That's right, and if you need help counting the letters in any other word, just let me know! But seriously, I don't think I started becoming neurotic about food until about the age of six. That was how old I was when I first ate spinach straight from the can and became totally shocked and disappointed when my muscles did not respond the way Popeye's did. Because to me, the Popeye Principle is what all modern diets are based on - you know, the stuff you put in your mouth will magically transform itself into the body you never had but always wish you did!
Now, even though I wanted muscles like Popeye, I always got a little concerned when his muscles spontaneously took the shape of ship anchors, bar bells and such - this was not what I had in mind, really. So I hoped my mother had selected a brand of Spinach that wouldn't have all those weird "side effects"! The spinach on my plate never worked, by the way, so I figured that only can spinach, not plate spinach, was imbued with "the force".
I never understood why Popeye was always eating spinach to either save or impress that ugly girlfriend of his - if I were him, I would let Brutus have her so I could go back to eating the stuff I like! However, the girl I was trying to impress back then was much prettier than her, that's for sure. So spinach became my only recourse!
I wonder whatever happened to Lizzie, and if she has any idea how much spinach I stuffed down my gullet for her? And yet nothing ever happened, not even ship anchors or bar bells. You'd think that would've shattered the illusion of the Popeye Principle for me right then and there, but it didn't. No, I went on to spend years and years in search of the proverbial Spinach of the Gods (which is mentioned in one form or another in all the great traditions of the ancient worlds).
Where did I pick up the crazy notion that food has the power to make me happy? Was I born with it, or did the KGB broadcast it to me as I lay in my crib? I don't think the aliens planted that thought - they can't be that stupid, not if they have all that amazing technology you see in the movies!
I began my search for the Ultimate Spinach Diet in earnest when I was about 18 years old. My basic strategy was to believe everything I read, one thing after another, even though everything contradicted the last thing I read and made me totally confused and neurotic. I don't why I adopted that strategy, I just did, that's all.
One of the first Ultimate Spinach Diets I tried was called "The Mucousless Diet Healing System", by a guy named Arnold Ehret. I figured that anything free of mucous is attractive by definition, and a "Healing System" has got to be far more advanced than a can of spinach! Old Arnold made the classic marketing blunder of putting a likeness of his ugly mug on the front cover, however. I didn't know if I should be taking dietary instruction from someone who looks like the professor in "Back to the Future" being liberated from Auschwitz or something!
The idea behind this advanced Healing System is that everybody in the world but Arnold is dying from a condition of "mucous glut", or "mucous overload" if you will. This mucous is in just about everything but grapes and apples, apparently. Bananas are just phlegm in disguise according to Arnie (just kidding, it's almost that bad though). I tried eating only grapes and apples for a few days, maybe a week. I only had a hamburger once during that time (but I did a quick "mucous check" before I ate it). I eventually dropped out of the Mucousless Diet Healing System, every bit as disillusioned as I was at age six when my muscles didn't bulge. For one thing, Arnold spent a little too much time describing his bowel movements, and that got to be a bit much for me.
In future installments I may decide to harpoon various other Healing Systems I tried over the years, none of which ever worked (duh). Food will not make us happy, food will not cure depression, food will not produce miracles, and food will not result in the spiritual liberation experienced by the Buddha (damn!). You are what you eat and that's about all you can say. That's why I woke up this morning feeling like a stale and crushed bag of Doritos! It felt like all the muscles in my body were shaped like a boat anchor, especially the heart muscle.
