That salad was a sketchy bastard

I’ve come to the conclusion that we eat salads because we refuse to accept the possibility that we might die an early or accidental death.  Right?  If you eat healthy, you reason that you will delay getting cancer, you postpone clogging up your coronaries, you put off strokes and you will live to be at least 124 years old. And when the news crew comes to interview you on your 124th birthday, you explain that the secret to old age is “eating healthy and staying active.” And all of the salads you begrudgingly consumed throughout your life were worth it.  Then you die in your sleep of some romanticized form of ‘old age’ and nobody knows what in tarnation to put on your death certificate. But….If you die in…oh say a car wreck in your 40s, you will have eaten salads for NOTHING!  If you are eaten by a shark in your 50s…a lot of good those salads did you. It’s all a big gamble.  If you slip on some ice, crack your skull, and have a big ol’ brain bleed, your final moments will surely be spent wishing you went to Five Guys for lunch instead of Panera.  Are you with me? This is some mind-blowing, existential stuff here.

By way of recommending a certain book (The Obesity Code) to my husband, I inadvertently turned him into a bit of a RAGING health food snob.  And as a result of this, he feeds me salads every night.  Like hard-core organic business. Like I will never be able to afford a new car because all of our money is spent on organic, locally grown, non GMO, gluten free, soy free, sugar free, eco friendly, open minded, all inclusive…..ugh, you get the point. I realize that I really can’t complain about anything in this scenario though…I mean, my husband not only shops for super healthy food, but he also turns it into delicious meals each night. And then he does the dishes…swoon. And thus, I will surely live happily into my 120s….which at this point does NOT seem financially sustainable.  

Or so I thought….until the salad incident.

It started like any other dinner. Butternut squash, wild rice…. I aspirated a bit of the rice which resulted in a coughing/sneezing fit with rice flying out of the majority of my facial orifices.

I eventually cleared my airway and regained my composure. Then I moved on from my squash to my salad. This particular night, it was a mix of greens…primarily spinach, with cauliflower, broccoli, walnuts, feta, strawberries, radish and chia seeds. A little excessive, I know. I perused our extensive salad dressing cache and selected the balsamic vinaigrette…organic and made with avocado oil, of course. Probably crafted deep in the jungle by elfin creatures with disproportionately big ears who have never seen or been tainted by civilization.

So I’m eating my salad and I’m about halfway done when the unthinkable happens. Somehow, my fork gets tangled up in a messy tangle of cheese, leaf and vinaigrette and as I liberate my instrument of silver, a large glob of dressing is catapulted directly into my left eye.

A combination of balsamic vinegar, sea salt, lemon juice, onion powder, garlic powder and black pepper lands a direct hit to my poor, delicate cornea, immediately setting my eye ON FIRE.

Now on the bright side, no high fructose corn syrup or gluten came into contact with my eye….heaven forbid! And praise the good Lord it was soy and canola free….because you know…canola. Also, what the ever-loving-eff is Konjac Root? The jungle elves know….

So anyhow…the salad assault hurt like a son-of-a-b!t@#!!!! I don’t know if you’ve ever had any of the above ingredients fly into your eye, but I would strongly discourage it and advocate that you put steps in place to prevent it from ever happening to you or your loved ones.

After the death-sauce landed squarely in my eye, I gasped so aggressively that I sucked a bit of strawberry into my airway and again, had to cough violently to clear it. So there I sit….breathless, eyes squinted tightly shut, food particles coming out of my nose, tears and mascara streaming down my face…..and laughing my a$$ off. Because really, in this scenario, the only thing you can do is laugh. And Danny, safely out of arm’s reach, laughed too.

So I’ve taken a few things away from this experience:

1. One should consider wearing protective glasses when engaging with a salad of this magnitude.
2. Know your food and how it might turn on you. For instance, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fettuccini alfredo, ice cream and cupcakes would NEVER do me like this!
3. I probably need a formal swallow evaluation.
4. It’s okay to eat deliciously unhealthy food on occasion, because you never know when you might be eaten by a shark, smashed by a falling tree, hit by a meteor or attacked by a salad.
5. I should probably never eat in public.

Here’s to good health! Happy Tuesday, friends!