Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: GLUTTONY (overindulgence and overconsumption) (01/15/15)
- TITLE: Gourmandizing
By Jack Taylor
01/17/15 -
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Bruce lowered the newspaper, “What, you’ve never heard a man belch to show how much he loved the meal? I couldn’t eat another bite if I tried. Call me a gourmandizer.”
“It’s just gross that you have to express yourself so loudly. You don’t even try to hold back.”
Bruce held up the paper. “If you think I’m gross you should read this. A 520 pound nurse is suing her health center because they refused to fit her for braces after her surgery. They said she had to lose 100 pounds before they would consider it.”
Lizzy grabbed the paper and laid it down on the table to read. “I’m on their side. This woman was living to eat rather than eating to live.”
Bruce stretched and carried the dishes to the sink. “What gets into people? Didn’t Pope Gregory the Great list gluttony as one of the seven deadly sins?”
“I’m impressed.” Lizzy abandoned the paper and joined Bruce at the sink. “You took a sneak peak at my nutrition assignment, didn’t you?”
Bruce turned on the hot water to fill the sink. “It’s hard to fool my little nursing scholar.” He set out the drain tray and began to wash the glasses. “I noticed that you mentioned that Thomas Aquinas championed the Pope’s ideas that gluttony was about eating too soon, too extravagantly, too delicately, too greedily and too much.”
Lizzy snatched up a towel. “Aren’t you the brainiac?” She began to dry the dripping dishes. “Do you agree with my conclusion that in our diet crazed world fixated on health and wellness that gluttony has transformed itself from a sin that leads to other sins into an illness that leads to other illnesses?”
Bruce wiped off the plates and set them in the dish rack. “I just think that now instead of confessing to a priest who judges you that you have to confess to your friends who pity you.”
Lizzy opened the cupboard and set the dried dishes inside. “Remember that National Geographic special about the African village chiefs who had those huge bellies? Everyone was so proud of them because they were the symbols of the health and wealth of the people.”
“Yes, everyone there envied them and wanted to be them. You sure don’t get that here.”
Lizzy wiped her hands on her jeans and scanned the room. She put away the salt and pepper. “Here, I think, over-eating is a sign of a lack of self-control. I just think it’s sick that people have to gorge themselves so much as if there’ll be nothing left for tomorrow.”
Bruce opened the fridge door and put away the jug of filtered water. “Are you trying to tell me that I’m sick in some way?”
Her smirk was obvious. “All of us could lose a few pounds without causing too much harm.”
Bruce grabbed the dish towel and twirled it gently. “Let me help you lose a few pounds.”
“Don’t you dare flick me with that towel!”
“If you can outrun me you’ll get some exercise and those pounds you want to lose should go quickly.”
Lizzy held out her hand and backed away. “Okay, just because you have poor self-esteem or an abusive past is no reason to take it out on me.”
Bruce snapped the towel so that it cracked near his wife’s knee. “This isn’t about my past, chicklet. This is about your future.” Another snap.
“You know I bruise easy and that isn’t going to look good for you if I have to call 911.” She backed around the table. “Remember, relationship with food is a lifelong battle for power and control. We can work out our power and control issues in other ways.”
Bruce set down the towel and took a step toward her. “Now you’ve got me hungry. Are you talking about a little dessert? Upstairs?”
Lizzy raised her eyebrows. “You already had dessert, or did you forget already?”
“I always say you can’t get too much dessert.”
“Too much of any good thing isn’t good for you.” She reached for the coffee pot. “The bible study group will be here in twenty minutes. I think this is a good time to remember that you are a master of your appetites and not a slave to them.”
Bruce backed off like a tamed tiger. “I’ll take my dessert later.”
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WEll done,
God bless~