No Carrots for You

I eat a lot of salad. A LOT. I feel shy about this somehow, like it makes me boring-palette-person or something. I feel like I am confessing a dark secret of mine right now. You don't want to get mixed up with a girl like me, see? I eat fields of, and I wish I didn't have to tell you this, SALAD. Don't look at me! I'm hideous! Just leave me alone with my greens!

When I say a lot, I mean that when we do our weekly grocery shopping at the market, we are often responsible for cleaning out the lettuce bin. We buy 5 to 8 of these per week, easy. But still, I never take salad with me to work to eat for lunch. You may recall that I have a serious problem with lunch, almost to an epistemoligical degree, in that I just don't GET IT. Lunch is a lens through which things always seem out of focus. So you'd think that what with me being a salad eating machine, the solution to lunch time would be to extend the roughage lovefest into the daytime hours. But I never have, because salad transport always seemed to be an issue for me. Look, I never said I wasn't a big old weirdo, ok? These are my issues and I am just being honest.

This Monday was a new era in my lawn-eater ways. I bought me one of these bad boys:



I introduce to you, ladies and gentlemen, the FIT 'N' FRESH. Ta da! How exciting is THAT? There is a little salad dresser container in the top, that keeps the salad dressing seperate so as not to get mushy with the lettuce! And when you are ready for the dressing and the lettuce to consummate their union, you just twist that little dressing compartment lid and the dressing is dumped onto the salad INSIDE THE CONTAINER. You shake it up and then pop that lid off and salad eating time is ON.

Genius I tell you.

Aside from my lunch dilemmas, you may also recall that in my house, Nordic Boy tends to cook more often than not. So on Sunday, when I bought my Fit 'N' Fresh, Nordic Boy offered to make my lunch for Monday.

Me: Oooh, thanks. I'm going to have salad for lunch!
Nordic Boy: What do you want in it besides lettuce?
Me: Um, tomato. Olives.
Nordic Boy: Want me throw in some croutons and cheese?
Me: Sure. Oh, and carrots.
Nordic Boy: Carrots? Really? How about radishes instead?
Me: Instead? How come instead? How about radishes and carrots?
Nordic Boy: No, I think just radishes. I'll give you some carrot sticks on the side, if you want, but not in the salad.
Me: Why don't you want me to have carrots in the salad?
Nordic Boy: (shrug)
Me: Whatever, I'll eat what I'm given. Thanks!

This was earlier in the day, before we had done our grocery shopping. Later that evening, after dinner, I was folding laundry and Nordic Boy announced that he was going to make our lunches for the next day.

Nordic Boy: So did you want me to put some carrots in a seperate container then?
Me: No, I don't want to take two containers. Just throw them in the salad.
Nordic Boy: No. I don't think so. I'll put them in a bag for you.

Just at this moment my phone rang so I couldn't ask him why he was being weird about carrot segregation. After I got off the phone I went into the kitchen.

Me: What's with you and the carrots?
Nordic Boy: Nothing. What do you mean?
Me: Why don't you want me to have carrots in my salad?
Nordic Boy: Well, I'm giving you carrots in a bag. If you get to work tomorrow and you still want them in your salad, you can add them in yourself.
Me: (starting to crack up) You sound totally insane right now.
Nordic Boy: What?
Me: You just seem like you are avoiding putting carrots in that salad! Why?
Nordic Boy: (laughing but also cracking under pressure) I just don't want to chop them! Ok? There's too much chopping in salad prep!
Me: But you just chopped the lettuce, and the tomato, and the radishes!
Nordic Boy: I know! And I CAN'T CHOP ANY MORE! I CAN ONLY CHOP SO MUCH!

Then we laughed until we wanted to die.

This man feeds me, he cares for me when I am sick, he repairs my home, he maintains my yard, he drives me places, he always has a kind word for me. But the salad chopping. He has to draw a line somewhere and that line is at the mothersucking carrots.

Everyone has their limits.



I'm out,
Librarian Girl