Now, to help you understand some of my future posts, and the mental battle of wills that would almost always take place between me and my daughters, I decided to give you a completely unedited look at my psyche. A look that I may come to regret later, btw….
If I was to describe myself, i would say that I am a Type A/Z personality. (You like that? Cool, ’cause I just made it up.) My definition of a type A/Z person is one that only has two speeds and doesn’t recognize that there even IS a middle ground. That’s pretty much me in a nutshell. I’m either 0% in or 110 % in. Don’t laugh, because I bet that there are people in your life that would describe you the same way if you asked them. I’d even say that it was safe money to bet that when it comes to their family, most Dads are like that too. Here is one pretty funny example of how this personality type has gotten me into a bit of , how can I say it; uncomfortable situations. As always, this is just between us friends and all true and from the heart.
A few years ago, my doctor diagnosed me with high cholesterol. I KNEW it was bad, when he opened the test results…and started reading down the list of stuff like this…..”Item A…good… Okay, item B is good….okay…within limits…..whoooaaaa…” Anyway…as he spoke, his words began to fade into a series of ,”Wonk…wonk wonk wonk”,sounds that were accompanied by visions of Krispety Kremity dougnut goodness dancing away, hand in hand with my 30s, off into the night. Yep, the first thing I thought of when he was talking about my cholesterol, and the potential of heart attack and stroke and drooling on myself in the corner was Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It makes ya wonder, exactly what do they PUT in them things, CRACK?!?!?!?
I kind of came back to my senses when he mentioned SOMETHING to the effect of lowering my cholesterol thru exercise and a diet that is high in fiber and low in fat. Well, seeing as how I’m a fan of deep fried, SALTED, pig skin with FAT attached (We call it Fat Back in the south.) , collard greens seasoned with boiling salted pork, and anything of a fried nature, I figured that the low fat route would definitely NOT be the one that I would be inclined to take. So, I focused on the fiber angle. It seemed easy enough…lots of fiber would equal lower cholesterol. Okay. Check…I got it. With THAT, a light bulb went off in my head. I had seen some commercials about some kind of fiber stuff that you could buy at the grocery store and mix into water to drink and it would supposedly (and magically, apparently) help to reduce cholesterol. So there it was….my solution; right there in the medicine aisle of Kroger’s. I copped a bottle.
Now, under NORMAL circumstances, meaning circumstance involving an individual that was NOT a Type A/Z, this would be a non interest type of event. You know, nothing worth mentioning. But remember when I defined a Type A/Z as either 0% or 110% in? Well, that kind of clouds the issues a bit. The directions on packages can clearly say, “Mix in one teaspoon of powder with one full glass of water.”. However, somewhere between the packaging and my mind, that text becomes: ” Take three times the recommended dosage per glass to achieve three times the result at three times the speed.” If you’re drawing a mental picture of me standing in the middle of the Kroger’s aisle, staring up into the air as I ran the numbers, you have a pretty good image of how it really did look that day. By the end of my thought process, the math seemed simple enough; if one teaspoon per eight ounce glass is good, then 3 HEAPING tablespoons per eight ounce glass must be REALLY good. That makes perfect sense………right?
So, I’m not sure if that amount of fiber ALONE would have done much damage, but being that I am a chronic “over doer” , I simply could not leave well enough alone. I was doing things like eating Cheerios for breakfast (’cause I heard that they were higher in fiber than my beloved Cap’n Crunch), downing a couple of Fiber One bars for snacks, scarfing down a salad for lunch, munching on a couple of plums in the late afternoon and washing most of them down with my “Super Water” concoction of about eight ounces of water and 3 TIMES the manufacturer’s (and probably most physicians’ recommended dosage) of Metamucil.
Now, i don’t know if you know what those levels of fiber can do to a man in a sudden burst like that, but let me be the first to tell you, it’s far from being pretty. It started out with a slight rumbling in my stomach that quickly turned to something that I bet would sound like a college drumline in the midst of a turf war against a marauding band of jackhammer wielding hooligans with my insides as the prize. It sounded like my stomach was arguing with itself!! Seriously, I can’t even come up with enough colorful adjectives to describe the sounds generated by my digestive tract as it tried to deal with the sudden influx of fiber. And you want to know about PAIN?!?!? Yo have NO IDEA of the pain that stuff caused. Dude, I was CRAMPING like a CHAMP!!!!! It felt like I was going to give birth to a full grown WILDEBEEST; horns n all!
That wasn’t the worst part, though. It was the after effects. Now, how can I put this mildly? Okay, let’s try this: Ingesting that much fiber makes an individual GASEOUS! That’s about as mild as I can put it. Man, I swear, some mornings I’d get up and my blankets would be floating….Wait for it…wait for it. (Admit it…once you got it, that was funny, right?
Okay, I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for a lifetime by telling this story……………………………………………………but I’m pretty sure that I’ll be telling more.
See ya next time.
Daddy's Doing Hair?!?!? 