A Food Pyramid For the Rest of Us

By Bob Wire, 3-16-10

Here’s my grocery list: Meat, Fruit, Veg, Milk, Eggs, Cheese, Snacks. I’ll grab a cart for the first six items on the list, because I know I’ll be buying stacks of Top Loin Pork Top Chop Loin Top Chops of Pork, plenty of apples, bananas and oranges, and maybe one five dollar tomato that I will hoard like the last Fun Size Milky Way in a Halloween bag full of wax-wrapped candy and stale-ass Easter Peeps. I’ll hide my hot-house prize in the vegetable drawer, the one where we store root vegetables and what looks like some kind of knapweed experiment. Daddy needs his tomato.

But then I’ll need to wagon train two more carts behind the first one, because we’re going to make a couple of languid trips up and down the Snack Aisle. That’s right. Snacks are a very important component to our family food nutritional pyramid thing. It goes like this: at the very top of the pyramid, is a tiny gold-foil-wrapped pyramid of chocolate. Just to cap off the whole food pyramid, and give you a reward should you eat your way to the peak. Directly under that, it’s a layer of fruits and vegetables, supported by a thick layer of fruit cups and fruit snacks. These individually-packaged cornerstones of good nutrition provide a basic architectural integrity to the whole Food Pyramid, on account of their sturdy plastic containers.

Layered in wide, flat stacks just underneath the fruit cups are large bags of beef jerky. This is, of course, the protein layer (well, the first protein layer) that provides your body with the sinew, the salted fat, and the chewy goodness that will help you build strong muscles and a nicely upholstered colon. We toss a few bags of the peppered jerky into our basket to make sure the whole digestive system is wide awake while the chewed meat makes it on down to the business end.

Speaking of the sphincter/anus interchange, I usually toss a can or two of smoked oysters into the cart. These little Pacific jewels bring a potent mix of grit and bivalve piss into an area that, let’s face it, doesn’t respond to such fare as Honey Bunches of Oats or Tofu Popsicle. Take it from me, a few smoked oysters down the ol’ chow pipe will hit that rectal beachhead like a WWII LARC-60, ready to mow down any enemies, wet or dry. Smoke ‘em if you got em, ladies.

That reminds me, we’re running low on toilet paper, or as I like to call it when I’m visiting my kids’ school, bum wad. I’ll have to swing by Costco and snag a bale of two-ply later.

But the pyramid’s getting taller and wider, and it’s time to bulk out that middle section with some selections from the grains group, or as I like to call it, Pringles. I can’t resist the space-age packaging and uniform shaping of these addictive little bastards. Sour Cream ‘n Onion, Guacamole, Pizza Flavor, Nacho Camacho, whatever. I’m hip.  They were all just sprayed with a different shade of Krylon on the way out of the potato chip/tennis ball factory.

Then, to make sure we get enough protein, fat and salt in our diet (that is, unless we’re eating Jimmy Dean sausages directly out of Jacques Cousteau’s ass), I grab a couple of cans of nuts. Almonds, peanuts, cashews, and right after we get our tax refund, Macadamia nuts. These Hawaiian treats are about $3.65 per nut, and we eat them naked on the bed with the curtains closed and the bedroom door locked. While the kids bang on the door trying to get us to come and look at something on YouTube, we enjoy some hot, near-makeup sex while nibbling the tender-but-crunchy little delicacies from Hawaii that can make an ordinary cookie into a supercharged pastry of Kamaniwannalaya.

Yes, nuts are good. But we also need staple foods, like crackers and chips. Several two or three pound bags of tortilla chips fill the cart, as well as family size cartons of Triscuit, Wheat Thins, Chickin-in-a-Biscuit (WTF?) and some “grown up” crackers like Water Crackers or Multi-Grain Whateverthefuck. This broad assortment of seemingly random crackers will come in handy on those evenings when mom and dad aren’t quite up to preparing a nutritious, original dinner that will enchant the kids and win several awards from Parenting Is Your Life magazine. It’ll be something like this:

“Oh, you hungry now? Not 20 minutes earlier when I asked if you were hungry and you said no and I started doing my taxes? No. Now. Okay. What do you want? Grilled cheese, you say. A grilled cheese sandwich? Drop what I’m doin’ and make you a grill… look, let me consult my Magic Dinner 8-Ball. Here comes… ‘All Signs Point To HELL NO.’ Look, how about this. I will make some tuna salad and you can put it on some crackers. And I’ll cut up an apple. Wait, the 8-Ball is telling me something different…no apple. I will give you a fruit cup. That sound good? Cool. I’m glad you like that. Thanks, my little deduction. Dinner will be ready soon. I swear, soon as I’m finished with these taxes, we’ll be back to the good ol’ regular menu like egg rolls and chicken nuggets. And what the hell, I think Daddy has a couple of frozen Milky Ways stashed away in the freezer. Sound good? I knew you’d like that! But you’re gonna have to finish up those smoked oysters. Trust me, it’s for the best.

[Bookmark NewWest.net/BobWire right this minute. There’s no need to alert the authorities.]

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