The VigilanceVoice

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  Friday... February 8, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 150

The Terror Of Stealing Food
From A Pregnant Woman
 And Her Nine Eleven Child
by
Cliff McKenzie
Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News 

      GROUND ZERO, New York City--Nothing is more terrifying than standing hungry in front of a pregnant woman's refrigerator.
      Last night I experienced the effects of "low-level Visceral Terrorism."
      It struck me unexpectedly as I opened the door to my daughter's refrigerator to sate the growling in my tummy.  Only when I started to reach for the food did I remember my daughter was pregnant, and whatever I took would subtract from her intake for herself and her developing child.
     I've been on a diet, and decided to break it for the night.   I was helping the grandkids swath layers of frosting and sprinkles on cookies that their grandmother, my wife, had made earlier.   I take the Thursday night babysitting shift every two weeks, and it was my evening with the kids.  I really didn't want to eat cookies and frosting.  I wanted to "raid" the refrigerator--conduct a thorough "search and destroy mission" that only those who break their diet know and understand.  I didn't count on the guilt and remorse of being alone with a pregnant woman's refrigerator.
     "They" say that Terrorism strikes in nefarious ways, when least expected.  It got me that way last night.  It reached up out of the bowels of Hell and clutched my gut as I opened the refrigerator to browse and then select a sumptuous taste of this or that, whatever caught my hungry eye.
     Olives were the first booby trap.  
     I spied a container of them, an assorted variety of blacks and greens soaking in oil.  They looked delicious.
     As I started to reach unconsciously for them, the hand of Vigilance slapped its palm on my shoulder and startled me into thinking.
     What if these olives were her special elixir, an epicurean delight she consumed in the middle of the night when her stomach (and perhaps her new child) growled for something special?  
     What if she counted them, and had each olive's location mapped in her mind?  If I ate one, I might shatter the preset expectations she had of eating every single olive and send her into a fit of anger and rage?  I knew I didn't know much about women, and even less about the emotional chemistry of pregnant women.
     As I wrestled with the dilemma of eating an olive, I thought about the selfish father eating in front of starving children.  Then the devilish thoughts began to replace the guilty ones.   I thought about taking just one olive, and, to cover my tracks, shaking the canister so its absence couldn't be noticed.  
     But what if she had counted them?   I tossed aside the thought of "stealing" one.
     Terrorism is like a burr.  It sinks into your skin and then worms its way deeper and deeper, burrowing toward the marrow of your being.     I forced my eyes away from the olive container and began to search about for something else--perhaps some cheese, or peanut butter.
     Everything in the refrigerator began to speak to me.
     "So, Pal, you're gonna eat your daughter's food.   You're gonna reduce the volume of her intake, huh?   What if what you eat she wants?   What if that peanut butter you consume deprives her and her baby?  Huh?  How you gonna feel then, Pop?   Stealing food from your daughter and future grandchild's mouth?  Hmmm?   What a guy!"
     The refrigerator was packed.  My stomach growled.   The Maslovian Hierarchy of Needs that begin with food, weighed my shoulders down.  How could I eat any of her  "sacred" food stores.  I felt like the bad guy in one of Charles Dickens' novels.   I thought of myself stealing not food from my daughter, but from the growing baby in her belly.
      This is no common baby.  It is a Nine Eleven Child, conceived immediately after the Terrorist attacks.  And, it's a baby to be born in a family who would rather starve than take food away from the hungry.
            My daughter and her husband devote their life to peace, to its promulgation.  They are "peace activists" who live and work with the disenfranchised, the marginalized people of the world.  They put their food where their mouth is--always welcoming and supporting anyone in need.
      Her refrigerator took on the persona of a vault of Food For The Starving World.  I became a hungry rat, ready to raid it.  Most stomachs know no conscience, at least mine doesn't.   It will consume just about anything when I'm hungry, and having just a "taste" always leads to more "tastes."  That's why I'm on a diet.  I love to "taste."
     But there was a force greater than my stomach at work.  The Sentinels of Vigilance were up and about, hovering around me, whispering in my ear--"You really want to eat that?  You really want to to take that from your daughter, from your future grandchild?"
      As I rummaged through the items in the frig, my fingers became heavy; my hand trembled.  The once innocent carrots and celery suddenly became eggs from the Golden Goose, and my extraction of even one stalk, or just one baby carrot seemed to me at the moment like removing a species from the face of the earth and upsetting its delicate balance.
      Then I spied the bananas.   They were bright yellow, sitting on the counter in a fruit basket.  I closed the refrigerator--my tormentor.   I was drawn to them, mesmerized by their seductive color, the idea of their mushy pulp being masticated in my mouth.  Some were nearing the "too ripe" stage, and wore streaks of black running up the peel.   One banana, I thought.   There was a literal "bunch" of them.   She wouldn't miss one banana!
     As I reached for the fruit, again my fingers refused to grasp it.  The closer I closed the gap between my daughter's food and my now-snarling stomach, the heavier my hand became.   What if she ate three bananas a night?    What if she ground them up and mixed other fruits with them in the blender?   Would the lack of one banana upset her formula?  Did she buy them by the unit?  One for her, one for the baby?  One for her, one for the baby?
         Finally, I gave up.  The ethical versus primal desires to eat were too much for me.  But there was a final option--there always is in life.
         I turned my attention to my two grandchildren who were busy putting frosting on the cookies.    The cookies were a surprise for my daughter and her husband.   They weren't part of her existing food supply, but rather an add-on.  The cookies were from the G-Ma Aid Society.  I had a right to eat them without moral guilt.  Why, my daughter didn't even know the cookies existed.   They were "outside" her food portfolio.
        I sat down with the kids and began to slather frosting of different colors on the cookies.   When the kids weren't looking I popped one in my mouth.  The rule G-Ma set down before she left was we couldn't eat them until after dinner.    G-Ma had already prepared the kid's food, and told me to help myself to what was in the frig--easier said than done.   The cookies were my last resort. 
        I gauged myself carefully, assuring my grandkids didn't catch me breaking off a chunk here or there and surreptitiously popped one chunk after another into  my mouth until Sarah, the three-year-old watch guard of the cookies, snapped at me:  "G-Pa, we can't eat these cookies 'till after dinner.   No, G-Pa!"

       She put her small hand on my large arm en route to my mouth.  I put the cookie crumble down.   Caught by a three-year-old,  I muttered..
       After the kids ate, I cleaned their plates rather than throw away the food.  I considered it an act of conservation.
       Finished, we all sat around and shoved cookies in our faces.   While I hadn't planned on consuming so much sugar, my stomach didn't care.  It kept urging me to eat another and another.   I had three of them. 
      On my way home along Avenue A,  I passed by the crowded  restaurants that line the streets of New York.  Each one teemed with people. 
      I gazed in the windows.  People were consuming guiltless food.   They shoveled or poised their forks before their lips, and without any hesitation or remorse or ethical struggle, shoved it into their oral orifices.  I assumed none of them was chewing on the  thoughts of a pregnant woman or a Nine Eleven Child as they ate
      I swung up 4th Street, hit the ATM at the bank on the corner of 2nd Avenue, and made a bee-line for my favorite all night grocery store.  I got two pints of Ben & Jerry, one for me, and one for my wife.  I figured cookies and ice cream would crush my diet, but I didn't care.
      The only thing I knew for sure was that the next time I baby sat I would - hmmmm- I would eat in peace before I come over rather than starve in Terror when I got there.