deeples

I have a touch of pica, if I haven’t mentioned it before.  It’s a side-effect of the chronic amenia that I live with and it causes me to want to taste/smell and suck on paper and wood.  

 I generally don’t tell people about it because people immediately make the “HELLO NUT JOB” face at me and or tease me mercilessly about it, but I know that when I first had symptoms years ago, there was almost no information out there about it.  Most people who have pica have a very mild form (ice chewing is the most common) or a very severe form (eating glass, nails, garbage) and mine was very limited to tasting/smelling wood and/or paper, mostly cedar.  Even searching the internet turned very little up and it’s quite frightening to think you are one of the first people to experience.. well, anything.

You can read about pica here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_%28disorder%29

Easy there, tiger.  Calm down. I don’t eat or desire any of that other stuff…like soil or chalk or FECES… but the paper and wood, yes.  As you might imagine, this presents some difficulty for me, occasionally.  Have I ever given myself a small sliver on my tongue or nose? Have people ever seen me, at a stop light, in the privacy of my own vehicle appear to be sniffing and/or licking a small block of wood?  Have I purchased in my lifetime more than 100 blocks of cedar from various stores and the internet?

Maybe.

Does my doctor and hematologist know about this? Yes.  It’s mostly no big deal because I don’t want to eat paint or cigarette butts or paperclips and I never actually swallow or ingest anything…. but, I think I crossed the safety line today. 

I frequently, while working at my desk, tear a little piece of paper off my notepad and chew on it.  When it gets mushy, I throw it away and rip another piece off.  If you think I am chewing gum, it’s usually paper.  Today, I grabbed my Caribou cup sleeve and ripped a piece off and started chewing.  Now, the sleeve is cardboard.  Cardboard is like the rib-eye of the paper world. It’s taste is hearty and if you crave the taste of paper, like I do, it’s almost immediately satisfying….  so, I’m like ROCK ON… and I’m ripping and chewing and tossing the chewed on pieces in the garbage and then I look down at the sleeve and notice what it says on the side:

Contains 83% recycled content with a minimum of 75% post-consumer waste.

Waste.

75% fracking WASTE.  The word waste just floated around in front of my face….

So, I had a personal freak out and immediately felt faint and had a series of heart-palpitations and convinced myself that I probably now have some garbage-injesting disease like… like.. the bubonic plague.  I mean, it’s not like today is the first time I have ever indulged in a cardboard sleeve, man…   I’ve been drawn in my that heady corrigated demon before.  

I think I’m finally cured, though. 

WASTE? 

I’m starting my own 12-step program.

Paper Anonymous.

Things that are never quite as good as it seems like it will be, by it’s name:

• lemon grass
• Mannheim Steamroller
• Trickle down economics

Things I would like to say to a policeman someday:

• “I’m not sure I agree with your detective work, there, Lou.”
• “Define ‘red’.”
• “This is exactly why a black man can’t get ahead in this society.”

Places it would suck to work for, but I secretly know I would kick ass at:

• Old Navy
• Let’s Dish!
• Dunder Mifflin

Signs that it’s not going to be a good commute to work:

• I’m already using sarcasm: “Oh, please, make yourself at home! Welcome to this lane. It’s so nice to see you.”
•  I’m having that reoccuring fantasy in which I have a small billboard on my car that I can telepathically populate with whatever I’m thinking.  For example, “Hi Dickweed. You just drifted into my lane and caused me to have a partial heart-attack and swerve all over the road, just because you have no concept of the general agreement that we all stay between our goddamned lines while we drive. DICKWEED. (or did I already say that?)“
• Sade comes on my XM radio.

I still need to comment on last week’s Idol.

I have about a thousand funny things to say about our trip to Lutsen and the 48 drama-filled hours leading up to the trip.

 I have about 15 minutes of my lunch hour to write something.  A list, you say?

Great idea!

Items portrayed in Sci-Fi as things we’ll have in the future that I really, really hope will happen.

1.  Star Trek Replicator.  

“Computer, please make us dinner. Kory will have a Chipotle burrito bowl and half steak and half barbacoa with sour cream, cheese, hot salsa and the green salsa with a side of chips and guacamole.  The Teen would like a bacon cheeseburger, medium, mayo and catsup, with fries.  The Baby would like a corndog cut up into small pieces, some cheese cubes and a container of strawberry yogurt and I would like a Eegee’s hoagie and some zucchinis from Carl’s Jr.  Um. 40 degrees centigrate.  Please. Pronto.  Thanks.”

2.  Resorts on other planets

• When even someplace else on earth isn’t far enough away
• Could possibley end up in scenario in which you save the earth from destruction
• REALLY exotic cocktails

3.  Virtual computer screens

• Won’t matter if I spill my coffee (daily)
• No more trying to remember if it’s Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Tab that flips my screens
• Maestro-ish

Items from sci-fi movies portrayed as things we will have in the future that I hope never actually happens:

1.  Jetson tubes.

• I’m clausterphobic. 
• I fear an Augustus Gloop-esque situation.
• I always forget things and would end up shooting back and forth between tubes getting everything I forgot and would look like a trainwreck by the time I was done.
• You know people would attempt tube-sex.

2.  Robots

• Eventually they will becomes sentient and revolt against us.
• They will use poinsonous gases.  And poison our asses.
• They might look like humans and we won’t be able to tell them apart and while I have a pretty good Gaydar, I’m certain I don’t have a Robar.

3. Retinal scanners

• What if I have pink eye?  Because, lately, I have it alot.
• I’m a flincher.
• Might ruin my carefully applied new eyeshadow