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Unimportant Matters
A team of creatives writing about the things in life that matter least.

How to Simultaneously Skyrocket in Social Standing and Destroy Your Body

By Suzanne Smith

Davidson: For breakfast I drank three dew drops from a clematis and topped it off with a fresh cutting of wild oat.

Hamilton: Well that sounds a little too high carbohydrate for me. Besides, everybody knows that wild oats tend to germinate in your stomach when in close proximity to dew. And that can be hazardous to your hormone production. I had one third of a lemon grown holistically in the manure of migrating monarch butterflies off the coast of Guatemala, squeezed by my own palm into a crystal vessel containing unadulterated water from a spring in a tiny, secluded grove of trees on one of the lesser known of the Sandwich Islands.

Radcliffe: You are both so unrefined and utterly primeval in the manner in which you abuse your bodies. Are you trying to destroy your (insert scientific word here which sounds anatomical but that neither he nor you can pronounce or define)? I actually care about my body, so for breakfast I just dabbed some extra virgin Berber thuya oil on my brow, and I’ll be energized all through lunch… of tomorrow.

Then they all turned to you…

You: I, uh… Well, I… I ate an overflowing bowl of some sweet and crunchy, chocolaty and peanut buttery Reese’s Puffs cereal and then sipped every last drop of that yummy sugary milk that’s left over once you’ve slurped up all your cereal through the built-in straw in my bowl. You know what I mean. Then I ate a donut leftover from last night… dipped in Dr. Pepper, which is SO GOOD!

There, you had contributed some really great fodder to the conversation and those stares of amazement they were giving you were sure to make you the most popular guy on the block.

Then those amazed stares colluded into one giant, scornful up-down look, and suddenly you were given the oppressive, cold shoulder of disassociation. It was at that moment that you started to feel things you never felt before: unconfident, fat, ugly, and pathetic.

Unfortunately, this is the scene at many a mid-morning backgammon game these days. Social standing used to be based on land ownership, slaves, wealth, and posture. Now, since nobody owns any land of significant size (at least 2000 acres), nor should they even joke about owning slaves, wealth is negated by the ability to borrow dollars shamelessly, and we all have terrible watch-football-on-the -couch posture, the ONLY thing that defines your rank in society is how ridiculous your diet is.

So here are the DONT’s and DO’s of destroying your body and increasing your social standing:

  1. If it provides your body with the needed energy to exercise or just exist, and yet is not a mix-in powder, DO NOT EAT IT.
  2. If it has color, taste, beauty, or texture, DO NOT EAT IT.
  3. If you have ever heard of anyone else eating it, DO NOT EAT IT.
  4. If it leaves you satisfied in any way, DO NOT EAT IT.
  5. If it is not, or is not derived from, an exotic, semi-extinct, unwashed, bitter shrub, DO NOT EAT IT.
  6. If you could find it at your local garden nursery to plant in your own back yard, DO NOT EAT IT.
  7. If at any time some human, animal, microbe, or planet earth herself was offended or hurt in the production of said food, DO NOT EAT IT.
  8. If conventional wisdom or regional traditions tell you to eat it, DO NOT EAT IT.
  9. If it makes you gag when you swallow, DO EAT IT.
  10. If you are getting light headed from lack of real substance, DO EAT IT.
  11. If others have no idea why you would put that in your body, DO EAT IT.
  12. If your innate animal instincts are screaming, DO EAT IT.
  13. If you have to go to a happy place to get it down, DO EAT IT.
  14. If you have no idea what it is but you’ve been told that is has no GMOs, gluten, dairy, soy, peanuts, humans, non-organic ingredients, or shellfish, DO EAT IT.
  15. If it makes others look at you in horror, awe, and respect, DO EAT IT.
  16. If it is simultaneously killing your liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach and intestines, DO EAT IT.
  17. If you have a sneaking suspicion that you just paid $28.00 for something that cost $0.08 to produce, DO EAT IT.
  18. And finally, if your personal relationships are suffering, your body odor is overwhelming, your organs are denaturing, your soul is stifling, and your social standing is skyrocketing, DO EAT IT.