death by ramen

Most of you know that my ridiculous food allergies, which prohibit me from eating everything but rocks and some sediments, have relegated me to a daily menu of bananas, Top Ramen (in the buff), and whatever meat I can scrounge up, since I don't cook. I eat the banana for breakfast, Ramen for lunch, and typically, another Ramen for dinner. Initially this was working fine. Being that I can't have anything tasty, I detached from food altogether, and was rewarded for my deprivation by losing over forty pounds. Not too shabby eh? Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. For me, the end looked like this: My fingernails started falling completely out. In sheets. All the way to the nail bed. It's gorgeous, I don't know why it didn't catch on. Then came the fistfuls of hair, which I tried to ignore until I was down to a few strands and B started terrifying me with warnings of scurvy and death.

Meanwhile, I fell out of love with dry Ramen. This is very bad, as it is my staple. My cupboard full of Oriental-flavored crunchy wonderment and sustenance gave me great security. I could feel full and lose weight, for the low low price of 10 cents per pack. Well, I guess you get what you pay for. I mean, I'm dying for chrissake. I carry a bag of them in my car, which is sheer genius, and helps me avoid burritos. Those unassuming little packs were also my hero the night we all left Jacob's to discover 15 inches of impenetrable ice on every car window. I mean this shit was not coming off. First I was using a pen, until my fingers froze and fell off (in keeping with the pattern of hair and fingernail loss), and then I remembered the Ramen. I grabbed a pack, already frozen stiff, and scraped away until a blessed little four-inch clearing appeared on my windshield. I was so thankful for my Ramen, that is, until the pack burst open and the noodle fragments went straight down that crevice underneath the wiper blades that no finger nor instrument on this earth can reach. (FYI: My car was still covered in ice the next morning, in the garage--it was mo' fo' cold yo!)

(Just in case anyone in my meager readership is afflicted with OCD, Todd took the Jeep to the dealership and spent $4,000 on some fancy car wash because the Ramen remnants were driving us insane. We don't agree on much, but Ramens in the crevice is enough to make either of us gnaw a hole in our face.)

Moving on. I hate Ramen. Save for their utilitarian, life-saving value. Every third package is stale, and I've come to feel like some prisoner, knowing that it's my very own ineptitude that has landed me in this dismal, albeit crunchy, predicament. But they're handy, and filling, and 10 cents, and no, I do not eat the seasoning packet. Oh, and they're killing me? So yeah, B devised a genius new plan. I often pitch in around her house, aka: Maia's lair, and she is always cooking for me, when I would otherwise starve or eat McDonald's cheeseburgers minus the "meat." So she cleverly suggested that once a week, I come whip the house into shape, while she cooks me a week's worth of succulent meals too fabulous to list, lest you all become jealous and/or storm her house. But it's a freakin' sweet deal. (Did anyone else hear that in Napolean Dynamite's voice? I'm feeling the need to tell you I'm pretty good with a bow staff...) Anyway, we're on week two, and I'm in heaven. I now have several variations of MEAT MEAT MEAT to choose from, and I scoff when I walk past the Ramen cupboard. I can finally stop seeing everyone as a roasted chicken, like in the old cartoons, and tear into real life flesh! My fingernails, while tentative, aren't dropping off, and my hair loss is waning. What's more, I no longer view Ramen as my lifesource, and finally see it as the rest of you see it: The quintessential staple of poverty, and/or a signal that you are too stoned.

So my hat and fingernails are off to you B, and I am eternally grateful, yet again, for your brilliant machinations to save me from myself, and from death by Ramen. I will get to those windows, and thanks to you, the reflection I see won't be bald!