…Well, maybe not me specifically. Not anymore, at any rate. But I’m getting way ahead of myself.
Although this is nominally a blog about music, it’s also a blog about me. In my first post and “About” section I said that I reserved the right to occasionally to write about whatever the hell I want. If you’re only here for music-related blatherings, I suppose you could skip this one. If you’re here because you like me, or because you find this blog funny or interesting, then by all means come and join me on this magic carpet ride of vaguely informative sarcasm.
Also, it’s come to my attention that I am a little verbose (shock!), and that not everyone wants or has time to read 2000 words of blogdrivel from me on any given day. So I’m telling this story in two parts. Hopefully you’ll be entertained or interested enough to come back for part 2.
Anyway, the other day I was eating an Entenmann’s donut-hole when I was reminded of the handful of years in my youth when I hated Entenmann’s Inc. with a fiery burning passion.
I imagine that sounds a little odd to most people, and requires a bit of explanation.
While some may feel that a seemingly irrational hatred towards specific baked goods counts as a type of food-racism, or perhaps just bakery-bigotry, I assure you I had a very good reason. No, I wasn’t that stereotypical little fat kid who harbors a resentment towards his Ho-Hos and Twinkies for being so damned tempting (but just look at the suggestive way the plastic wrappers lie against the “food” on the inside!). In point of fact, my body type most closely resembled a thin strip of paper until I was about 20 and my metabolism started playing cruel tricks on me.
The reason I hated Entenmann’s so much was that, for a period of about three or four years while I was a kid, the company put filberts in every single product that they sold. I mean that quite literally, by the way. They ground them up and put them in the base flour that they used for all of their baked goods.
A filbert, in case you were wondering, is not a character from a Scott Adams comic strip (c’mon, I know some of you were thinking it). It is, in fact, a very stupid and underused name for a hazelnut. I’m not sure why Entenmann’s Inc. couldn’t have just written “hazelnuts” in their ingredients lists, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to me at the time, and it makes for a better story anyway.
I can’t imagine why Entenmann’s thought this was a good idea. Hazelnuts are a good deal more expensive than flour, and they didn’t put enough in the mix for anyone to be able to taste them – especially after they added all of the chocolate, butter and sugar. No one I spoke to about it (and believe me, I asked around) was able to come up with any reason why they would have done this. I was left with the inescapable conclusion that they had done it purely to make my life more difficult.
This is because, as some of you may have guessed by now (or already knew) I am allergic to nuts. Not just filberts. I have the wonderful luck of being allergic to all nuts. Walnuts, cashews, pecans, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, pine nuts, pistachios, you name it. And peanuts, to which I am just as allergic despite their not actually being nuts (they’re legumes, or beans). I’m also seriously bothered by people who are nuts.
Sorry. I promise I won’t do that again.
Some things people think are nuts, like coconuts or chestnuts, are not actually nuts, and are totally ok for me. Also, for reasons that no medical professional has ever been able to figure out (even allergy specialists), I can eat almonds. Which is extremely weird because they are nuts, and by all rights should kill me deader than a piece of three-day old roadkill.
Because it really is that serious. This isn’t a case of me breaking out in hives or my sinuses getting stuffy while my eyes water. To me, a Snickers bar is as deadly as a handgun. Believe me, it made growing up interesting. The reactions are pretty quick too, so there’s not much room for mistakes. If I accidentally ingest a nut I have somewhere in the range of 10 – 15 minutes to get the appropriate medicine into my body or I’ll die. It’s the sort of thing that makes you very careful about what you eat.
And nuts are in everything. Think for a second about how many different types of food, and even drink (hazelnut coffee, anyone?) have some kind of nut or peanut in them. The biggest offenders by far are desserts. Candy bars, cake, cookies, brownies, and more. So many of them are just chock full o’ nuts. People really love it, I guess. I wouldn’t know.
Of course, little kids (and sometimes adults) aren’t always terribly sensitive to the fact that some people have life-threatening allergies. Remember back in elementary school when it was some little snot-nosed classmate’s birthday? He brought in those cookies his mom made, and shared them with the class. For most kids that was the highlight of the week. But not for me; I never knew whether or not the tasty pastries were actually deadly, deadly poison. I could try asking about ingredients, but how many 8-year-olds know the ingredients of the brownies their mother bakes?
I would only eat a dessert if it had ingredients listed (I still follow that rule). Unless, you know, it was something like Jello or gummy bears. That’s not usually a serious concern (and just for that, they’re going to come out with peanut butter Jello and “Gummi Nuts” …ewwww). But it’s not always so simple. Most people don’t hang on to the packaging while they’re parceling out slices of birthday cake, and by the time you can dig up the box from where it’s buried three layers down in the trash can (if you’re lucky) there won’t be any cake left for you to eat anyway. So, taking a cue from those anti-drug lectures that always seem to be delivered by a perky animated talking dog in an “edutainment” film, I adopted a very strict policy.
Just Say No… to dessert.
In retrospect, it was probably a major contributing factor to why I was so damned skinny.
(Tune in tomorrow for the “exciting” conclusion…)
Wrong Notes 