Liquid Lunch

I'm conscious as I write this that it might end up being infused with bitterness and misery. I'm currently suffering with some sort of abcess or ulcer in my mouth which, while mostly not that painful, makes eating almost unbearable on account of being situated nicely between my top and bottom teeth on one side. Eating, as you may have realized by now, is one of my favorite things. It's also someting I take for granted until I can't do it anymore; then Mrs.Bison starts showing up with roast pork, chicken curry and all sorts of other good stuff which I can't chew. My choice is either to be pissed off because I can't eat what I want, or to be pissed off because I keep chewing the sore part and swearing. On the whole I've been leaning towards not eating as there's less chance of me inadvertantly teaching Bison Daughter a wonderful new word (probably starting with an F).

Of course Mrs.Bison suggested I go to the dentist and get some antibiotics and, of course, I said I'd go next week, maybe, if it wasn't any better, after I got back from my trip, possibly on Thursday. It's not that I enjoy pain - I just can't believe that every little medical problem should necessitate intervention with pills and prescriptions. If I do ever break down and go to the doctor's, I end up in the waiting room surrounded by people with real medical problems. You know, suffering from late-stage bone cancer, or waving around the bloody stump of a major limb, encased in bandages. Once you get done filling out the form with your entire life history and letting the harridan behind the desk photocopy eighteen critical documents you get to sit down and ponder whether the real reason our insurance rates are so fucking high is because people run off to the doctor every five minutes, any time they don't feel "great".

I've heard many time about people taking their kids to the emergency room because they've had diarrhea and vomiting, so they can be put on a drip. Let me tell you, as a kid I spent a week puking and shitting myself empty and I don't believe it ever occurred to my parents that I might need to be hospitalized. Most stuff gets better on its own, and if it doesn't then you can go bother the doctor. Mind you, the flip side of high medical insurance costs is that you end up thinking "Fuck, I paid for this stupid coverage, I might as well use it."

So the long and short of it is that today's diet consists so far of protein shakes, yoghurts and aspirin. Even soup isn't much help - the manufacturers keep falling over themselves to make soups more "chunky", with big lumps of something alleged to be meat, so that you end up with a mixture more resembling the weak stew they used to serve us at school years ago. And that bastard needed a lot of chewing, I can tell you. Look, if I wanted a real meal I'd make one. When I buy soup I'm actually expecting a liquid lunch, so it doesn't help to find stringy lumps of dead cow floating in it. No-one in their right mind buys cans of soup unless they're ill anyway. Soup is designed to be spooned into people in nursing homes, not consumed by the healthy and mobile, no matter how many commercials they show with football players in.

The only consolation is that the useful food groups that can be obtained in easy-to-swallow liquid form include Scotch whisky. This fulfills the dual role of painkiller and mood enhancer, both of which I could use about now. I think that takes care of lunch. And possibly dinner too...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison