Glorious White Bread

Enriched Morph

I was cleaning the kitchen dry goods cabinet and pulled out two loaf bread bags.  One had greened over Play-Doh looking residue stuck in the bottom of it.  Into the garbage it went.  The other had half-dozen or so hard, very hard, slices in it that were still white--hard white planks they were--evidently they had been treated with some special preservatives.

 And they are "special"...

...calcium propionate...?

Hmm.  On-its-own, it's a scary-enough-sounding sandwich ingredient.  Then, considering the sodium-laden processed animal segments that are gonna' go into that potential sandwich...??  Scary indeed are the sandwiches. 

I took the plastic sack of enriched bleached flour roofing shingles outside and, one by one, sailed them out into the woody backyard with impressive Frisbee force.  I smiled at my toss, my aim.  These white fossils were championship-worthy.

It was then that I recalled how much joy I had gotten' in my life from plain white bread.

"Read Quietly, Class"
  
Our 6th grade class was herded into the library for a "quiet reading time".  We were single-filed in, and seated according to how we had exited our classrooms, so the persons in the rows next to you in class were placed in front of and facing you in the library.  The student placed directly across the table from me was Curtis.

The children were herded into here for their sliced bread ration

I think Curtis wanted to like me, because, you know, I was kinda' cute.  Nevertheless, he just couldn't get past how juvenile and hyper I always was compared to his own steady, calm demeanor. 

He regularly appeared placid and unruffled, even as chaotic classroom shenanigans occurred around him.  He was always telling me I ought to settle down, slow down, quit making so much noise, and that I was a nut.  He would try to sound really aggravated, but I knew better, because the twinkle in his eye told me otherwise.

Sliced Fun 
            
I retrieved a book from the shelf, but I was not going to read it. 

Curtis had a book and was trying to read it. 

For some ridiculous reason, and quite out of expected library protocol, our teacher and a couple of library helpers began to issue slices of white bread to each of us kids.  No plates, no butter, no cheese, just white bread slices.  We got two slices apiece.  All I can figure is it was just what was left over from some bagged bread in the lunchroom that the lunch ladies didn't want to throw out. 

Not really hungry, but going to eat it anyway, I labored over the first piece, carefully peeling off one brown crust at a time and eating them in peel succession. 

...If you lose track during the following sequence of bread-breaking, don't fret, just read on...

The first one came off and went into my mouth like you'd expect--normal.  The next peeled crust I placed on the table and rolled it up (Curtis' eyes did likewise) to look like rolled tape.  I ate that.  The next peeled crust got rolled the same, except this time I let it flop open again.  Roll, Flop, Roll, Flop.  I ate that, too.  The fourth peeled crust from that slice I mashed out flat first, then rolled it up, and placed it aside on the table in front of me.  I took a couple bites of the white that was left of that slice, then laid it aside for snacking during the second slice's disassembly.  

I began the second slice by de-crusting also.  I mashed the crusts flat and stacked them with the reserved crust-piece from the first slice.  I was having fun.  And I was relatively quiet. 

The white remainder of that second slice was systematically and carefully taken apart, divided into many little sections, and rolled up into neat little white bread balls.  I was having fun a little louder now. 

I stacked a few of the bread balls into miniature snowmen. One of those I rearranged and rolled up into a now dirty white bread turd.

...I continue... 

     Take apart the others, and place the little balls in a pile.  Thump a bread ball across the library
      toward another table.  Look innocent.  Thump another.  I feel I'm about to explode in laughter.
     Life is a party for me right here in this library with my white bread issue--Curtis trying to ignore
      me.  I take a bite of the unmolested white snacking slice I have saved off to the side.

...and so it went.

I got the rolls from my brown reserve and re-mashed them into smaller bread balls, and I thumped a couple.  Curtis looked up from his book to disdainfully moan at me, "This is the library and you act like you're at the carnival!"  I of course thought that was hilarious, and I burst out laughing again, but this time at him, not at myself.  I was given the harsh librarian-reprimand-stare.  "Quiet!" she glared. 

With the combination of more librarian threats and my bread balls being all thumped away, the party was over--my supply had depleted.  I was out'a bread.

Short time after the library bread day, Curtis began sitting directly behind me in the classroom instead of in the row beside me, and sometimes he even braided my hair.  Hmmm......boyfriended by bread. 

Remember, I'm still just thinking...

If I'd had a cat
     with me in the library, this would have happened.  I love bread, but I love kitty-cats more.     

Unfortunately, they didn't pass out cats that day

Photo from:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/picture-galleries/9056444/The-latest-Internet-craze-pet-cats-with-a-slice-of-bread-on-their-heads.html?image=5  

If my mother
     had been in that library, she would have skinned me alive for wasting bread.

Even after growing up,
     white bread was my desire.  I took Diesel Technology class (yep) and I always had my staple--
     bagged balony sandwiches made with ketchup and mustard on white bread. 
     The Iron Kids brand white bread was my favorite at the time.

In my adult life
     I have been teased by my peers for always having a loaf of white bread and a package of
     sliced cheese.  Instant sandwich.  "You and your white bread", they'd say.   

Next Generation of Taste Buds 

When my son Christopher was just old enough to start eating "human" food, he discovered sliced white bread.  You couldn't get him out of or away from a loaf.  He loved it like nothing else.  A boy after my own heart.  My mom, after keeping him a couple times, stressed how much he "...sure does like to eat bread."  I taught the baby right.  Eat white bread, boy!

My sweet little bread-eater

My Todays are Brown

I'm older now (still juvenile-like), and heavier.  Have to get the blood sugar checked every so often.  Have to exercise twice as vigorously as I used to.  Have to watch my diet.  Oh woe is me!  It was a dark dark day when my beloved and long-time Dr. Camp told me to "cut out the white" from my daily diet routine.  My taste buds had to really grow up.

Bye-Bye White

It's all about wheat bread in my cabinet now.  What a drag it was at first.  I had to ween off the white, but for the most part, I've done it.   

An interesting thing however,
     is how much faster the wheat loaves green-over than the white loaves do.  

Don't know what Curtis is doing these days.

# # #

 

Daze of our Ooze

WARNING  

The following representation contains graphic descriptions that may gag somebody

READER DISCRETION is ADVISED 
    

The tickle.  It's not a feather one.  I'm not talking a French one.  It isn't sexy.  And it doesn't make me giggle.  It's the throat tickle.  It is the signal that we both feel at the same time, Tuesday morning--the 1st day.

"My throat's got a little tickle in it," Joe says.  So does mine, but I don't say anything right then; only hoping mine was just "suggested" upon me by Joe.

Two hours later, we are both coughing to scratchy throats, and by the 4th hour, our chests have that down-deep raw sensation.

Sore neck, shoulders, and arms.  I cannot bear anything touching my skin; not cloth, not water, not my own hand.  

Joe and I will journey together in this shared, non-climactic experience that is to last three weeks.  And before it's all said and done, I will come to believe that Joe has stock in the Vick's Vapor Rub company.

Sick moving in

Cough the hot, raw, non-productive hack for two days and nights, until I have a pounding headache.  The nose is HOT inside, the eyes are HOT and they pour forth the waters.  There is that constant sneeze on the verge of happening up inside my nostrils, but it will not materialize.  The nose; it won't blow--there is nothing but a drop or two of water.  I cannot sniff, because it makes that almost sneeze sensation swell in my nasal passage; subsequent violent eye-watering follows.  Nothing into it, and nothing important or relief-giving out of it; this nose.  

Seborrhea--Nope, no itch.  Can't scratch and see-a,
Pyorrhea--The trench mouth didn't bite me-a!
Gonorrhea--Clap,Clap! We don't got no VD-a.  
Diarrhea--Ugh! But why do we got diarrhea?? 

Yessum, we-uns dun got the runs........
       
Once.  Twice.  Thrice.  The fourth?  Go for it.

Violent coughing and diarrhea have never complemented one another.   

No appetite, and everything stinks anyway--taste buds are distorted-like.  Could not care less about the dirty dishes, television, dirty clothes, Facebook, don't give a #$!%--don't want to talk!  I can't even think straight!    

Loose waters rush forth from my raw nostrils, no matter where I am or what I am trying to do.  Shove some rolled tissue wads up in there so I'll not dribble disgust all over the floor, the counter, the food, the coffee, the grocery cart, the other person, the book..... 

Wipe the nose.  Wipe the nose.  Wipe, wipe, wipe.  Raw--the nose.  Raw,  raw,  raw.  Red as a beet.  Looks like I pitched a three day drunk with this red nose.   Sneeze and sneeze and sneeze and sneeze.  Drip, wipe, sneeze, drip, wipe sneeze, and on and on with this relentless nasal horror.

BAD nose

                                       

Day 3:  I must attend a class, and I am the pariah, the disgusting thing that must sit apart from the others, with my tissue box, my Walmart nose-discharge bag, my disgusting vile noises and emissions: hacks and blows and snorts and drips.  Please do not look at me!

A kind fellow student tosses me a couple of cough drops.

Day 5:  Saturday, dizzy in the morning, and weak, and disoriented from the past few days of sickness.  Saturday night and Sunday AM has us sort of feeling like we are on the mend.  My nose skin is dried up to the point that big flakes are trying to come off, so I trim up my nostril holes with toenail scissors before heading to church.  Don't want to show up with a flake-ridden nose.

Are we really on the mend?

Sunday night the sinuses retaliate with a vengeance.  The top of my throat and the far back reach of my nose has that horrid drip sensation.  The sinuses in my face all feel sore, swollen.  I cannot bear the feeling--the pain; in my ear, nose, and throat as I swallow saliva.  This will turn out to be the worst night of respiratory assault.

All night, there is no sleep, as I lie on my face to keep the vile drip from choking off my throat.  I cannot stand for saliva to go down and be swallowed.  I must let it run out onto a towel wadded up by my mouth, which is nearly stifled in the pillow.  My nose is trying to run, and there are rolled tissues in my nostrils.  I have to breathe through my mouth, wedged open by the pillow.  I sleep none.  I wait for the daylight.

I don't even feel this good

Hard, loud wheezing in my chest. 

The coughing returns, this time it is trying to expel something foreign. To no avail.  Blow gobs of things out my nose.  Second, third box of tissue; rolls, rolls of toilet paper; second Walmart bag for snot garbage is full; trash can by the bed is full of its second load of snot garbage.  Red nose hanging on my wretched face again.

Bedside Blow Refuse

Days 9 & 10:  Had wonderful snow all over the place.  Normally I would've wanted to play in it.  I would've wanted to go out and take pictures.  I would've wanted to slide down the driveway on a jagged piece of aluminum siding.  I couldn't do any of it--didn't really care.  I had to stay inside and wait for the HEAL.

I cough and pee in my pants immediately after putting on clean clothes.  

All this time Joe and I continue to work, and I continue to go to a class two nights a week.  I also have a very important job interview one day during this ill nightmare.  It is very hard to appear well and competent when my face reveals illness; the cocaine-looking nose, the addiction to Mentholatum, and the watery eyes of a queen who suffered a previous night of diva drama, and the cough of a serious pot smoker.  And the sounds I make send warnings to stay away.  Why would they think I was the person for the job?  Why should they hire me? 

I need to be put in quarantine.  I want a hospital!

Day 13 of this s%#t:  Cough cough.  I have eaten three bags of Mentholatum cough drops by now.   
I go to class.  Cough cough cough cough... Fellow student quickly flings a couple of cough drops toward me, since I had eaten all mine.  Somebody else throws a handful of Jolly Ranchers at me.

Kind offerings from concerned classmates

     
Keeping in mind that Joe is on this same s&%*#y ride:  I have never seen him so sick from any respiratory situation before now.  It's even worse than the time we both brought back vile infections from a trip to Honduras.  That illness didn't come close to topping this curse.   

Blow constantly for two days.  Cough violently and uncontrollably.  Cough until my rib cage on both sides has pulled loose from cartilage.

web2.sheltonschools.org

I look it up on the internet:  Strained intercostal muscles on the rib cage.  Oof!  I feel like I have been in a car wreck or a street fight.

Cough at night, and it hurts my lungs and my rib cage, and my whole core; and my head pounds.   There is the most disgusting matter I cough up and out.   I am a vile thing.  Never in my life have I seen such repulsive odiousness come from me.       

Vile phlegm.  VILE!!

And from my nose, the nostrils now produce blood globs and repulsive infection-ridden disgust.  Blow!  Again and again.  Fourth box of tissue.  Toilet paper's 'bout gone.  Fill the third Walmart bag by the living room table.  Take more Aleve for this chest and side pain.  Somebody please stick a Shop-Vac to my face!

Goners

Days upon days.  Today is Monday.  This is the 14th day.  Afraid to post this until I am all clear.  It might not all be gone until more days go by.

Day 15:  I show up for class.  Cough cough cough.  Irritated fellow students savagely throw cough drops and hard candy at me--the Jolly Ranchers fly by again.  "I don't want to listen to that tonight," I hear someone say.  Hard things land on the floor about me.  I, who should be outcast, gathered my "crumbs for the reject" and tied them up in my well-used snot rag.  Inside I found the usual cough drops--actually, the whole cough drop bag.  Plus the Jolly Ranchers.  And some money; guess someone wants to pay me to leave.  Why is there is an orange highlight marker?...A few rocks (ouch), a fork (whoa!), a Pez candy dispenser (empty BTW), and some forbidding offerings of .38 Specials.  Geez, I thought the fork was threatening enough!  These are not the gifts I want or expect to see in a "kindness package".

Sent from the Un-Well Wishers

        
Well, it could've been like that.   

Cough cough COFF damn it!  I want codeine, morphine, opium--anything!!  

Five daggers are in my side from this coughing.  I am pilled out with Aleve.  I have to bend over to cough.  I have sated on Halls Mentholatum cough drops for over a fortnight.

I am a decrepit thing.  

Day 19:  Have to bend over to get a deep breath.  Feels like a horse has kicked me in my side. Throat and sinus gurgling.      

Joe, who by-passes the tissue box, blows his nose on his bath towel.  He announces that he's sick of snot.  He keeps trying to push the heating pad on me.  

Sunday is day 20.  This is the first day there have been no coughing fits nor in vitro-worthy nose-blows.

It's Monday and I think we'll be OK.  My side still hurts--the musculature in my rib cage will mend in time.  I am thinking about all those take-outs I've ordered of baby back ribs, spare ribs, and short ribs.

#  #  #     

Pills, Bad Apples and Girl Scouts

Reasonable Turns Stupid

Remember the little milk cartons we used to get in elementary school?  We learned how to open the practical wax-covered box at the "open here" arrow, and then we'd drink the dairy liquid from the functional spout.  

As we grew up and took our place in the adult consumer world, we purchased dairy in larger quart and half-gallon cartons.  They all had the same "open here" directions and spouts.  

                  This is what I'm talking about--the way it still ought to be.  (http://www.ebay.com/itm/1980s-Vintage-PRARIE-FARMS-Grade-A-2-Lowfat-Milk-Half-Gallon-Cardboard-Carton-/310533742434)

Now, when you buy a carton of milk, there is a "handy" twist off plastic lid on the side of the traditional looking spout top.  The first time I encountered this type milk carton, I failed to realize it had the screw top on the side.  I fiddled, and pried, and pulled, and destroyed the top of both sides of my milk carton, to no avail.  

I fooled around with it enough to get just a little rip in the cardboard--enough to let some of the milk splash out onto me and the floor.  Then I saw that twist-top.  

I cursed as I unscrewed it.  And under that top was a pull ring to unstop a plastic disc from the drinking hole.  I yanked the stopper by the ring, and milk flew everywhere.  I cursed again, not the carton this time, but the Tylenol Tamperer of 1982.  He (or she) started all this %X*@^# packaging convenience #%^T!

‘Eighty-two  

That year, an individual (maybe even more than one) idiot with no conscience, slipped deadly potassium cyanide into Tylenol products.  Seven people, including a 12-year-old girl, died as a result of consuming the disguised poison.  The deaths occurred so quickly before investigators realized that laced Tylenol was the connecting culprit.  The product was subsequently removed from store shelves.  Tylenol has since recovered, but the murders remain unsolved to this day.  

As a result, product packaging got more aggravating.  Wouldn't it be ironic if the Tamperer stroked out trying to open a tamper-proof package?      

I am thinking of other product packaging designed to discourage likewise tampering.  

Plastic milk jugs are as aggravating as their cardboard cousins.  Twist off the ringed top with a snappy sound to it, then gruffly pull off the hard cardboard seal over the hole.  Pour. 

Ketchup is similar to the milk jug, except that after you twist off the snappy top, you have to use needle nose pliers to grasp the little tab that pulls off the tough styrofoam-X-plastic seal over the pouring hole.  

 Mustard's the same as ketchup.  Peanut butter, mayonnaise, instant coffee creamer...all the same.        

Then there are the other type "safety" seals on things like spices, pickles, hot sauce, jelly, and so on.  These lids are sealed over with a hard clear plastic ring that WILL NOT tear!  If you try too long to rip them, you will get a plastic version of a paper cut, and that is very painful.  Scissors will not do it either.  The scissor tip usually will not fit under the plastic seal.  You have to dig out a sharp tipped kitchen knife to cut it.  It pops open finally, and hopefully you didn't cut your hand with a knife that was too big.  All for a dang pickle.  

Even non-ingestible item packaging has been altered, for our protection, by the 1982 a-hole's actions.

Face creams and cosmetics in general have nuisance seals over the tops of them.  But why does nail polish remover (acetone) have a seal over it?  That stuff's bad enough if you get it in or on the wrong body part or piece of furniture.  Maybe somebody in the store opened some up one day and drank it, then sued the store for damages.  Who knows?

I used to be able to sniff nice shampoos and lotions in the store before I bought them, but no more.  The seals are in place.  I can't even smell the deodorant any more, until it's under my arm, that is.    

These designs all came about because of that initial pill bottle-meddling sicko. 

But was Tylenol Tamperer of 1982 the first sicko?

Remember the apple scares of 1968 Halloween?  We heard dreadful stories of razor blades and needles in the fruit handouts, and the panicked worries escalated to rumors of rat poison in the gumballs.

Being so afraid of the apples, many over-protective parents (including my own) said "Let's take the kiddies out for pizza instead of Trick-or-Treating tonight," and "We don't want the kids to be poisoned, jabbed or razor-bladed."  That 1968 I was S.O.L. for getting any Trick-or-Treat candy. 

 

Am I Safe?   

Why have some items been left out of the "safety seal" game?  For instance, why am I allowed to sniff the dish soap in the grocery store?  No seal there--just open it up and there is the product.  Now, I'm thinking "This container is vulnerable."  Couldn't the dish soap be tainted, too?  My dishes might get poisonnneddd...! 


I was in the cosmetic aisle one day and opened up a Baby Oil bottle.  No seal.  I wondered why not, but was glad, because I like the smell of Baby Oil.  I put the bottle opening up to my nose, squeezed the plastic bottle to get the product up to the top for better sniff-ability.  It came up too far and I sucked a half an ounce of oil into my sinus cavities before I knew what happened.  

I hacked and snorted for ten minutes right there in the aisle until I could breathe, and even function, without gagging and choking.  All that was to the assured delight of the Wal-Mart surveillance crew watching from their camera room.

OK, maybe everything ought to be tamper-proof.   

Can't sickos inject dreadful things into my boxes of prunes or brown sugar?  Or into my marshmallows right there in the bag???

What about natural packaging?  Like the aforementioned apples, or other fruits?  
 
...or eggs?



I know eggs can be injected because back in high school I helped my friend Teresa (ya'll know her) drain eggs for some Home Ec project she had one year.  She had to pierce holes in the eggs' ends with a needle, then blow the raw insides out.  I think she was painting the hollowed out shells--I really don't remember the reason--but she had to have them emptied for class the following day.  We almost passed out blowing on those things--I really do remember that. 

A Pre-tamper-proof Girl Scout Nasty

 
In 1970 I went door-to-door with a Girl Scout peddling cookies--unsealed cookies.  Sonja, a sort of step-sister at the time, and I were staying at Grandma Rose's house in Hialeah, FL.  We stayed there often, and we both loved Grandma.  

But Sonja and I enjoyed a less than sisterly relationship.  I always thought Sonja was sort of spoiled, and she picked her nose a lot.  Anyway, one day she came to Grandma's with white plastic buckets full of Girl Scout Cookies to sell.  Wendy, an older (11 or 12) and wiser friend from next door, escorted Sonja and me around the neighborhood.  Actually, I really didn't care if Sonja made any sales or not.  And after seeing her salesmanship ethics, I hoped she didn't sell any.  

As we walked along in between houses, Sonja would open up a bucket, fondle cookies, and then eat one or two.  I scoffed, thinking of the nose-picking fingers caressing the cookies that some innocent buyer might eat.  Wendy reprimanded her, and explained to Sonja the wrongness of the act.  Sonja just shrugged, and dug around in the tamper-prone cookie bucket.  I don't remember if she made any sales or not.  I just knew I wasn't going to help her push them anymore.      

Package Ponder Outside the Tamper-Talk Box    

Let's see...3 Bad Package Examples:

(1)  Tortilla chip bags and the like are sealed for product protection more than for consumer protection.  Sealed up so snug-like that you have to use two pairs of pliers to pull apart the package top.  If you try using only your hands to do it, the package tears unevenly, and chips sail all over the room.  Then the bag doesn't fold back closed like it should to properly preserve freshness.  

(2)  Wavy humped bottoms on some carbonated drink bottles.  This is a design to offset the high pressure carbonation effect on the plastic container, and I'm sure the drink companies think they are pretty to look at.  These bottles are troublesome on the check out conveyor belt.  Placed upright, they will 100% of the time flop over with a thud, onto your adjacent delicate goods, like the potato chips, soft dinner rolls, etc.  If you place the bottles in a horizontal position on the belt, they roll and roll, and you still have to go back to chase them out of the way of the customer behind you, then you have to shove them up to the cashier with the rest of your stuff.  Why can't they design the bottles not to topple over, or better still, why not design square bottles?

(3)  Glued toilet paper.  It's stuck so tight at the start of the roll, you have to dig and claw at it 'til it shreds all over.  Why do they do that??  

What's A Good Package?

Cookie, muffin, and similar type hard plastic packages.  Good because they keep the merchandise from mashing, and because you can see through them for treat viewing. 

www.webstaurantstore.com/par-pak

And especially good when empty if you are a juvenile delinquent in the 7th or 8th grade.  I was an agitator in school, and I got thrills during stiff and quiet class sessions when, hidden under my jacket, I'd crinkle the hard noisy plastic container.  It was hard to keep a straight and innocent face when the other students turned to look at me.  It was such a LOUD and jolting crinkle in the otherwise peaceful room.  "Who's doing that?!"  Tee hee hee......

Side note:  

Wine is a hassle to open.  Always was, always will be.  Product good overrides package bad.  It cancels itself out, therefore it doesn't count in any of this.

# # #