Time Wounds All Heels

My dad doesn’t mind eating the heels of bread that sandwich the rest of the loaf in the bag, unlike some purists who look down their noses with disdain at these tougher, rougher slices, which could also describe my ol’ man. “Like father, like son,” I, too, will eat the butt ends, but how we build our brown bag or bucket differs greatly, beyond that.

Even heels need a hug

Don’t discard the heels. They’re just as worthy. The same can be said about bread. Heels need love, too.

Dad likes all beef bologna sliced thick, American cheddar cheese and mayonnaise on whole wheat. Throw two of these and four Li’l Debbie oatmeal cakes into his bucket, plus add a gallon jug of sweetened tea and you’ll have the daily special from the Appalachian Café. It rarely will vary, unless he runs out of baloney and uses Spam or something similar. Blech!

Saying my dad is full of baloney will either get you a smile or a good ass-whuppin’ depending upon his mood. If he likes you, then he might even toss you a few oatmeal cakes. At 70, he’s still strong enough to make you beg for mercy, if he should get ahold of you. Must be something healthy in all that bologna.

I would much rather munch the butt of any week-old roadkill than eat processed meat from a can. I’ve had more than my fair share of the stuff and should I need it for survival I’ll clothespin my nose and wolf it down. My baloney’s first name is Nofrigginway, which is Native American – Chumash, I think – and means “watch me barf.”

Give me deli-sliced oven roast turkey or lean roast beef with mozzarella cheese and hold the mayo, please. I’ll take dijon or honey mustard, instead. Whole wheat is great and whole grain is better, however, I won’t eat the first heel until I’m ready to eat the last, unlike my father. He’ll just start at the front and work his way back, probably because he doesn’t want to be bothered with that annoying heel flip to access every slice of “good” bread, thereafter.

With store bought bagged bread, that first heel helps keep the interior loaf fresh, I say, so I leave it and deal with it. Even heels have their place. Then, when I reach the end of the loaf, I slap those two heels against my sandwich du jour and tough it out. No waste, no want and no whining. It’s bread and I’m grateful. Keep the Spam, though. I’m not starving, yet.

Running late for work one day – okay, most days – I didn’t have time to make my sandwich, so I stopped at the corner market and approached their back deli counter warily. Any establishment whose top three sale items are cigarettes, beer and lottery tickets is probably not the healthiest place to buy lunch, but I was late and this was my oasis.

Perusing their meager menu and finding little that appealed to me, I settled for a tuna fish sandwich on whole wheat with lettuce and tomato. My chest began to pound as I watched the girl prepare it; not because she was the woman of my dreams, but the way she scooped the mayonnaise out of that 55-gallon tub next to the food prep table made my heart start sweating.

Accepting the dripping “Death on a Bun” with my best fake smile, I paid and made a mental note: Don’t ingest your life-allowance of bad cholesterol in one meal. Tiny tidbits of tuna attempted to swim in a sea of mayonnaise across my tongue, but were smothered mercilessly. I felt my carotid artery collapsing. After two ugly bites, I pitched it in the trash on the way back to the studio. A dog may have eaten it, but I wouldn’t hand that sandwich to a homeless fellow. He has enough problems, anyway, plus they’d arrest me for trying to poison city vagrants.

I got over it. Losing six bucks and wasting six minutes of my life, I consider that a bargain, if I’m still alive. You can’t hang on to upset or anger. That shit will kill you as quickly as a bad sandwich. Just make a mental note not to buy lunch from some people – or have lunch with some people. You can’t break bread with someone unless they take your heart’s health to heart. Besides, I don’t think the girl behind the counter was intentionally trying to kill me. Hmmm.

It would be nice if life could be so neatly packaged within a four-word aphorism like “Time heals all wounds.” Such blanket generalizations are popular, but rarely accurate. All things are relative. That’s my General Relativity Theory. I’d also like to think that “What goes around, comes around,” but I see people seemingly getting away with murder, everyday. No, not literally, as I’ve yet to witness a murder and hope I never do, though that dripping mayo sandwich came close to being my own.

I have seen people wither away from verbal self-flagellation, however, and it isn’t a pretty sight. We are the perfect perpetrators in this wondrous world of illusive mystery that has us playing the parts of victim, judge, jury and executioner. Always quick to point fingers at the funny shadows on the wall, we focus so intently upon these moving pictures that we fail to notice our own hands raised between the flames and the blank cosmic stage as our puppetry dances, magically, before us.

Before “us,” what was there? After us, what will be? My mental masturbation mesmerizes me, at least. For you, I cannot say, but will gladly put words in your mouth – hold the mayo – and thoughts in your head, if you choose to remain silent. And who are you? Why are you here? Would you like a sandwich? Please, put that butter knife down and back away from the blog.

I’d like to believe that “Time wounds all heels.” In some karmic or comic fashion, I cling to the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth maxim of cosmic justice. In due course, you’ll get yours, if there truly is a wise god watching all the antics of mice and men. In case no such supreme being exists, I’m more than willing to wait tables in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and serve some people their just desserts.

Who ordered the cake?” shouts Marie Marionette, whose icy compassion comes with strings attached.

Behind order there is chaos and behind K.A.O.S. there is Control and the bumbling Agent 86. The cosmos is a wacky place. The answer is 42. I find the random event generator to be in perpetual overdrive, until Heaven’s hamster gets a hiatal hernia and the wheel stops spinning, momentarily, as Heaven’s Gate opens to admit 39 bozos.

And from the Land of Homily where the Great Puff resides, The Kat offers these observations: