When I was growing up my mother always had a problem with my consumption of food. Don’t get me wrong, she always wanted me to eat a lot; anything less would put a Jewish mother into a horrible fit of inadequacy and manic depression. It was how I was eating that bothered her. She would slave for hours over a meal only to have her beloved son (that’s me, I’m the son) pull out a bottle of ketchup and coat her dishes in tomato goodness. I have only recently been able to realize that… I have a condiment problem.
Sure, it started with salt and pepper, so innocent, so commonplace, but they’re just gateway condiments. You start thinking, sure these potatoes could use a little kick, a little zam, and next thing you know you’ve got half a poinsettia sticking out of your mouth trying to figure out how you can squeeze another peppercorn in it without getting your hands out of the oil and vineager bath. Once you get past the typical table stuff you move on to different ethnic specialties. Soy sauce, salsa, and curry all find there way into your daily diet, onto your cereal, mixed in with coffee. But that won’t be enough. Oh Lord, it won’t be enough. Soon you’re making new condiments, mixing together things you never thought could go together. It is a sad day when you’re sitting there, eating blue corn chips with your mango salsa, sobbing while you think, “I mixed salsa and mangoes…..salsa and mangoes. [weep weep]”
I’m pretty sure I don’t even like food anymore, only in that it provides texture for whatever condiment I happen to be eating at the time. When my roommate came into the room to find me eating a tongue depressor coated in Tabasco sauce, all I could say was, “Id tastes cwispy.” He also wasn’t a big fan of the dixie cup full of pico de gallo I left out for seventeen days convinced that it would become more aromatic and nutty. Good thing the ants finally moved that one away.
I’ve gone into therapy. Well, I go into the bathroom and stare at Listerine and Tylenol bottles while contemplating how I could make an ideal paste for spreading on toast and scones. It’s sort of like therapy, you know, in a biblical way or something. Each day I try to tell myself a little mantra before I eat anything, “Slim slam skimmy, a wakka wakka diddy.” I heard this Zen hobo say it, and, man, he had his shit together. My family tries to help too. They send me food that’s so heavily seasoned already that I won’t want to add anything to it. I have a good time burning it on the stove to make my dog pass out while I take garlic and Worchester sauce shots, you know, to chase down the melon balls covered in horseraddish mustard.
I think I can kick this thing, though. Yesterday I woke up at 4 in the morning in a cold sweat craving some habenero pepper spray, so I drank two fifths of Bacardi Limon, passed out, and didn’t wake up for thirty-seven hours. And during that whole time, I never ate a single condiment! That’s a great start. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to move on to methamphetamines and free based heroine soon.