Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish

by Shana Liebman

  Someone at a Weight Watchers meeting, like the Midwestern lady, always asks this kind of question: “If I eat three to-may-tohs, instead of two to-may-tohs, how do I account for those points? Should I use some of my optional calories, or…” Now, points are confusing. But you and I know that the problem is probably excess Two-Bite Brownies, not excess tomatoes. Very few of us end up at Weight Watchers because we overdid it on veggies.

  One night I went to my weekly meeting in a hotel conference center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was in line, waiting to be weighed in, when I heard a crash. I turned around to find a guy standing there, wearing a ski mask and pointing a gun at me. Another masked man lurched out from behind the desk, clutching a poor Weight Watchers clerk by the neck and holding a gun to her head. For a minute I was confused, thinking this had to be some sort of dramatic new scare tactic. Like: “Weight Watchers—Lose Weight or Die!” Then, horrified, I understood that we were being held up.

  The masked men forced all of us (including the Midwest Tomato Lady and the Fat Guy Who Loses Weight in No Time) to lie down on the floor in the conference room. Part of me longed to do a quick roll, kick one criminal in the balls, grab his gun and somersault over to crack the other guy across the skull. But because I’m not exactly La Femme Nikita, and because I was terrified, I stayed put. I tried to do whatever I could to shelter myself from the reality of the situation and distract myself from the panicked whispers of the other members around me.

  As I was lying facedown on hotel carpeting with my hands clasped behind my head, my heart was beating a mile a minute. Why us? Why threaten a group of nice, moderately fat people who were already humiliated enough by having to show up at Weight Watchers? They probably assumed that we were dumb and slow and weighed down by the Ding Dongs in our pockets. I imagined the cops bursting in, taking the thieves by surprise. The cops would shout, “Put down the fat-free Smart Snacks, you bastards! I will give you to the count of three to put down the Smart Snacks!” The criminals would declare, “We will give up the hostages in exchange for one box of berries ’n’ cream muffins, two Get It Moving exercise tapes and a year’s supply of Smart Ones frozen dinners!” Then the cops would come back with: “Will you accept a case of pineapple beef teriyaki dinners and a complimentary subscription to Weight Watchers magazine instead?” The crooks would confer and say, “Yes, we will!” We’d all jump up and cheer, and someone would make some air-popped popcorn with no salt or butter (three points) and we’d all go to a spinning class at Crunch.

  But that’s not what went down.

  I prayed for safety, figuring it was Shema time, as the crooks came around to strip us of our jewelry and the contents of our purses and wallets. When they finished making their rounds, they told us that if we moved they’d kill us. Then they left. After a couple of silent, scary minutes, the Weight Watchers leader courageously got up and called the police. We all checked in with each other as we shook off the fear. The cops arrived moments later.

  As a cop took my statement, he noticed that he was standing next to a scale. He asked, “And then what happened? Did you hear anything?” Then, thinking I wouldn’t notice, he got on the scale and weighed himself. This cop wasn’t fat or thin. He was just a regular, goyishe thirtysomething white dude with a crew cut and a badge, but that scale was calling out to him. He gave himself a little nod of approval, and stepped back down to continue our conversation. If I didn’t understand before, that cop on the scale proved to me that we live in a society that is ridiculously obsessed with fat. In that moment, how could a cop be more curious about his weight than my safety?

  I left thinking about the headline on the next day’s New York Post: SCARED THIN. I was lucky to be alive. I stopped by the ATM to refill my wallet, and bought a box of Entenmanns’s Chocolate Chip Cookies to celebrate my longevity. Fine, I bought two.

  And determined not to let some petty crooks make me live my life in fear, I returned to my Weight Watchers meeting the following week. A security guard was posted by the door. The police had found the thieves. Turns out they were crackheads and had sold our jewelry for crack. Crack—also a very efficient way to lose weight.

  Aside from the leader, I was the only person who returned. But that was the last time I went to Weight Watchers. The way I see it, being held up at Weight Watchers was pretty much a sign from God that I should be happy with myself the way I am. So every opportunity I get, I take my bagel with a schmear.

  Mustorderitis

  By Michael Showalter

  I HAVE AN AFFLICTION called “mustorderitis.” It’s a common ailment, though largely undiagnosed. Mustorderitis is the obsessive-compulsive need to order certain foods when they appear on the menu, no matter what. This affliction affects both sexes of all ages.

  I know what you’re asking yourself: “Do I have mustorderitis?” Well, if you’re like millions of other men and women then the answer is yes. Most assuredly, yes.

  “What are the symptoms?” Dry mouth, excitability, telling stories about “the way my grandmother does it,” unexplained weight gain, guilt, shame, embarrassment. These are the telltale signs.

  “What causes mustorderitis?” Debates have raged for centuries. Is it a sin against God? Or a disease that attacks even the most pious of our kind? (e.g., Ralph Waldo Emerson was said to have had a desperate yen for jalapeño peppers). Some doctors say it’s hereditary, but studies have shown that it can also be attributed to excessive exposure to fluorescent lighting commonly found in shitty restaurants. Other experts have put forth the Phantom Taste Bud Theory. They propose that mustorderitis is psychosomatic and that the craving is nothing more than the sensory recollection of a previously enjoyed meal.

  Now, there are the lucky ones. Those select few with the sweettoothmustorderitis variation, which applies to tiramisu, milkshakes, pralines and cream and Skittles. These are low-risk items that lead to few or no major consequences. If you have this variation, then you have dodged a bullet. A bullet made of food!

  But for us real unfortunates, the situation is hopeless. There is no known cure for this ailment. Oh sure, there’s a whole slew of ineffective home remedies, like eating bat penises, and those ridiculous homeopathic elixirs like St. John’s Wort. There’s an array of 12-step programs out there: Mustorder-Anon, Children of Adult Mustorderitis Sufferers Anon. The doctor-prescribed medications cause a whole buffet of terrible side effects such as trench foot, malaria, wet brain and the sniffles. It’s like this: If you’ve got mustorderitis, you’re fucked.

  A personal case study: I’m on a country highway. It’s January. I’m hungry. There are no fast-food service areas in sight. I exit into a small town and come to a greasy spoon diner. A vintage Merle Haggard tune crackles softly from the jukebox. Elderly men and women are playing electronic bingo. They all wear trucker hats and Windbreakers. They seem… dead.

  A waitress straight out of central casting hands me a menu. I peruse it but I don’t need to because I know what I want. I want grilled cheese with fries. Why? It’s safe. If I order anything else I’ll have explosive diarrhea for the remainder of my journey. I’m getting the grilled cheese with fries! End of conversation. Only, see…

  This particular diner serves gazpacho. It’s hidden in the bottom corner, handwritten and misspelled “gazpatcho,” but it’s there. I definitely don’t want to order gazpacho, but… I think I’m about to have a mustorderitis flare up. I can feel it. The soup is calling to me in a seductive voice, “Michaaael, oooorder meeee!” Shut up, gazpacho-voice! You don’t own me! But I love you! I can’t say no to you! I can’t! I can’t! I can’t! Ahhhhhhhhh!

  Then, the voice of reason comes in. “Order grilled cheese! You can do it!” This voice is intelligent and stern. It sounds like Laurence Fishburne. “You’re at a burger joint in the middle of West Virginia. They’ve never even heard of Spain here! Just order the grilled cheese and fries, eat it and run like hell! Run like hell and don’t look back! Don’t never look back!”

  “Can I take your o
rder?” The waitress is looking at me like she knows I’m weak. Why is she looking at me like that? I hate her. I hate her because I hate myself.

  “Yes, I’ll have the…”

  “The what?”

  Grilled cheese, Michael! Say it! Goddamn, just say it!

  “The…”

  “Yes?”

  Suddenly the walls inside the restaurant start to spin. I’m drowning. Red lights flashing inside my head. Spinning! Throbbing! Pulsing! Color! Texture! Taste!

  “GAZPACHO!” I blurt out. And I say it with a Spanish accent so that it comes out like “gazpatho.”

  She’s incredulous. I’m panting, out of breath, heaving, confused. What have I done? Before I can even get my wind back the waitress has disappeared into the kitchen. I instantly regret my decision.

  You know how this story ends: me eating a bowl of warm, ketchup-y, pale orange salsa with a grapefruit spoon, crying like a baby into my food.

  So, why did I do it? Because I have a disease.

  That day I vow never to do it again, like so many times before. But two weeks later I’m at a Chinese restaurant in Hoboken. They serve Reuben sandwiches. And fuck, I love a Reuben sandwich!

  Boiling Point

  Allen Salkin

  I WAS ON THE INDONESIAN ISLAND of Flores, famous for its multicolored volcanic lakes, and I came across a bunch of backpackers talking to a restaurant owner about the possibility of him roasting them a dog for dinner. The backpackers were acting like it would be a real adventure. Here they were at the end of the earth, they seemed to be thinking, far from all the social mores that keep their friends and parents chained to desks, far from such wondrous places as Kelimutu, the volcano at the top of Flores. Why not live dangerously, break a taboo?

  The restaurant owner was ready to do pretty much anything to get some money out of these travelers. Even the five dollars a day that backpackers could live on in Indonesia was a lot of money to the people of Flores. His restaurant, located in a village at the base of Kelimutu, sat on the side of a dirt hill. There was a circle of rocks to sit on and an open fire with an iron grate over it and two iron pots on top—one for frying, the other for boiling. A few feet farther up the hill was a smoldering pile of garbage. In the village, a flame was put to whatever garbage was left after the dogs and pigs and chickens were done rooting through the peels and plastic bottles the humans left behind.

  So the restaurant owner was willing, if the travelers wanted to pay $20, to slaughter one of those dogs and have it butchered, cooked and ready for the travelers to eat the next day when they returned from their long hike up to see the turquoise, lapis and ruby-red volcanic lakes on Kelimutu’s crown.

  I had no interest in eating a dog. I was in Indonesia for two weeks, trying to see some of the wonders I hadn’t had time to see when I visited years before. I’d just traveled from California to Guangzhou in China with my father to help him at the trade fair where he buys rubber duckies and rattles by the container load to import for dollar stores in the U.S.

  I hadn’t eaten dog in China, where it is a traditional dish for some people. Those who eat it believe they are ingesting the dog’s life force, which will help keep them warm during cold seasons. I had heard that dog was something Indonesians would eat. Looking around the mountainside town where there was no electricity except the kind from batteries, where the people lived in shacks of corrugated iron and wood and rocks, it wasn’t hard to understand that sometimes they were hungry here. During the seasons when the travelers didn’t come and nothing was being harvested, they would eat whatever they could to avoid starving: leaves, cans of United Nations food-aid tomatoes, dogs.

  “So you can do?” a woman from Holland asked the restaurant owner.

  “Yes, yes. You want sure?” he replied.

  I watched the faces of these travelers, young men and women from places like England, Norway and Germany. A light was growing in their faces. They liked the idea of how crazy, how daring they were about to be.

  I wanted to smother that light. I didn’t know why I felt so strongly about it, but the words just erupted. “Don’t eat a dog here,” I blurted before they could say another word to the restaurant owner. They turned to look at me. I was the only American. I am often the only American. I continued, trying to back up my outburst. “If you want to eat a dog, do it in China where they know what they’re doing. Don’t let these savages kill a poor dog for you. It’s not right and it won’t even be worth it because they won’t cook it well.”

  I could see they didn’t like me calling the Flores natives savages. It was very insensitive. It was something some colonial overlord villain would say in an old movie, as he ordered his slaves to paddle faster. The other travelers looked at me with hatred. I wasn’t one of them at all. I was an American asshole.

  On the way to Flores a couple days before, I had stopped at Komodo Island, a national park where 25-foot-long monster lizards with forked yellow tongues and poisonous fangs live. Before the hike to where the dragons congregated, each backpacker had been asked to pitch in a few rupees to buy a goat. Local guides led us and the little goat, which walked quietly, bleating rarely, on an hourlong walk. Up at the viewing area, the guides hacked open the goat’s throat with a machete. They didn’t look happy about having to do it. As the blood pulsed out of its neck into the sandy dirt and the little creature kicked and spasmed out the last of its life, its eyes slowly unfocusing, they held it down gently with weathered hands and looked away. When the goat was finally still, the guides gathered it in their arms and, after counting “1-2-3” to make sure the travelers were ready with their cameras, hurled the goat over a rail to the pack of Komodo dragons waiting on a dry riverbed below. Fifteen or 20 of the Caucasian-skin-colored beasts swung open their mighty jaws to attack the warm carcass and the goat was ripped in half and eaten—bone, fur, hooves—and all within eight seconds. Completely gone.

  Back at the restaurant on Flores after my outburst, the other travelers kept the subject of the dog alive for a little while, but it soon fizzled. By the next afternoon we’d all been up to the volcano and back. We’d seen what we’d come to that village to see and by the next day we were somewhere else. One dog lived one more day.

  The Eyes of the Beholder

  By Najla Said

  I’M ARAB. I thought I’d just lay that out there before you get confused.

  I don’t look or act like an Arab… well, what I mean to say is that people don’t think I’m an Arab. I guess that’s because I’m not dark and swarthy or whatever people think I’m supposed to be. I am really hairy though.

  My name is Najla. And that’s totally Arab. It’s probably the number-one way you can tell that I am Arab. I hated my name when I was growing up. My parents always tried to tell me it made me special.

  “It may not be Jennifer or Laura or Amy, but your name is beautiful because it has a meaning.”

  “It does? What does it mean?!!”

  “It means ‘big black eyes like a cow’!”

  Apparently, that is a compliment. And it felt that way for a while. But then, when I was older, I met a girl named Maha, who is part Arabian. (Arabian is totally not politically correct to say, but I like it, so I use it.)

  Maha said to me, “Wow… Najla—that’s pretty… I don’t know that name. What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘big black eyes like a cow,’ ” I told her with a huge beaming smile.

  “Oh my God… that’s what my name means!” she said. Not the reaction I was expecting.

  “Wait, what? You must be wrong. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, I swear, Maha means ‘big black eyes like a cow’ too!”

  At this point, I realized that my parents were evil liars. I was not by any means special if there was another name that had the same unique and beautiful meaning as mine. So I went to my mom, all outraged, and was like, “Um, excuse me? Maha says her name means ‘big black eyes like a cow’ too!’ ”

  You could tell she was caught
off guard, because she looked at me like a deer in the headlights. “Wait a minute, Naji,” she said “They are similar. But they are different.”

  “How are they different, Mommy? There is not a lot of room for variety in ‘big black eyes like a cow’!”

  “Wait. Please. Give me a minute. I have to think about it.”

  So while she was thinking about it I went to the computer and found this—wildly popular, I’m sure—website called Arabic Names for Your Baby or something. And I looked up “Najla” and I looked up “Maha,” and sure enough, they mean the same thing. But what is weirder is that there are also about 20 other names that mean “big black eyes like a… something”—big black eyes like a cow, big black eyes like a donkey, big black eyes like a horse, big black eyes like a monkey…

  So I called my brother, who was being scholarly and studying Arabic at the time, and I asked him what the deal was.

  “Oh yeah, Naj, but they’re not exactly the same. That website is wrong. Maha actually means ‘big black eyes like an ibex’ so it’s not totally the same. Plus, Najla has a second meaning anyway.”

  “Really? What?” I was certain he was going to tell me that Najla’s second meaning is something like “really hot funny girl who everyone wants to make out with.” Or like another Indian name on that website which means “One with full, rounded breasts.” Instead my brother said, “Najla also means ‘gaping wound.’ ”