I’ve never smoked nor drank, but I know addiction. As a freshman, I almost destroyed my life thanks to Bumble Bee and a can opener.
Every night for dinner, without fail, I ate a tuna taco. I couldn’t stop. My body developed a reliance on Omega 3 and the salivating smell of Chicken of the Sea. Other typical dorm room foods didn’t compare. Top Ramen? Macaroni and cheese? Spaghetti? Matchsticks compared to the torch of tuna tacos.
Don’t think that I was eating uncivilized canned filth. Au contraire. My dish was unadulterated pleasure. Imagine canned fish, with its excess juices freshly squeezed into the trapnet some call a sink, wrapped into a golden brown tortilla treat, laced with lettuce, and slathered with a special spicy mayonnaise sauce (mayo, Tabasco, and a hint of lemon juice). Succulence.
The first bite into a well prepared tuna taco slaps the taste buds into attention. “What, Dave Heywood?” they ask, “Can this meal really be healthy??” Yet, it is. All the food groups recommended by government specialists are represented—meat, grain, vegetables, dairy (I think mayo is dairy…), and fruit (the lemon juice).
Dinner was my favorite hour of the day. I came home from class and raced for the can opener. At least, until…the addiction set in. Addictions are never a good thing. Even addictions to seemingly good things are never a good thing. Ever heard of an old woman who was addicted to love? Neither have I, because she died years ago.
My addiction to the tuna taco led me along a path of insanity. I would constantly parlance the grocery store ads, looking for deals on cans of tuna. I was a nutcase, nitpicking over the cost-taste benefit of abalone tuna vs. “that other kind.” I stopped caring whether the tuna was in water or artery clogging oil. Heck, it could be in dish soap. I’d still eat it. I stopped caring about expiration dates and brand names. I even stopped caring about whether tuna was dolphin safe or not. In fact, I started to prefer not. Flipper tastes oh so good with a hint of lemon juice.
How did I ever come out of my hysterical state and face reality with my addiction? I owe it all to my roommate. He said I was making our place smell like an aquarium. (Man, was that ever a Sea World-understatement). At first, I thought it was a compliment. But he wasn’t smiling. He said that he was going to throw away all of my tuna. He told me one of us had to leave—either me or the tuna. Oh how I hated him. He didn’t understand me! He didn’t understand tuna!
I guess I was so high on Omega 3 and mercury that I didn’t fully appreciate his act of pure love. I didn’t understand that he really only wanted to help. All I could think about was how to make him end up swimming with the…well…tunas.
It’s been a few years now, and I am almost to Step 8 of overcoming my addiction. I started a program which began with a three-times-a-week tuna sandwich, and then graduated over to the once-in-a-while Tuna Helper. Now instead of tuna tacos, I eat spaghetti or chicken and rice. Perhaps sometime in the future I’ll mix in a bean burrito. I’m open to new vistas. Something really caught my attention last week at the grocery store. I saw a can of oysters that I just have to try. I hear they’re great with lemon juice
No comments:
Post a Comment