Sunday, January 30, 2011

My Last Morsel Of Food: A Milkbone


I probably should wait to write this, since I'm not hungry in the slightest. I had some pizza for lunch and a Hostess cupcake and a can of Orangette. Certainly at this point a Milkbone doesn't sound good. But, who knows, someday I might eat one, the one I have. I'm saving it just in case.

That's a picture of the actual Milkbone I possess. I've had it around for a couple weeks. I'm wondering if I should wrap it in plastic to keep it fresher. Or does it really matter? It feels exactly like it did when I got it, but then the way of all flesh (and things) is to decay, to crap out. It could be if I don't put it in plastic that it'll be completely corrupt by the time I might need it.

And I really might need it someday. Just because I'm completely sated at this moment doesn't mean I won't get hungry again. But it'll have to be someday, because at this point there's plenty of food in the refrigerator. And I have additional money, in my wallet and in the bank, to buy other food between now and that (hopefully) distant day, hopefully never, when I might need this Milkbone for food.

I look at food maybe in a different way than the average person at any average moment. I see it for the energy it has bound up in it, which I believe we measure by the word calories. Each thing has calories. Then in addition to those, it has nutritional content meant to address certain needs of the organism. The nutrients swim through your bloodstream looking for holes in your nutritional status to plug up. Seeing none, they become poop, and that means you're full.

The upshot of all this is it doesn't really matter what you eat, just so it has nutritional value, measurable caloric content, and can be digested when it's time to go. You don't want to eat a whole walnut and have to pass it later. It's better to get the meat of the goodie out of the middle and eat that. The husk probably has nutritional value -- but if it tastes anything like it smells, you wouldn't want it.  Even the squirrels know better.

So if it doesn't matter what you eat, a Milkbone is just as good as anything else if you're starving to death.

My dog Underbrush would've eaten this particular Milkbone except she doesn't like them. I'm not sure why. She's never gone for them. One day a couple weeks ago I took her to the bank, and when I went to get my money out of the pneumatic tube, the teller had stuck in a Milkbone for her. She sniffed it and let it lay. So I threw it up on the dash, and ever since I've been thinking that I'd keep it just in case.

Would I like to eat a Milkbone? I don't believe I would. But it'll come in handy if I ever have to.

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