Living Retire — ‘Death By Coleslaw’
Living Retired — ‘DEATH BY COLESLAW’
Throughout August in our household, I — make that my intestines! — endured a 31 day summer salad saga!
It was ‘All Salads, All The Time.’ We ate Caesar salad, Greek salad, Cobb salad, Italian Caprese salad, Asian noodle salad, and Mexican bean salad.
But, like Ron Popeil who invented the Chop-O-Matic hand food processor that chopped our onions to perfection said, “Wait there is more…”
We also ate fresh spinach salad, Waldorf salad, coleslaw, and cabbage salad with sesame soy and ginger vinaigrette.
We had side salads, main dish salads, and fruit salad for dessert.
We crunched on iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, and green and red leaf lettuce. We chomped on radishes, carrots, cauliflower, and green, red, and orange peppers. We savoured sliced heirloom tomatoes and diced plum tomatoes. We had shredded red and green cabbage. We even ate fennel that tasted like black liquorice All-sorts!
ENOUGH ALL READY!
“Gary, all this roughage is great for your gut!”
“But Jan do you realize how much we are spending on Beano? It is costing us a stinking fortune!”
“Gary, that is because you have single-handedly surpassed China as the worlds highest producer of gas emissions!”
The gas emissions Jan is talking about are flatulence, bloating, and burping, which are frequent side effects of eating salads — along with dribbling chunky blue cheese dressing all down the front of your shirt!
Gas emission experts — who as young boys nurtured their craft attending birthday parties — say it is the fibre in vegetables such as beans, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussel sprouts that is difficult to digest.
So, I Googled ‘how to pass gas’ and you know what came up? — ‘How to get yourself to fart.’ Go figure!
One suggestion from the ‘how to get yourself to fart experts’ was, get this, YOGA!
“Gary, we are eating dinner. Why on earth are you laying down on the kitchen floor?”
“Dear, after my side dish coleslaw and before my main course shredded brussel sprout salad I am getting into a lotus pose to meditate. Yoga helps with digestion.”
“Gary, you doing yoga is a stretch to me.”
It took some effort, but I finally managed to get into the classic lotus yoga pose we have all seen: I am on the floor sitting cross-legged beside the kitchen table with each of my feet on the opposite thigh. Whew, that is some pain! I placed my hands with the palms facing the ceiling and gently closed my eyes. I relaxed, took a deep breath, and softly began counting to 30. I… 2… 3…
Somewhere around 9 or 10 is when it happened…
Slowly, I could start to feel myself begin to teeter! It was like time froze! In slow motion I toppled over and did a face plant onto the kitchen floor! I was still stuck in my lotus pose! If Jan kicked me with her foot I would roll like a beach ball into the living room!
Just like that EVERYTHING from my spine, to my hip joints, my knee joints, and my ankle joints were one — ONE PAINFUL BLOB OF YOGA-INDUCED BONE AND MUSCLES … IN RELAX FIT JEANS!
Jan howled laughing! She could barely speak, “Gary, it is like Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall!”
All the Kings horses and all the Kings men could not put me back together again! Neither could Jan — she spun so much lettuce in our salad spinner in August that she has carpal tunnel in her wrists!
We are now into the September Salad Saga. Jan and I are up to our celery stalks in salads! But, if you have any salad jokes, please lettuce know.
