My husband was at the pharmacy one night picking up some munitions, in case zombies attacked or the world ended. Like Twizzlers. Thoughtfully, he called me to see if I needed anything.
“Yeah,” I told him. “I need some Slim-Fast. The strawberry kind, please. Whatever you do, please don’t get me the chocolate stuff.”
“If you say so,” Dave said. “I think it ALL tastes like donkey ass. But whatever, where is it?”
“It’s over by the dietary stuff, against the south wall,” I informed him. Then I giggled. “Wait, I thought YOU were all directionally superior to me!”
“Dude, not here. The layout to this place makes zero sense,” he snipped, annoyed that I was mocking his directional sense for the eleventy-hundredth time that month, after he’d gotten lost in Wisconsin, the state WHERE HE CAME FROM.
“Okay, so do you want the 200-calorie or the 300-calorie stuff?” He asked me, obviously standing in front of the dietary aids.
“Wha …?” I asked him while lighting a cigarette. “SlimFast comes in one variety and it’s all about 200 calories.”
“Well, all they have is generic in your fancy STRAWBERRY flavor,” he replied. “Do you still want it?”
Knowing that drinking the generic stuff was better than being tempted by the bacon and eggs he and Ben would be having for breakfast the following morning, I agreed to have him grab the 200 calorie stuff.
About a half an hour later, I pulled into our shared garage, about 4,000 years away from our actual condo building and about twenty minutes after that, I was finally up the twenty flights of stairs, and standing in our armpit of a kitchen, panting in the sweltering heat.
I immediately noticed, sitting jauntily on the counter, was a case of Ensure.
Generic, strawberry-flavored ENSURE. Which, were I a geriatric with digestive issues trying to pack on the pounds, would probably be a delicious and high calorie snacky-poo. But, since I was a twenty-three-year-old with digestive issues trying to REMOVE the pounds, I wasn’t so thrilled.
“Dave …” I trilled into the house, “Honey?”
He walked into the kitchen to give me a hug hello.
“Baby …” I asked him hesitantly, wondering if he were punishing me for singing Rod Stewart at the top of my lungs when he was in a bad mood the previous night. “Baby, are you mad at me?”
“No,” he replied, genuinely confused. “Why?”
“Because you bought ENSURE. Not SlimFast. Are you trying to fatten me up? Or are you just trying to give my guts a low-residue treat?”
“WHAT?” He asked, now looking more closely at the box of cans. “I totally thought this was SlimFast!”
“No baby, that isn’t even close to SlimFast. This is for people who have no colon left. And maybe in thirty years, I’ll need it myself, but for now? Not so much.”
“Hmm,” He said, looking at the box.
“Well,” I suggested. “On the bright side, if zombies attack, I guess we’re going to be pretty well stocked for a couple of days, I guess.”
