Dec 07 2005
You think YOU have food issues?
Well, maybe you don’t but me making that assumption let me use that really strong title (you have to admit, it’s much better than ‘Men are from AM, Women are from PM’, right?).
I have food issues. Some of them are pretty obvious. For example, I like it a LOT and I eat it more than I should. The fine people at Weight Watchers are happily taking my money each week so I can have the privilege of standing on their scale for a public humiliation weigh-in. Isn’t that nice of them? I’ve lost 18 or so pounds thus far but I still like food just as much. I just like it from afar more often now.
But I’m not talking about these sorts of mundane food issues around just plain LIKING the stuff (don’t get me started on the cheddar bay biscuits from Red Lobster… sometimes I think a few hundred of those might be worth having them take me out of here through the garage door using a crane).
I’m talking about weirdness. I’m talking about a few things I’ve shared with my husband where he gave me that look, shocked silence, where I was certain he was panicking inside because it was the first time he had considered that he MAY have married someone who was weirder and possibly more sick in the head than he was (and trust me, he is SICK!).
I’m talking about CARTOON FOOD.
My fascination started as a child when I would watch The Flintstones. Fred always had those huge pteradactyl legs. They weren’t tough or stringy. They were, by all appearances, perfect. Perhaps Wilma was just a kick-ass cook, I don’t know. But seeing those damn big bones of meat while watching after-school cartoons, well, it DID something to me.
All my life, I’ve wanted for meat-on-a-bone to measure up to the Fred Flintstone standard and it never did. For a brief moment, I thought those big roasted turkey legs at the fair might do it, but alas, they fell short. I could practically taste Fred’s scrumptious dinner, but I never could find its equal in real life.
There have been other bits of cartoon food that have caught my attention since then, but none so significantly as the more recent introduction of the Krabby Pattie. Yes, my 3 year old kid watches Sponge Bob (and sometimes when she’s exasperated by something, she might even say “Oh, TARTAR SAUCE!” which just cracks my shit up).
But the krabby patties, the KRABBY PATTIES. I’m like Plankton in that I must know the secret recipe for the krabby patties!!! Do they not look, sound, and practically SMELL delicious and delectable?
Today I read a serious news story about cartoon food promotion which was really about companies using cartoon characters such as that wacky, wide-eyed, porous guy with those darn square pants, to promote unhealthy foods. Oh, I know they were talking about fruit-by-the-foot or microwave pancakes, but if you put the name “Sponge Bob” together with the word “food”, I’m immediately craving a Krabby Pattie. Or six.
So there you have it. THOSE are some serious food issues. Didn’t I warn you?
If there really is a Santa Claus? I want a fresh, hot pteradactyl leg and a plateful of Krabby Patties under MY tree this Christmas. But only if they’re OK to have on the Weight Watchers plan, of course.
