Letters to the Food I Eat
Or, Missed Confections
Or, Missed Confections
In an attempt to revive the lost art of correspondence I submit the following letters I have written to various food items that have throughout the years proved to be an important part of shaping who I am. At times literally, natch.
Dear English Muffins,
Just had my first crumpet.
Fuck you.
Sincerely,
Tony McMillen
Dear Pasta Salad,
You’re exactly like regular salad but without all that green shit getting in my way.
Thank you, Pasta Salad.
Sincerely,
Tony McMillen
Dear Pizza,
You are the ugly, drunk person at the bar who I should not go home with but will because I’m lonely and frankly, it’s been too long. I will enjoy you while you’re inside me and will probably enjoy you accompanied with far too many beers. But then after I’m done with you, pizza shame will set in, and I will look at the cheese encrusted empty cardboard box you came in and hate myself. Yes, this also applies to doomed one night stands. I will get rid of your number, because God knows you’re desperate enough to make deliveries, and I will swear this is the last time. But sure enough, I’ll get lonely again, I’ll want something to make me feel good that I can just throw away once I’m done with it, and I’ll reach for the phone.
It’s no coincidence that there isn’t a “Me-Lovers” pizza. Because no one who eats pizza is loving their self.
XOXO, Tony McMillen
Dear Pink Lady Apples,
You make other apples taste like House Party 2.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tony McMillen
Dear McDonald’s Food, especially McNuggets and McDonald’s Sausage and Egg McMuffin,
Eating you, McDonalds, every three years or so is like relapsing back into being a werewolf after thinking you’ve learned how to control the beast within. To explain:
I no longer eat you, McDonalds. But about every three years or so an opportunity presents itself and a craving comes upon me. And I am too weak to resist. Sure enough, you taste good; even though I know I’m eating the worst non-food in existence, you taste good. But immediately upon finishing you I can feel my body beginning to change and contort. I can feel something misshapen and evil bubbling up from inside me. Threatening to shred my skin apart as it takes over. Even worse is the certainty that I’m now a danger to anyone who’s around me, no one is safe from the horror that I’m about to become.
Eating McDonalds when you don’t usually eat McDonalds transforms you into an unrelenting poop machine gun. Seriously, you forget, not being a regular McDonalds customer, how much of a tolerance your body has to develop in order to process this cheap, artificially flavored sludge. Your body’s natural reaction to be inundated with this toxic mess is to just expunge as soon as possible.
So like most werewolves, after your rampage, you wake up naked in a field somewhere, possibly covered in someone else’s blood, possibly something worse, and most definitely, admonishing yourself for giving in to your destructive tendencies, again.
And if you don’t actually transform into a bowel-voiding super beast you will at the very least be struck with terrible McFarts. Flatulence resulting from McDonald’s is the worst.
You will rip the most violent and juiciest fart possible if you come down with a case of the McFarts. And I do mean rip. Like there’s blood down there. Like you’re afraid if you give it a gander down there it’ll look like a Glasgow smile.
I’m lovin’ it.
Sincerely,
Tony McMillen
Dear Chocolate Milk,
You are my brown concubine.
I make you with Hershey’s Syrup and 2% reduced fat milk. I know that Hershey’s Syrup is made with High Fructose Corn Syrup, and I know that this makes it evil and it is the reason why we have such a problem with obesity in this country as well as the reason that World War II happened, the Kennedy assassinations, the Star Wars prequels, the Jane’s Addiction “reunion” albums, and why they canceled Firefly and why they made the Carrie Diaries.
But chocolate milk made with Hershey’s Syrup is like sucking from the udder of angel. Angels might not have genitals, but they do have nipples; I checked.
Chocolate Milk, I have tried throughout the years to quit you. Most of these attempts, whether straight up cold turkey or gentle weaning process, have led to nightmarish Trainspottingesque episodes where I’m left a gibbering maniac watching helplessly as a Hershey Kiss crawls toward me on the ceiling before doing a Linda Blair and rotating its head at me. And yes, it has a head, this is my hallucination.
One time I saw the Nesquick Bunny beaten to death by chocolate cops (now there’s a sexy combination of words) who were bringing down truncheons made of large Hershey Bars on his poor long-eared head.
Chocolate Milk, I have learned the hard way, time and time again, that you own my ass. And that I’m never getting out. Besides, you lead me to guilt-jog, which in turn leads me to drinking you after said guilt-jog because I’ve read that you’re a terrific after run snack. I choose to believe this, for some reason.
I love you Chocolate Milk.
Yours, forever yours,
Tony McMillen
