For the sake of your health, don’t look at the food clods in my shopping cart

I want to relate to you diet-conscious consumers an important health tip about shopping in supermarkets. To put it bluntly, if you value your health, you will stop snooping in my cart to see what kind of food I buy.

I didn’t want to say anything, but the fact is you’re getting awfully snotty about the way you treat those of us who thrive on low-fiber, artificially preserved and colored food clods.

I didn’t notice you at first. I’d go striding into the supermarket like the General MacArthur of consumers and buy these food things that are so dangerous Iraq and Iran have been hurling them at each other for years.

But now I have to watch myself. If there’s nothing in my cart that is (A) green, (B), alive, (C) looks like a road kill or (D) is not usually associated with the act of eating, I get really dirty looks, as if I’d entered the store wearing a University of Libya T-shirt.

I was watching one of you health-conscious consumers the other day. You arrived at the supermarket at 10:30 in the morning wearing a coat and tie, like one of the Stepford Husbands. At 10:30 in the morning I’m still tripping over the bags under my eyes.

You went straight to the produce department, and it is a known fact among us food-clod eaters that nothing edible has ever been found in that section except the time some kid dropped a Sno-Cone.

You chose some ropy green things and some warty yellow things and this gross-looking sac-like thing that resembled The Weed Brain That Crawled Out Of The Mulch Pit  (broccoli), and I can’t believe how you fussed over your choices, as if you should do anything but take them outside and have them shot.

Then you visited the seafood section, where you bought something that, if it had crawled up on the beach, the governor would have called out the National Guard. You bought it for a Halloween prank, right? You bought it to hide in your worst enemy’s mailbox. Surely you weren’t going to eat that.

You passed up the canned Roni food things and bought uncooked pasta. What can you do with uncooked pasta, except maybe pave your driveway, right? Oh, and you can make those cool string necklaces, just like they do in Third World nations, except they usually eat them after wearing them.

On to the beverage section. You bought – what was that? – bottled water? Bottled water is OK if, say, nuclear war breaks out and it’s either that or radioactive sewer runoff, but to actually pay American devalued dollars for a bottle of water when you could have bought good old American cheap beer – which is beneficial to the heart when consumed in quantities that aren’t expressed in the plural form – is a real tragedy of consumerism.

But that’s OK. If you want to eat rabbit chow and never experience the thrill of clogged arteries, that fine by me.

But the safe of your health, don’t sneer at my food clods. I may invite you over for dinner.

This column was published in the Thursday, September 1, 1988 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .