Thank you, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, or, Maybe I like food just a little bit too much

Last Friday, before I went to work, Abraham and I planned our evening date. Dinner, we decided, would be tortas at Los Panchos Panaderia y Taqueria. For those of you who don't know, I am semi-obsessed with Los Pancho's shredded pork tortas. I have been known to awaken in the middle of the night with these delicious sandwiches on my mind. I think about them when the dogs bite, and the bees sting....when I'm feeling sad. When I was pregnant, I ate at least one a week. Needless to say, I was quite excited about the prospect.

When I returned home from work, Abe was hanging out with my 10-year-old niece, Arielle, with whom he shares a mad passion for Sponge Bob Square Pants. The afternoon passed quickly and, about a half an hour before we were supposed to go, Abraham asked me, "So. Are we eating on our date tonight?" I, incredulous, as I had been planning on this event ALL DAY LONG, thinking with longing about the sweet shredded meat, the burn of the jalapenos, the chewiness of the bread, nevertheless answered with patience: "Yes. Yes we are." "OK," replied Abraham.

And then, NOT TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I went downstairs to inform Abraham that it was time to go.

"Go?" he asked, looking up from the television screen.

"Yes," I said. "On our date."

"Oh," he replied, "I forgot." It was then that I noticed that he was snorfling down mass quantities of chocolate chip cookies and milk.

"Are you still going to be hungry for Los Panchos?" I asked.

"Ummm," he said.

And it was then that I realized that all was ruined. That I would not be sharing tortas with my sweetheart on this, the hallowed night of our date. And I began grieving.

1. Denial.
At first I thought that perhaps tortas would still work out for us after all. Surely no one could be so full as to not want to eat a torta as well. It had just been cookies and milk, right? We could still go to Los Panchos. All was not lost. So I swallowed my rebukes as we drove Arielle and Soren over to the Smith's.

2. Anger.
Then, as we began our drive into Idaho Falls, it came out that Abraham had also eaten two sandwiches and was really, truly, not at all hungry.

"How in the WORLD," I stormed, emphasizing the last word of each phrase, "Could you possibly FORGET, in five MINUTES, no LESS -- right after I TOLD YOU -- that we had PLANS for DINNER?"

"I don't know," said Abe, meekly. "I just did."

"You don't KNOW?" I countered. "You JUST DID?"

"Yeah," he said. Then added, foolishly, "I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of this."

"You don't know WHY I'm making such a big deal out of this? You DON'T KNOW WHY I'M MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF THIS? How could you be so stupid?"

"Don't say that I'm stupid."

"This is all your mother's fault, you know," I continued.

"Leave my mother out of this."

"Well IT IS," I said. "Letting all of you DISRESPECT food, READING while you ate, silently scarfing down mass quantities of bland things like pancakes and pasta, meal after meal after meal. No WONDER you don't understand the significance of a good meal shared with loved ones."**

"I'm sorry that we were poor," snapped Abraham.

"Poverty has nothing to do with this!" I returned. "And really, this has less to do with your upbringing and more to do with the fact that you were just plain DUMB. How could you be so THICK as to FORGET that we were going to have TORTAS tonight?"

3. Bargaining
"Well, fine!" I finally decided. "I'll just enjoy some delicious Torta goodness while you watch!"

"OK," said Abraham.

But then I contemplated this possibility and it felt very bleak. I imagined us sitting in a corner of the restaurant, the only two gringos, waiting for twenty minutes while the cooks at Los Panchos prepared a lone torta. I imagined eating it while upset and Abraham looked on in silence. I simply couldn't desecrate such a sacred food item with anger.

"Never mind," I said, "I don't want a torta after all."

4. Depression
Instead, I decided to eat a sandwich at Subway. We pulled into the parking lot and Abe, ever kind and patient, asked, "Do you want to go in?"

"No," I told him snottily, "I want to eat it while I'm driving so it's like I'm not even eating anything at all."

Abe sighed. I pulled into the drive through and ordered.

"I'd like a sweet onion teriyaki meal," I told the girl.

"OK," she said, "That'll be $4.15 at the window."

$4.15 was certainly more than the $2.50 torta I had planned on having, but I figured the tall accompanying pink lemonade and bag of baked lays that accompanied my sandwich would somewhat make up for the price difference.

But at the window, I forked over my money and the girl handed me a sandwich, and the window was quickly closed behind it. I waited for a minute. But the "meal" portion of my order never appeared. No lemonade. No baked lays. The girls inside bustled around, ignoring me and my lemonade-less plight outside the window. I thought about pounding on the window and demanding my rights, but I was worried there might be hair pulling and spitting involved, so I finally gave up, drove into a parking spot, put my head on the steering wheel, and silently mourned. Abraham sat nearby, also in silence, though he told me later he was seriously contemplating getting out of the car and running away.

5. Acceptance
After several minutes of silence, I finally forced myself to take a bite out of the sandwich. Then another. Then another. I pulled back onto the highway and we made our way silently down 17th street while I consumed the sandwich in a very black state of mind.

But my blood sugar levels finally climbed back to a normal place, and I started feeling happy enough to sing along with the radio. We arrived at Wal-Mart and began shopping for a new hair cutting kit for Abraham, where I began to feel somewhat sheepish about all that had transpired. Standing in an aisle in Wal-Mart, I told Abe: "I'm sorry. And I didn't mean what I said about your mother."

It took him a minute. A long minute, while he stared long and hard at a hair-blower display.

Then he hugged me.

As we walked off toward the shoe department, I told him, "OK. It's time for you to say sorry too."

He sighed.

**It should be noted here that I (1) Frequently read while eating and (2) Enjoy mass quantities of plain foods, such as pancakes, pasta, etc. Also, I love my mother-in-law.

It's all been said before. But still.

"Imagine...wearing your swimsuit...without the embarrassment of varicose veins..."

"Find out my secrets for looking younger."

"Eliminate unsightly cellulite in JUST 3 DAYS!"

"The Way You Eat Now Is Destroying Your Efforts To Keep Your Body fat In the 'Jaw Dropping' Swimsuit Range!"

The above are actual advertising slogans I've had the misfortune of encountering while innocently going about my own business throughout the past several days. And you all will attest that you've seen similar ones nearly every single day of your lives, that you've read them since you knew how to read, and that you've internalized them, despite your best efforts to resist. They're posted on billboards, they're printed in newspapers, they're flashed across television screens. They're usually accompanied by "before" and "after" pictures that leave you feeling bleak, as your own body almost inevitably more closely resembles "before" than it does "after." And while you may not be persuaded to buy the advertisement's product, you almost certainly have been persuaded to believe in the advertisement's underlying message: "There is something terribly, terribly shameful about the way your body looks."

What has caused Americans to become so afraid of their own bodies? Afraid of things that are NORMAL and NOT AT ALL SHAMEFUL? We pride ourselves on skepticism but often fail to think critically about our more subtly ingrained beliefs. It's easy to say, "I'm not sure I believe in God," because people everywhere are saying, quite explicitly, "You need to believe in God." But, because advertisers very cleverly make implicit the beliefs they peddle, we forget to say, "I'm not sure I believe that the cellulite on my legs is hideous and embarrassing." We just think, "Oh my gosh. I've got cellulite. It's hideous. Where can I find some shorts to wear with my swimsuit?"

(Abe poses in 2005 for some classic "Before" and "After" photos.)

So I've got some stretch marks. Is it shameful to have grown? Is it shameful to have borne a baby?

And yes, I've got some body fat that undulates in a lovely rolling fashion across my belly. And do you know what that means? It means I like to eat. Is there anything wrong with that? No. It's actually a really good survival mechanism. You don't eat, you don't live. You stock up, you survive the next famine.

Wrinkles are a result of smiling, of worrying, of spending time in the sun, of laughing, of living a few years and figuring out a couple things. Nothing shameful there.

And one certainly shouldn't be embarrassed of having committed the sin of having a circulatory system that makes one prone to varicose veins.

If your varicose veins are hurting, get 'em fixed. If you can't walk up a flight of stairs without losing your breath, consider dropping some pounds. But don't HATE YOURSELF. Don't writhe in agony every time one of your marks of life makes a public appearance. Don't be embarrassed of having used your face to express yourself over a period of years.

Imagine...wearing your swimsuit with fat rolls, cellulite, stretch marks, and varicose veins protruding every which way...and not even giving it a thought. Imagine feeling ashamed of things actually worth feeling shame over: cruelty, snottiness, pride, gossip, self-centeredness, selfishness, ignorance.

I wish there was some way to reprogram the public consciousness, to tear our focus away from the shallow and plunk it firmly onto the meaningful. But that's an awful lot of reprogramming. And truth be told, even though I KNOW it's wrong, I'm still going to feel somewhat embarrassed when I put on my swimming suit this year. I've purchased one that will cover as much skin as possible (selected not so much out of a sense of modesty as out of a fear of ridicule) but even with a lot of coverage, I'll remain keenly aware of my white, white skin and my untoned thighs, though I'll try as hard as I can to pretend that I'm not.

(Soren lounges boldly in nothing but a diaper.)