The Mayonnaise Chronicles

     Well, it's sort of an invasion:  to overnight have your shelves stocked with spinach.  And you hate spinach.  You can't explain it, but you open your frig, your freezer, all your cupboards:  it's everywhere.  You hunt down your chef.  She says:  "But... but it's what you... it's here on your list...."  She fumbles in the pantry and unstabs the most recent note from her spindle.  "This is your handwriting, isn't it?" she asks.  You look at the note she's holding up like a dead skunk, and it slowly dawns on you:  she's right.

     So for some reason your cupboards are suddenly bulging with spinach.  Most of it's in jars, its labels instructing to refrigerate after opening.  And it's white.  White spinach.  You open a jar--hardly believing your eyes, what all with your lifetime aversion to this particular vegetable--and try a spoonful.  Hmm... light, creamy.  Hey, not bad! you conclude.  Then you try another spoonful.  Pretty soon that jar's history, so you open another one.  Your chef asks to spread some of that spinach on a Kaiser bun for you and call it a veggie sandwich.  "No thanks," you tell her, running an errant finger along your lips; "I'm doing fine."  Then you polish off that jar--lickety split!--and grab another jar on the way to your den, deciding it's high time to take a few notes on your newfound love for spinach.  

     A week later you notice you've put on weight.  You say to enquiring friends:  "Yes, spinach has been very very good to me," as you lovingly pat your Buddha-like stomach.  You wonder if the stated health benefits, the ones on the label, are really worth it.  You read them again.  "Do not ingest with alcohol or while operating heavy equipment" it says on the side.  You wonder why you didn't see that warning before.  The next day you ask your doctor if eating large quantities of spinach can be anything but good for a person.  She asks if you've been sticking to a well-balanced diet.  "Sure, but I eat about four jars of this a day too," you say, pulling a jar of white spinach from your breast pocket as if it were a flask of hooch.

     She looks at it skeptically, but only for a second, then says, "Oh, spinach:  you can eat that stuff all day and it won't hurt you..."  And then she continues examining you, eschewing rubber gloves.  But you don't mind:  your thoughts are elsewhere.  You don't even notice she forgot her gloves 'til after it's over.  Then you turn around and present her your open jar of spinach.  She stirs it with the same finger, then you open your mouth and she puts her finger on your tongue, and you say, "Aww," as per her instructions.  "I don't know, Herb," she says, "you look fine all over to me.  Have you been getting enough sleep?"  

     You wipe the edges of your mouth, slurping in some spinach, then wipe your hands on your hankie.  You fingercomb your hair, not distraught, not even anxious, and say, "Yeah.  I sleep.  I get regular sleep."  She shakes her head, saying she doesn't see anything the matter, then offers to prescribe a mild sedative.  You decline her offer, knowing about the slippery slope that starts with mild sedatives, and soon enough leads to not-so-mild ones... before you know it:  you're in the booby hatch.  Yes, you think:  it's best to not even start down that path.  

     But it turns out she inserted a suppository during her exam--a sedative, no less--and so you take a gentle nap in her office.  You wake up and find she's lying next to you on her divan, her clothes in a heap next to yours, which are neatly folded for some reason.  You look at your doctor and ask why.  She says you folded them before jumping her.  "I did what?!" you ask, this time definitely not believing your ears.  

     She repeats herself:  "You folded them."  

     You sit up, unsticking yourself from yourself, and reach out to your pants and chef's smock.  While putting on your socks you realize that, oddly, you wore your chef's smock and argyles today, and the smock didn't fit.  That night, while eating dinner, you confront your chef.  "Hey," you say, "what's with the laundry?"  She informs you doing laundry is not in her job description.  "I know that," you say, tsking, "but why are your clothes in my dresser?"

     "Beats me," she retorts.  "If you want, I'll move out." 

     "No," you say, lightly chuckling.  "It hasn't gotten that bad... yet."

     "Just say the word," she says, flitting about in the kitchen, her giant white hat bouncing like a small hot air balloon against the pans hanging overhead; "I don't need to live here."

     "No, that's all right," you say:  "I need you to live here."  She goes on to say she can pop in for breakfast each day, prep your lunch--she interrupts her proposed itinerary to inquire after your knowledge of microwave operations.  You assure her you know how to work the gizmo.

     "Right," she says.  "Well, and then I'll come back later for din din."  But then you remind her about your sporadic urges for midnight snacks, and how you never know when those midnights will happen. 

     "No," you continue.  "I implore you to stay.  I desperately need a live-in chef."

      She looks at you delicately, then says, "You don't have to implore.  I was only running it up the flagpole."  

     "Oh, right," you say, wiping a thin film of sweat from your upper lip.  You race to the frig and grab another jar of spinach.  Then you look at what you are holding.  You think:  "Geez, since when is spinach white?  Since when is it creamy?  When did this start happening?"  All you feel like doing is eating more and more spinach.  Where did this urge come from? 

     You stare at your chef and she stares back.  You wonder about her large boofie hat.  Did she buy it just to make people laugh?  She bends over in front of the oven.  You see her peering into it.  She mumbles something about not wanting to open it.  "It's a spinach soufflé," she answers, nodding.  You put your briefcase on the counter and open it to retrieve a bottle of shampoo before it... but it's too late:  it's already seeped.  Not much though.  You ask your chef where the paper towels are.  Funny, you should know, but you don't.  She looks at the mess and says she'll take care of it.  You attempt to beg her off (there being sensitive documents peppered throughout), but she won't be begged off so easily.  You shut it, dripping more shampoo on the cutting board, and whisk it and your tired body into the living room.  She shouts at you.  A small smile creeps onto your face.  

     The next day you awaken to find tatters of a nearly empty box of thawed frozen spinach in bed with you.  Green and white, the packaging; but the spinach remnants?--all white.  You run your fingers along the inside and try some.  Pretty good.  You stretch and head for the pantry.  Someone has left her clothes in there.  Under a purse is an unopened jar of spinach.  You open it and get a tablespoon.  Then you sit in your nook and flip on the TV.  Your tablecloth is vinyl.  It's a veritable Twister mat of huge lemons and grape and cherry globes.

You chance upon an exercise show, one with yoga overtones.  Before long, spinach is all over the place again.  You try to find the paper towels, but they are mysteriously hiding.  This should stop, you intone.  You wipe yourself off with... well, with your hands.  Then you walk to your chef's room.  She's still asleep, so you quietly shut her door.  You tiptoe away, then glide past your den, throwing a side-glance at your writing table, at your pc, at your laptop, seeing your halogen glowing, it illuminating a trapezoidal chunk of work space and a half-eaten tureen of spinach soup.  Yours was truly a sidelong-glance though:  you didn't even slow.  You settle back into your nook and grasp your tablespoon.  You lick it and dip it back into the jar.  Your cell goes off.  It's your doctor.  She's en route.  "Coming for a visit?" you ask.

     "I dunno," she says, "I think I left my stethoscope in your briefcase."  You tell her you've been having trouble with your confounded briefcase, that you've had to empty it recently (you are too embarrassed to mention the shampoo), and that during that process you didn't see her stethoscope.  She tells you it might be in your pants. 

     You say, "Now, c'mon!  Don't you think I'd notice if something big and cumbersome like that were in my pants?" 

     "Well," she starts, "you have been under a lot of stress lately.  I'm turning up your lane as we speak.  It wouldn't hurt for me to look around, would it?"  

     You double-clutch, eliciting an "Erm" and an "Umn"... but no:  you can't argue with her.  You tell her the front door is open, hang up, slip off your shirt and unlock the front door, then amble toward the master bath.  When you're completely lathered up, you hear the bathroom door click open.  Your doctor stands next to your commode, wearing her stethoscope--but that's about it!  She tricked you, or so you think, though your face is covered with bubbles so you're not certain.  You try to slough them off to get a better looksee, but she steps inside the shower with you:  a distraction.  You're thinking about spinach.  You think you'd like your chef to add fresh, uncooked spinach to your salads.  You make a mental note to ask her later.  "Hey," you say to your doctor, "is cooked spinach as healthy, more healthy, or less healthy than raw spinach?"  She pulls on you, pulls your arm, then your leg.  You tell her to answer the question.  She says your problems aren't solely diet-related, that too many people put too much emphasis on volume of calories and not enough emphasis on variety of intake, or, heaven forbid, exercise.  Then she pulls on the skin around your ankles.  You ask:  "Why the sudden interest in my arches?"  She says she's examining you, that in this light your feet look different than in her office.  "Hmm," you say.  "Well, the reason I ask is because my dietician said that while eating raw carrots is wonderful, eating some cooked and some raw is healthier; that the cooking process releases certain nutrients in carrots... in other words, makes these nutrients accessible to us."

     "Yeah?" your doctor says, burying her face in a mass of suds.

     "So," you ask, "is spinach similar?"  She says something but you can't hear her because of where her head is and how the water is cascading off your ears and her mouth.  You rinse off both your bodies.  There, sitting on a mildewy ledge next to your rubber froggie, is the bottle of shampoo that had recently mucked up the inside of your briefcase.  It reminds you.  "Hey," you say to your doctor while she licks her lips and towels off."  "Did you really lose your stethoscope?  And if so, is that one over there your spare?"  You nod toward the listening device draped over your sink.  She emotionlessly says you had better start asking more sensible questions.  This shuts you up for a while.  The two of you trudge off to your bedroom like tired sailors.  Immediately after shutting your bedroom door, you hear your chef rummaging around in the kitchen.  'Bout time she got up, you think.  Not that you're hungry or anything.  You try to think of something more sensible to say to your doctor, but all you can think about is spinach, and you gather she wants to move on to more salient topics... well, or at least more pressing than Popeye food.  You try to imagine a world without spinach... but you simply can't do it.  You see her there on the edge of your bed with her legs curiously not crossed, her wet towel wrapped around her head like a spinach baron, like someone who sold spinach pickers into a sort of indentured servitude... but she wouldn't be a tyrant.  Oh no:  of this you're sure.  If her subjects ate some of the more succulent leaves while they picked, fine.  It's good for them, you imagine her thinking.  She clears her throat.  You want to say something about spinach and how it used to be green, but now it's white and creamy, but you know she wants something more from you.  You sit on the bed next to her.  She smells nice.  She turns to you and says to quit complaining, that the best kind of thinking doesn't involve complaining.  You tell her that if the inventor of the wheel couldn't-- but she cuts you off.  "But--" you start... but she quickly covers your mouth.  Her hand is soft and moist, yet firm like Hitler.  After you calm, she slowly uncovers your mouth and says that if the wheels you are inventing are so darn cool, then soon enough everybody will want one.  "But," you say, "what if--"  Here, she cuts you off again, saying she'd prefer you didn't complain.  This time there is no need for her to gently, lovingly cover your... well, you know. 

You remain silent.  You try to formulate your question concerning this new color of spinach, but there just doesn't seem to be a polite way to phrase it.  A pot clanks in the kitchen.  "Have you had breakfast?" you ask.  Your doctor looks at you as if to say:  Is that the best you can do?--as if food weren't a valid issue.  You find you are almost on the verge of tears, but not on the verge.  You remember what it was like to cry.  But it's been a while.  You try to remember specifically what had loosened the wellsprings in your tear ducts immediately prior to your most recent outpouring.  But you can't quite wrap your thoughts around any distinct incident.  You try to avoid shaking your head, even slightly, lest your physician intuit you are complaining, inwardly, again.  After all, you're not.  To wonder about this new color and texture of spinach is not the same as complaining about these changes.  It's as if she's filibustering silently.  You stare straight ahead, like a fixed cat.

     She breaks the silence:  "I could use a bite." 

     "I better tell her," you say, standing, brushing her left hand off your lap.  You open the door.  "Hey," you loudly say, so vociferously in fact that you actually feel your chest hairs tremble.  "Set the table for three, eh?"  Your chef asks you to repeat yourself, but your doctor says she wants only a bite or two to go.  "What?" you ask.

     "Just have her bundle something up for me in a napkin, k?" your doctor says.  Then she more fully reclines on your unmade bed.  She pats the mattress next to her languid form, beckoning you to join her.  You close the door and shake off your towel.  It falls to the carpet, making a tdflff sound.  Really?--the noise your towel made tumbling and landing?--scarcely louder than silence.  And then another question appears center stage in front of your mind's eye:  Why is it white and creamy when before it was green and leafy?  But you can't ask.  She pats the bed again.  The end.  

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