I Bought a MoonPie

Last night I was thinking about the way I eat. Like most other health-conscious people, I stupidly try to eat healthy food. But last evening, logic took hold of my brain and I began to look at my eating habits in a more cosmic way. What the heck am I doing to myself eating salads with “light” dressing, hardly any meat – I really love a good hamburger seared to just-beyond-rare on the grill with a big slice of onion and lots of ketchup – a lot of vegetables, including the kind that make most people retch, skim milk, light beer, red wine – you know the healthy crap.

When logic took hold and I looked at my eating habits from a more esoteric perspective, I had an epiphany. Don’t look at me like that, I said “epiphany”. When I was a teenager, I ate anything and everything, whenever I wanted; I ate as much as I wanted. My heart still kept on beating and I was whippet thin. I could have been a model had I a better face. I often pictured myself bare-chested, adorning the cover of “Seventeen” magazine and having hot, young girls drooling and giggling over provocatively slim, young body. But I’ll make a long story short: I was never on the cover of “Seventeen” or any other magazine – and as far as I know, very few young girls ever drooled over my body – no matter which phase it was in – slim, average, pudgy, chunky, or curvy. Yes, I admit it, my body has gone through all those stages. And no young girl even knows I exist. I can walk right by them and as invisible as the wind to them. Oh! The ravages of age.

Right now I’m back to pudgy-average. But I think that’s about to change.

It occurred to me last night that most people are nuts: eating organic foods, starving themselves, trying to look good so they can gain the attention of the opposite sex. Really. That’s what it is but hardly anyone is honest enough to admit it. Most people like to think of themselves as anything but shallow, so they say they eat right because it makes them feel better or because they’ll live a longer fuller life. What a bunch of garbage! They want to eat right so they’ll look good and have some chance at being ogled by the opposite sex. My days of being ogled are over – if I was ever ogled at all. I can peel back the layers of the onion better than most. People are shallow little creatures when you come right down to it. Yes! I’m a cynic and I admit it.

Seriously, whether you drop dead at 50 or succumb to the wiles of death while sucking down some pureed food in a smelly nursing home at 99, what’s the big deal? Once you’re dead you won’t care. Seriously – do you think someone who is still living at age 99 is thinking, “Ha ha! I’ve lived to be 99 and all my friends, who didn’t eat right, are all riding in stone boats on The River Styx.” They aren’t thinking that. They’re thinking, “My diaper is wet and that hot young nurse is over there texting some bozo on her iPhone.” Or, more likely, they’re busy having crusty, dried, pureed peaches removed from their faces by an obese, greasy-haired nurse slapping their face with a used Baby Wipe. Or maybe having their nose and ear hairs trimmed. Whatever.

Who cares? Whether your dead at 50 or 99, you’re dead and you’re aren’t going to be lying there, barefoot, in your $7500 coffin thinking, “Damn, I had to many things I wanted to do…there was this sexy chick in Uhrichsville….” No. You’re not going to be thinking that – you’re not going to be thinking anything.

Oh? You believe in Heaven? That’s fine. If you’re 99 or 50 and you’re in Heaven, you are looking down and laughing because we still have to deal with diarrhea, credit card bills, body odor, and cutting our toenails. While we’re all worked up over pedestrian and carnal things, you’re up there wafting around with all those luscious, lascivious virgins (or pool boys depending on your preferences) and you can have anything you want, whenever you want, as often as you want – and you’ll never have to stop to go to the bathroom or clean up. So what the hell? You’re in Heaven and I’m not.

All this cosmic logic and philosophical cogitation convinced me to go to the store and buy a MoonPie. I lied. I bought two MoonPies. Actually I bought six MoonPies because they were 6 for $2.00. I didn’t eat all six; I ate two. They were 320 calories each – not including the ice-cold milk I drank to wash them down.

It was skim milk.