Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Diet tip: even if you’re

Diet tip: even if you’re used to the “portion size” listed on the side of your favorite pre-packaged foods being about half of what you would eat ordinarily, that doesn’t mean you can just consume 3/4s of a four-serving bag of chocolate covered pretzels without courting disaster.  It seems they have the capacity to re-form inside onesself into a single, giant, very angry pretzel. 

As I creep toward recovery from being attacked by such a pretzel a few days ago, buttressed by the comforting salty refreshment of chicken noodle soup, I’m reminded of a health warning I got on my first real under-the-table job.  I worked for Harry Shoemaker, a morbidly obese house painter.  To see him on a ladder was to see the laws of physics not just violated, but brutalized.  His shadow could be mistaken for a solar eclipse.  It was grotesque to see him move, and even worse to work in close proximity to him.  As a result of his gross enormity, his heavy smoking, his poor hygiene and his miserable interpersonal skills, he grunted, wheezed, gasped, gurgled, and eructated constantly, producing a charming calliope effect - a calliope that’s been possessed by dark forces and is trying to destroy the world through pure disphonium.  I worked for Harry for one summer when I was 15, washing out buckets and toting sand and otherwise laboring honestly in the warmth of the sun.  The crew was usually Harry and me and a few casual laborers.  You know, laborers who don’t wear suits.  One day Harry brought me to the site and introduced me to the two men helping us that day.  I shook their hands; this seemed to strike Harry as inappropriate. 

It may be worth mentioning here that Harry was from deep south Texas, a very small town, probably smaller than he was himself, and he was in his 70s at this time - putting his birth in the 19-teens or so.  And the men helping us that day were black.  Harry had never said a thing about his feelings on the subject but I sensed his discomfort when I reached out my hand to them.  But whatever.  We shook and went on with our work. 

At the end of the day we were hot and tired and Harry took us all out for a sandwich.  We sat at the same table and Harry bought us all food and drinks.  One of the laborers told me he wasn’t going to finish his soda and offered it to me.  I gladly drained it for him.  Harry blanched.  On his way back to drop me off at home, in the privacy of his Chevrolet Grand Panjanderum station wagon (wood grain, cigarette ash carpeting, thick plastic dashboard, dripping with style but the wrong kind), he soberly advised me that I shouldn’t drink from a black man’s cup.  He had lived a long time, was an experienced man, knew the dangers with which the world confronted us.  (Of course, all this was accompanied by the gasps and slurps which orchestrated all his efforts.) “You betta just not do that no more.  Them’s black fellas - you leave theyah drinks and such on the table.  You’ll catch youself that sickie cell anemia.“ I thanked him for his advice and he dropped me off with another cheerful smile and a twenty dollar bill for my day’s labor.  Then he drove off, scraping and creaking, and his car was making funny sounds too.  The next summer I got a better job.  It was at Arby’s but by God that was a much better job. 

Update: hemocytes still look like frisbees.  Guess I dodged that bullet. 

MORAL: some warnings are more dangerous than the peril they mean to prevent.