by nightfall if I did not get to the grocery store. I was sure that if I could make it just one more day, it would be a record ---
even for a camel.
But it was 2 o'clock and no one had called yet to make dinner plans, so I was probably on my own.
Breakfast today was a few handfuls of someone else's stale cheerios.
I just hope they were cheerios and not Stale Spaghetti O's.
I had no bread, so lunch was the last of the peanut/butter directly from the jar/stick. But as the afternoon wained, I was getting hungry again. My body shifted from digestion to self-absorption. Stupid biological processes be damned.
I had visited the fridge 6 times in the last 24 minutes to no avail. There simply wasn't anything to eat. But I refused to to give up hope. Getting food would require me to turn off instant messenger, get dressed, and hike the 100 yards to the shop in the blistering snow. Not like I hadn't walked that distance in slippers before.....but usually I wear pants.
But this was no option at hand - I was on a mission.
All it took was a little imagination to dress myself in camouflage, attain the rank of colonel, and be trapped in a jungle, starving, behind enemy lines. All I had was a can opener.
What would a Navy seal do in this situation, or a Ninja, or Bob Vila??
They would think of something, but what? Since I was all out of camouflage, I found myself fitted with a black knitted hat pulled way down low. I hadn't showered yet, so I easily fit the role of a dirty, hungry renegade. With that, I began the hunt.
It began.
The fridge was barren, the cabinets were empty.
In fact, there was just one last place to look ... the old warped cupboard. It was almost preferable to starve than to have to look in the cupboard. The cupboard was home to foodstuffs that no one ever wanted to eat. Over the years these products moved from one apartment to the next, as I was simply too spineless to actually throw them out. If I had children, I would have sent these canned goods with them on food-drive collection day. But alas, although not necessarily implied, I had no children either.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Armed with my can opener, I ventured to the cupboard. Anxiously I reached for the handle, giving myself one more chance to call and order a pizza. But, I was precariously situated on the threshold of adventure. No turning back now. With a decisive motion, I yanked on the handle and dove into the dark depths.
It hissed of salmanella and botulism....
As I suspected, the worst food products imaginable were down here, some of which I am sure were packaged well before the great war. “Which great war?” you ask.... It doesn't really matter. I read some of the titles aloud to myself, enunciating every syllable.
I had to make sure that I was reading the labels correctly.
Dear God! This was horrible.
It was official. I was going to starve to death. At least my body would be found wearing my dashing black knitted “I'm-a-Ninja” hat. I had that to look forward to at least. With one last act of desperation, I reached way into the back, through the cobwebs, and past the dead rodent corpses...towards a dust-covered clear glass jar with a shiny gold lid.
This was probably some type of seafood byproduct.
I wondered if it was still alive, and if so, could it break the jar and eat my hand? God, I hope not.
As soon as I got my grubby hands around the lid, I jerked my prize back with blazing speed.
I seriously thought the corpse of the fridgerator gnome could be back there.
To my surprise, the jar did not contain “orange glazed sardines,” but rather “Maraschino Cherries”.
Awesome! I love those things!
People are always telling me that the more colorful your food is, the healthier it is. I think that these people are usually referring to tomatoes, carrots, sprouts, and leafy green vegetables; namely, naturally colored products. But in my desperation, I was sure that maraschino cherries made the cut. Look how bright RED they were! If bright colors were synonymous with health factor, then these things must be the cure for cancer and the ozone layer. As I wrestled with trying to open the ancient lid, I contemplated exactly how much I loved these cherries. Instead, I probably should have been contemplating what century these things were canned, but that thought never really crossed my mind.
OH well.
Maraschino cherries are wonderful. They are quite possibly the world's most perfect food. Nothing tastes better than them. They have great color, great texture, great taste. In fact they are so great tasting that they are used to improve the taste of other great things like coke and sundaes. And the cherry juice is not bad either. I wonder if drinking it straight would kill me? Once again. I ventured.
Well I didn't starve to death today. Maraschino cherries saved my life.
Now in addition to their other wonderful qualities, I can also add “live-saving ration” to the list....
Along with breadcrumbs, uncooked ramen noodles and carrot peels.
I can't stress enough...being young and stupid is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I am sure that if I was married, my wife would frown on me dashing around the kitchen in my underwear and a black knit hat with a can opener and eating maraschino cherries straight from the jar. She probably would have sent me to the grocery store weeks earlier to prevent exactly this kind of disaster.
But seriously, where is the adventure in that? Luckily, I am not married. My life is still my own to screw up as I see fit. I have tried to take advantage of the time I have had being single. There are a lot of things that I have experienced in my own unique disastrous way that make my history that much more enjoyable to be stuck with for the rest of my life. The kid in me always seems to find the adventure in everything that I do... sort of like finding Maraschino Cherries for the Soul.
I hope that I never grow up. I love being a kid at heart.
I'm glad I didnt find a kid's heart in that cupboard though.
Speaking of which....I'm not reaching in again.
Tonite.