Half and Half

Seven years ago my otherwise obedient body rejected half and half, full-on cream, ice cream, cheese and all its delectable incarnations. My calm stomach now hosted a storm of vitriol, refusing, anymore, to process lactose, up in arms at a sip of milk or a dollop of cream cheese. The protesting hordes inside, outraged in red headbands and tossing Molotov cocktails, rejected all bovine products outright. They overran all gastric functions with complete disregard for palate consequences.  Dairy was not only thrown out, but positively overthrown. Under such a dictatorial regime, my weight dropped precipitously.  I would occasionally try to scale the barbed wire, lamenting this oppressive, gaping maw in my diet until, at last, acceptance set in.  I had to make the best of this shift in power, to concoct a replacement for cheesecake and flan. I was now “soy girl,” the special order Sally tying up waiters with the importance of leaving dairy products off of my plate. I wanted to tell them about how difficult it was to live under such procrustean dictates, but in the end could only watch him lower his eyes to the pad, writing god knows what. The little flavored creamers (vanilla, caramel, mocha) disappeared from my life, relegated to kitchen counters of free people.  Cinnamon and honey really weren’t so bad, I told myself, watching another heavily plutocratic friend selfishly bedeck her latte with whipped cream. Capitalist pig, I scoffed.  I watched the hedonistic, free-loving bovine people gobble pizza, the melted cheese forming long, greasy ropes. Mine was scraped clean, streamlined to its most essential parts. While pizza was no longer a decadent indulgence, I would survive. Garlic naan with veggies, hummus, guacamole became staples in my Spartan kitchen. They are good enough! I cried. You westerners and your selfish cheese will ruin this nation! Somewhere in the primeval mist of my heritage, cows had not been available. My ancestors who had spawned the stomach mob, had most likely subsisted on wild game, nuts, and berries. They had not been the sedentary, wealthy, fat farmers able to care for and utilize bovines. They had probably been wild, nomadic hunter-gatherers who gnawed at bison ribs and stared at the back of the cave wall, creating elaborate fire-shadow pantomimes for entertainment and whose kids went to public school. I soon discovered that weight training could build what had been lost in the coup, and that a high-protein diet creates muscle, not fat. I became again the huntress, increasing weight on my bench bar, noticing the pronounced, primitive muscles emerge as I followed the timeless protocol of those Germanic barbarian predecessors who had voices in my DNA. While I still experience a regretful pang walking past Stone Cold Creamery, the grunts and gestures of my shadowy Neanderthal ancestors is enough to keep my hands off of the ice cream cone. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em