MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE

We’ve all had that thought, haven’t we? It comes after we realize that what we’ve done just can’t be undone. It comes after we’ve thrown something away, or after we’ve said what we really think of someone at Thanksgiving dinner, or after we’ve crawled into our car early one morning when we’re someplace we really never thought we’d end up. Or when we trade vegetables for macrobiotic meals.

Sometimes it’s accompanied by a seemed like a good idea at the time, and sometimes it’s accompanied by a what was I thinking? And sometimes there is the regrettable realization that we’ve no idea had we got into such a fix and couldn’t have possibly avoided it.

The macrobiotic lady used to work at Blue Moon Bakery. She’s from Portugal or Spain or Alsance-Lorraine or someplace where people ride around on bicycles with loaves of bread in the front basket. That’s how she’d come to market – on a bicycle with loaves of bread in the front basket. She’d trade bread for vegetables. The stuff they hadn’t sold at Blue Moon that day, she’d put in her basket and peddle down to market. That was a good idea. She kept me in bread for years.

Then she opened a macrobiotic catering business. She asked me if I wanted to trade vegetables for a macrobiotic meal once a weak.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Then she started bringing me my meals.

They’re not exactly digestible.

This has nothing to do with macrobiotics. I’ve had plenty of macrobiotic food that was perfectly edible. It’s more like … this particular macrobiotic food. Or … this particular macrobiotic cook. And, well … it’s not exactly digestible. Sometimes it’s just bland.

Bland like it needs a whole bottle of hot sauce.

And sometimes it’s just plain foul.

I don’t know how to get myself out of this.

Say: Thanks, but I really don’t get hungry at market. I mean, nevermind those donuts there, usually I really don’t get hungry at market.

Say: This trading thing isn’t really working out. Maybe you should just pay for your vegetables. Nevermind the half dozen other people you know whom I trade with.

Say: My doctor says I should eat nothing but animal proteins.

In the back of mind somewhere is the thought that this catering business just can’t last that long.

In the meantime I’m stuck. The fridge is getting fuller and fuller with little plastic clamshell trays full of pickled black-eyed peas and raw kale and some sort of barley looking substance.

And, as I say, I’m stuck. Maybe she’ll move, or go out of business, or just forget about me. Maybe macrobiotics will be proven to be bad for you, or her bike will get a flat tire.

In the meantime I’m stuck. I just hand her a little bag of vegetables. "Oh, that looks good," I say. "Look at those little black things in there. And, um, those green things. And, um, those, um, seeds."

"I know how much you like," she says. "I bring you more next week."

And she rides away.