JAN 21, 2006

NO VEGGIES, PLEASE

The exotic, the foul and the repulsive may make me squirm, and I certainly don’t intend to start eating the brains, guts or testicles of any animal anytime soon (as I’ve noted previously . . .), but beyond the mild — OK, severe — aversion to these sorts of disgusting, slimy body parts, there is an important fact to consider.  Though every other part of my body may recoil at the thought of eating such things — and believe me, recoil is an understatement; if presented with any of these, I would quickly flee to the next county — my colon would likely issue few complaints.

When it comes to salad and the gut, however, let the complaining begin.  To eat a medley of field greens tossed with a lovely vinaigrette is to invite serious pain.  Healthful, my ass.  In fact, lettuce and its relatives can create a tremendous pain the ass, or at least the interior spaces nearby. 

Not to be too graphic about it, but if the Keebler Elves suddenly left their magical cookie tree, took on a sadistic streak, got inside your colon, and started trashing the place — bashing it with tiny broken vodka bottles and otherwise wreaking havoc — the overall effect would be roughly the same as eating too much salad: a sore, inflamed and distended gut, and weird noises emanating from both the belly and the butt. 

Please do not ask how or why the Keebler Elves found their way into this hypothetical colon, just understand the underlying point of this lame, drawn out attempt at a simile: salad is evil.  Head of lettuce?  Grenade to the gastrointestinal tract. 

Crohn’s: Finally, an excuse not to eat my veggies.  (I wish I could take credit for that line, but I stole it from a t-shirt, which, let’s face it, is where most good, pithy lines originate these days.) 

This presents some challenges in social situations, as refusing to eat salad is generally seen as a sign of utter immaturity at best and of some bizarre depravity at worst.  Dinner at friends’ houses often include salads, as do meals out with others.  In a way, the situation is similar to the problems of turning down another controlled substance for the Crohn’s-afflicted, alcohol.  It’s annoying to have to explain that you can’t have a beer because to do so would create some sort of chemical reaction with your medications that would, according the to the pharmacist, make your colon fall out or something, but it’s also annoying deal with the assumptions that come with the polite refusal of a drink, sans medical explanation — people tend to think you’re a bit of a self-righteous freak, and perhaps a religious nut to boot.  (Then again, you really don’t want your gut to fall out, so just having a drink is out of the question.) 

Declining salad, too, inspires various assumptions, but the conundrum, its solution impossible to know, is whether those assumptions, whatever they may be, will cause more awkwardness — more long silences, more uncomfortable fidgeting — than disclosing your medical history and the effects of salad on your colon.

“You see, dear friend, I have Crohn’s Disease — you know, the disease where you shit unexpectedly.  I can’t possibly have any of this lovely Cesar, even without anchovies, which I see you thoughtfully placed on the side, as lettuce has the same effect as rampaging Keebler Elves would have on my colon.”

The conversation would, I believe, and right there, even if you used a more tactful explanation, such as substituting the more politically-correct term “Little People” for “Elves.”

Most recently, I encountered a plate-o-leaves-o-death at my office holiday party, where it was the second of five courses at a preposterously fancy restaurant. 

As social anxiety tangled my brain in knots and a festive red sequin bowtie (no kidding) constrained my breathing, I was already miserable enough.  The glass of wine I’d already consumed had done nothing to ease my mind (and, not to worry, I’m off the gut-fall-out meds, so drinking was OK).  As the servers presented their platters of greens, I wondered how long it would take for my co-workers’ loudmouthed significant others to comment on my aversion to veggies.  It didn’t help that I was the youngest one at the table and had no date — these factors likely enhanced any existing beliefs that I was an innocent young ’un, adorable, perhaps, but naïve and clumsy and wholly immature.  Several of those seated near me, by now drunk on their own self-importance and the free-flowing booze, were already, not quite two full courses into the meal, offering unwanted play-by-play of the goings-on around them, and I fully anticipated being the center of attention at any moment.

“Heeeeey there, Donald or Dwight or whateveryournameis, whatcha got against some veggie-tables?!  Ya can’t just skip right to dessert.  Didn’tcher mother evertellya that? Clean plate club!”

Fearing this sort of outburst, I scanned my plate for soft, friendly, minimally fibrous vegetable bits as my antagonists momentarily paused their commentary to wolf down their own salads.  I poked my fork into various leaves, considering the old “move stuff around on the plate and hope it looks like you ate at least a bit” strategy.  But there was too much food; no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many leaves I stacked, Jenga-style, on one part of the plate, I could not arrange the salad in such a way as to reveal at least a stamp-sized portion of porcelain, which is the minimum requirement for this strategy to succeed.  No one would be fooled. 

So, figuring that physical anguish would ultimately be a lesser pain than public humiliation, I did the unthinkable.  I ate the salad.  Not all of it, mind you.  A few choice leaves.  A few choice leaves, chewed long and hard, and with running commentary on my part, so as to emphasize to those around me that boy-oh-boy was I ever eating this salad, yup, I was, and geez was this salad good, but gosh, I just wasn’t that hungry and I really, golly, oughta save room for the other courses.

Astonishingly, I managed to survive.