Whether you snort white powder, or you shovel crystals down your gullet, the consequences are…
June-ish, 2016. It was the last leg of the morning commute, on I-287. The heart starts to race, this followed by a pinch, with its roots pushing outward like the tail of a lightning strike.
Doctor’s diagnosis: High Cholesterol. Root cause? Diet, with any 3 or 4 of following occurring on any given day:
- Yogurt. Fruit on the Bottom. Jacked up with two heaping tablespoons of Smucker’s Strawberry Jam.
- Fruit. Sliced bananas. Floating in Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. Sliced strawberries, same. Blueberries, melon, raspberries, same.
- Hotcakes. With Canadian Maple Syrup, and a dollop of Raspberry jam.
- Drinks. Orange Gatorade. Florida Orange Juice from the carton. Artificially sweetened Lipton’s Green Tea, 2 bottles at a time. Diet Coke(s). Cranberry Juice, swigged from a 1 gallon jug. And oh let’s not forget, Welch’s Grape Juice, one could bathe in it.
- Ice Cream. Pint of creamy Chocolate Haggen Daz in a single sitting. Breyer’s Vanilla Ice Cream, topped with chopped nuts, chocolate sauce and several shots of Reddi Wip Cream.
- Coffee. Spiked with 2.0 (yes, two) packets of Nutrasweet or its brethren.
- Hot Tea. Golden Bee Honey from a squeeze bottle swirls to and coats the bottom.
- Snacks. Semi-sweet chocolate chips (in pantry for cooking) by the handful. Entenmann’s glazed donuts. Mini Snicker Bars by the handfuls.
- Sandwich. PBJ, mostly with J, oozing on all sides of enriched and wholesome white bread.
- Cereal. Including Raisin Bran, supplemented with a handful of California golden raisins and hopped up with a heaping teaspoon of white sugar crystals sweetening the 2%.
And the pre-bed-time sedative…which warrants its own paragraph, not a mere bullet. Grape Jelly trembles as it waits for the tablespoon to dig deep and scar its surface. Jelly coats the teeth and slides smoothly down the throat. A trace lingers on the lips. The body settles in, calm now, with its fix. Bed time. Continue reading “Running. With Crystal Light.”
