It’s the New Year, so let the onslaught of “New Year, New You” articles begin. I have one message for you, magazines: I REFUSE TO CAVE. Maybe one percent of one percent of you will truly turn over a new leaf, eat organic, run an ultra-marathon, and finally Get Organized! This post is for the rest of us.
I’m aiming low this year. Instead of “let’s eat with the seasons!”, “cook more at home!” and “join a CSA and find out all the ways our kids won’t eat kale!”, this year I’m thinking more along the lines of “yeah, maybe every now and then I’ll pop a fruit or vegetable into the kids’ mouths that isn’t in gummy or chip form.” See how easy it is to be successful? With no measurable objectives and no real upside, how can I fail?
Take the bagged salad. Please. I have two rotting in my refrigerator right now. You think, “That’s sure an easy way to add vegetables to our diet! Michelle Obama would be super-proud of us. Let’s buy these two bagged salads that are on sale two for $5!” And then you get home and you think, “Man, the LAST thing I feel like eating right now is a goddamn bagged salad.” And you think that EVERY NIGHT for a week.
See, my crisper is where bagged salads come to die. I guess ALL bagged salads come to die in all of our crispers, but at least other people’s bagged salads get the last rites they so deserve. Drizzled with oil and vinegar, sprinkled with croutons, they go out in style, feasted upon with relish by families that casually add bagged salads to round out the food groups they lovingly offer for supper. My refrigerator is like a hospice for bagged salads. The salad might think, as it slowly turns brown and slimy in its bag, “Well, at least I’ll be composted. That’s like organ donation for salads – giving back to the earth. MEANING SOMETHING, damn it, even though this chick who bought me hasn’t, apparently, had a vegetable pass her lips for decades.”
But no. Sorry to disappoint you, bagged salad. Though “start a kitchen garden” appeared on my resolutions in years past, it’s never come to fruition and it sure as hell isn’t going to happen in 2012. Last year I did buy two raised bed kits from Home Depot, which then rode around in the back of my minivan for weeks until my husband pointed out that I was losing gas mileage from their extraordinary weight and moved them to the garage. Where they sit. Sort of like a rotting bagged salad. So no, salad, there will be no composting in your future, no ashes to ashes and all that. You’ll rot in your bag, and then I’ll toss you unceremoniously into the trash, then move you outside to the big can, where you’ll never decompose because of all the Hefty plastic product surrounding you. You are doomed to be landfill, the saddest of all afterlifes for lettuce.
But what was I talking about? Oh yeah. Resolutions. Those are for losers.
What about you? What resolutions are you not making this year?
Looks good! Reads good, too. I also have no resolutions. I hate New Year’s.
Thanks Carrie!
Cindy, I am cracking up. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who has bags of wilted lettuce dying in my fridge. Seriously, I just chucked a bag earlier today and I think I heard it mocking me as I tossed it out.
Thanks for this amusing post!
–Beth
Thanks Beth! I have a lot to learn about the back end of WordPress, but I just finally wanted to get blogging
Cindy Great Blog.. can’t wait to read more!
LOL! You can totally send the raised bed kits my way. I’ll build a salsa garden in them and send you a can of salsa at the end of the summer – how’s that? Guilt-free-home-made salsa for ya’….the lazy way! *laughing*
Keep up the writing. Thank you for telling me I helped inspire you. Sometimes we all need a swift-kick in the a….um…minivan. Yeah. Minivan.
Thanks Angela! Mmmmm, salsa
Aren’t there pulls you can take that are the same as salad? Maybe you should try those. I think I will too.
Clearly I meant PILLS.
OMG Cindy– your post was so funny I pretty much read the whole thing to my husband, who was cracking up too.
That’s so sweet to say I (and the other awesome chicks) inspired you! Well, you just inspired me to be more humorous. Cause damn, you’re funny!
Thanks Melissa! I’ve got so much to do to pull design together but I was letting that get in the way of actually writing! So now that I’m up and running, it’s back to your book to implement tips as I’m able. Happy New Year!
Love this! Linked over here from Melissa’s tweet. Wicked funny….and truthful!
Maybe I’ll resolve to eat whatever I want and not care. That might work well.
Thanks for the laugh. I seem to have the same issue if I buy bagged salad. Or vegetables.
I’ve stopped buying bagged salads for this reason! I think the lettuce is old to begin with. It’s flavorless, and rots faster than if you buy a fresh head (of lettuce) and store it loosely in a plastic bag in the fridge. Who wants to eat green cellulose?
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