I LOVE LUNCHABLES. There. I said it. I always have and always will. Especially the pizza lunchables. It’s the perfect amount of food to fill me up, and they’re ultra-convenient and cheap! You can’t get a lunch that includes food, a drink and dessert, anywhere in the city! And let’s talk about that dessert. There’s always a bite-sized airhead or butterfinger in there to satisfy my sweet tooth, which I barely have in the first place anyway, and sometimes I save it for later just to stop myself from making a quick trip to the vending machine mid-day.
I came home from the grocery store a few days ago with a pepperoni pizza lunchable, and I professed my excitement to eat it for lunch the next day, when Dan said, “You realize why you love lunchables, don’t you?” And I told him all the same stuff I just told you above to which he replied, “No. It’s because of your OCD.”
My OCD, you ask?
Well…I sort of have this thing with food. I don’t know how to describe it. But let’s put it this way, if I’m eating dinner and I have broccoli, chicken, and mashed potatoes on the plate, I’ll eat my whole dinner in a way so that the last bite has the perfect amount of each. I call it “The perfect bite.” When I’m able to accomplish this, I get really happy. When I fail and my bites are off, leaving with me one broccoli, a piece of chicken and no mashed potatoes, I don’t even want to finish my meal (which is usually okay since by that point I’ve eaten most of it anyway). It’s the ONLY thing I’m OCD about.
OCD runs in my family, meaning most of the women are paranoid about Comcast workers stealing stuff or they’re clean freaks, but I am not (which you would know if you ever saw my apartment). My only OCD, I SWEAR, is with food. It’s weird, but it’s harmless and it doesn’t affect anyone else but me, so I haven’t tried to do anything about it and I probably won’t anytime soon.
So back to Dan trying to diagnose me. He continues to point out that lunchables are perfectly measured; one piece of turkey, one piece of cheese, and one cracker per bite. Or 3 pieces of pepperoni per mini-pizza, of which you can take three bites and get one piece of pepperoni in each bite. It makes sense, but I never notice that when I’m eating my lunchables, or I didn’t until yesterday.
I’m chewing along merrily, thoroughly enjoying my pepperoni pizza lunchable and watching a video of a deaf baby hearing for the first time. I’m two pizzas in, and about to make my third pizza, when I realize there are four pepperonis left. FOUR. They gave me an extra. Now, anyone in their right mind would be ecstatic! Extra pepperoni! Woooo! Not me. I panicked not knowing what to do. Do I eat the pizza with four pepperonis on it, forgoing my one pepperoni per bite that I love so much? Or do I just eat the extra pepperoni, or throw it away and pretend like it never happened?
I chose the latter. I ate the extra pepperoni, pretended it never existed, and made my last mini pizza the way I was planning to in the first place. With three pepperonis; one per perfect bite.
10 comments:
Okay, around the time I got to the point where you wrote that Dan had said that lunchables were "perfectly measured" I shouted (in my head of course - at work, and all...) "OH NO THEY ARE NOT!!!" and new precisely where this post was going. I, too, have mild food OCD. As in my food MAY NOT TOUCH EACH OTHER until I am ready to combine flavors using my fork (or, lets be honest, my hands). I also love perfectly even portions, ESPECIALLY when it comes to cheese and crackers a-la lunchables. But there always seems to be TOO MUCH CHEESE. I mean, how hard is it for the lunchable factory to count 6 crackers, 6 pieces of ham, 6 slices of cheddar??? (Although, I'd never pass up an extra peperoni... but you can see that I understand where you're coming from.)
Never change, Leah. I think I may have the opposite of OCD when it comes to food, whereas I just pound it down with reckless abandon.
Don't worry I do this too! I always try to save the "best for last" and have the perfect combination of all the foods in the last bite.
The boy (and boys in general I think) eats all the best bits first and then plows through the rest. In my mind that's the worst because when you're finished you're left with the taste/memory of your least favourite bits of the meal not the best!
Oh Leah, I adore you for this because I'm very similar. When I have eggs benedict I cut and eat it with the intention of getting that perfect bite but on my regular dinner plate I don't like anything to touch. I am a freak.
I'm your OCD eating opposite! I always get shit about this too. It used to be that I would eat my entire meal before drinking any beverage, but that is the only thing I have changed.
Otherwise, I will eat my food in order according to heat capacity. So whatever will stay hottest longest gets eaten last. I do not mix the broccoli with the potatoes. I eat all of the broccoli, then the potatoes, etc.
Sometimes, like at a restaurant, they give me more than I want to finish, so I eat a portion of say broccoli, then move onto the meat, and last I'll finish with the sweet potato. I will not go back and finish the broccoli. Fact.
I have my own little food tick that deals with color pairs. When I eat things like skittles or M&Ms, I like to pair them up and eat two of the same color at the same time. When I'm left with 2 and they aren't the same color, I get grumpy and it usually ruins my day.
ok that is a bit weird, lol.
i dont do anything weird with my food. although my bf's food is not allowed to touch each other, or the border of the plate. so if i'm cooking dinner, i leave it up to him to dish up his own food, otherwise i'll just get it wrong. because i dont care.
i eat my food - and leave the favourite thing on my plate for last.
This is hilarious. I only have a couple OCD things too: one of them is time left on the microwave. I CAN'T STAND IT!!! GET THOSE 17 SECONDS OFF THERE NOWWWWWWWWWWW
I think we need to appreciate this OCD you have, and maybe even encourage it, because it is possible you are the only person who will have ever gotten me to read an entire blog post about a pepperoni and to seriously react with genuine concern about that extra one.
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