In my never ending search for truth and personal enlightenment I have come to realize the slow unfolding nature of wisdom. It is on a daily basis that our human folly is revealed. For example, ever since Thanksgiving my heartburn has been worse than usual. I shouldn’t be surprised given the mass quantities of turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, noodle kugel, brisket, pumpkin pie and cheesecake that I consumed. Plus, with cousin Donna, the garlic and hot chili oil Dragon Woman visiting from Boca, we had been eating spicy stuff pretty much non-stop. And that’s not counting what we ate at the actual sit-down holiday meal and throughout the following several nights as we regularly circled the granite topped kitchen island like Jewish turkey vultures picking through leftovers in various sized tupperware containers. After she went to bed I would sometimes return to the kitchen like some crazed food zombie needing to feast on another fresh brain. By that time heating anything up or even using human utensils seemed unnecessary. My main concern was being discovered in my gravy soiled bathrobe ravaging a brie en croute with fruit compote at 3AM. Regardless, my hearburn was worse than usual the next day. What a surprise…. Luckily, I had anticipated such a result and had taken an extra dose of OTC Zantac prophylactically each morning. It may have saved my life.
Here’s where the wisdom part comes in. By today, Sunday, I noticed my heartburn had not subsided which I surmised was due to the fact that nobody remembered to bake or eat the 4 rolls of flaky Pillsbury biscuits we bought on sale at Kroger….so I made them and ate them myself. What other choice did I have? The human ego has many ways to rationalize its gluttonous lower-self nature. I actually caught myself thinking that eating a dozen biscuits wouldn’t be so bad as long as I used the zero calorie “I Cant Believe It’s Not Butter” spray. Of course I eventually abandoned the use of the annoying spray top and commenced to pouring the liquified butter flavored chemical mixture directly onto the crispy oven-baked carbohydrate mass. Even my Black lab, Harmony, a known foodaholic and kleptomaniac looked at me aghast and seemed by her quizzical look and tipped head gesture to say, “You need help, dude.”
Bottomline: When “garbage in” does not equate to “garbage out”, it’s probably time to put on ones detective cap and reassess a situation using the trusty scientific method. About an hour ago I suddenly remembered I had not been wearing my high powered Walgreens reading glasses when I took the Zantac. Donna insisted on buying me the kind that have the built-in mini-halogen headlights. I think I permanently blinded a waiter using this gadget at a Chinese restaurant in an attempt to read the menu earlier in the week. Unfortunately, they were almost 12 feet away when I needed them and who wants to expend that kind of extra energy? Once I retrieved them under the pile of sugar-free popsicle sticks at my bedside I carefully reread the foil pack and discovered I had been taking Loperamide Hydrochloride tablets, a potent ANTI-DIARRHEA medicine and NOT the Zantac 150 heartburn tablets. An understandable mistake given the uncanny similarity of their foil packaging but also about as critical a boo-boo as failing to check the rubber O-rings on the ill-fated Space Shuttle launch. In that disaster the proud and noble space vehicle blew up right after its well-publicized launch. In my case I may never launch properly again. The idea of blowing up or even out at this juncture would now be perceived as divine intervention and absolute proof of God’s great mercy. If enlightenment does result from a progression of tiny progressive insights that finally lead to releasing ones over-inflated ego, then I anxiously await with feverish anticipation any such release…of any spiritual or material kind really.
Grumpy Constipated Buddha
captaincliff 