Popper

I’m a popper.

Chances are you might think you know what a popper is, such as a person who likes to pop pimples or pills, and you would be close because I am one of those kinds of people but not the other, but actually you don’t know at all what I mean by popper because I just made it up right now.

A popper is someone who pops food into her mouth before she knows for sure what she is eating.  And for the record, I think you have something on your face.  Come closer so I can touch it, and please hold still.

And now that you’re thoroughly grossed out because you are someone who gets grossed out easily, please step away from this blog, because it is about to get real up in here.

I come from a long line of poppers, and that means my dad, because he is the only other person I know in my family who will eat just about anything that is front of him.  The man lives for traveling to foreign places to see how many strange and wonderful (read: nauseating and revolting) edibles he can consume. 

His issue is more garbage disposaling and not exactly popping, but I have a little of that as well.

Anyway.

Being a popper means that sometimes you will try to eat something that should not be eaten.  It is a familiar problem, and babies corner the market on popping.  I have known a lot of babies, and not one of them will study something they grab and say, “No, this doesn’t look appetizing at all.  I think I’ll pass.”  Babies will put anything in their mouths because they are just learning about the world and how amazing it tastes, like paper and dirt and rocks and marbles and paper clips and buttons and fabric and their own toes, ohmygoodness isn’t it cute when babies chew their own toes?  It makes me want to eat them.  The babies AND their toes.

My problem is more compulsive.  I am both the chef and housecleaner here, so when I see a piece of something on the counter or table (and yes, the floor), my first instinct is to scoop it up and pop it into my mouth to get rid of the offending item.  I am banking that it is food and it is fresh, because this usually happens after meals.

So on any given day, I might pop a piece of chicken breast that I find on the counter after my lunch and learn that it is a crumb left over from the bagel that my daughter had for breakfast.

Or a red sprinkle from the cupcakes we recently had might be a piece of aluminum foil that came off a Hershey’s kiss that I snuck while the kids weren’t looking.  Or a piece of thread, or lint, or some other equally sinister non-food item.  A walnut that I thought I just dropped might be a bit of stale Cheerio that’s been there for who knows how long.  I’ve eaten a leaf that I thought was lettuce, a piece of dryer lint that I thought was a cookie crumb, and swiped some egg white that I thought was spilled water.

Popping extends to eating questionable food items that I do examine before eating, which is where garbage disposaling comes in.  I will even try something that I take a cursory glance at to see how gross it is.  Just today while I was eating yogurt I noticed that it had little bits in it that weren’t fruit pieces.  Hmmm, maybe it’s fruit covered with yogurt, I think to myself.  In it goes, and a few chews later I realize that I should probably check expiration dates more often.

Recently I ate a bowl of soup.  I saw dumplings, which weren’t expected but were welcomed.  Yum, dumplings.  Pop.  Oh, big ball of fat.

About the only thing I will draw the line at popping is brown stuff, due to having babies and knowing better and also due to an unfortunate incident that happened to me when I was very young, where I learned that brown does not always equal chocolate.

And I suppose I have alluded to it several times in past posts so I might as well lay it out for you.  After all, you’ve stayed with me this long.

When I was five we had a cat.  The cat, like all cats do, walked on the dining room table when we weren’t looking.  One day I spied a piece of chocolate on the table, and popped it into my mouth.  It was not chocolate.  Yes.  One of my earliest and most horrifying memories is eating a piece of cat poop.

Gah.  It is as disgusting as it sounds.

You might think that this would have turned me away from popping forever, but that is not the case.  It is in my genes, I tell you.

Plus I may be a little bit dumb.

This post inspired by:

Mama Kat's Writing Workshop

5) Write about something you ate...