You’re at Whole Foods or some similar place somewhere else. Just being there makes you feel good, hip, organic. You walk down the wide, splendid aisle. You remember what your doctor said about dairy products and you are, once again, determined to cut them out. All that fat.
Surprise!
The only fat is in your physician’s head. Milk, butter, and cheese are good for you. And that’s not just the dairy council talking.
Look around. How many real tall people do you see? A few. Where are they? The pro basketball team in front of the raw meat department doesn’t count. The world’s tallest people come from Holland, the land of cows. No shit. Those Dutch eat cheese by the pound, drink milk by the gallons, and put multi-pats of rich, creamy butter on everything. The average Dutchman stands six foot one, three inches taller than the average American male wimp. And, men, don’t forget when you’re taller, your below the belt length grows, too.
Dutch women are so much taller that even barefoot they stand above the average U.S. babe wearing three inch heels, and without the risk of toppling over into the organic apple display. And the Dutch live longer, too, a lot longer…two and a half years longer. Even their ambulances have to keep their back doors open. No kidding. Look it up.
Okay, now you know. Enjoy. Grab that whole milk. And forget that two per cent bullshit. Don’t forget the yogurt and don’t you dare grab “light.” Go for the real stuff. It’s hard, I know. Bad habits are hard to break. So other Whole Foods people stare at you like you just got off the bus? Who cares? You’ll be attending their funerals. And you’ll be at their gravesite, standing proud and tall. Just like the Dutch men so tall they were the official guards of the Roman Emperor.
Got a party coming up? Skip down the aisle to cheese. It’s been waiting for you to grow up. Grow up, get it? There they sit: brie, jack, camembert, and stinking bishop, the cheese that smells like the inside of Barry Bonds’ socks after a double-header. Gouda and Edam stare at you. Grab two, no three, packs of each. So, they’re overpriced. You’ll make it all back in years. Look at Rip Van Winkle, that very tall, aged-cheese-eater and Dutch sage who grew old, old, old. You’ll be enjoying your extra years of pocketing social security while everyone else is brain dead and drooling.
Grab that delicious, smooth and creamy ice cream. Don’t scrimp. Buy a couple of gallons. Yummy! Your Viking, stainless steel refrigerator awaits your aerial arrival home. Watch out! Your ceiling fan may collide with your head.
Okay, your shopping basket is full of dairy products. The cashier is gawking. So what? He’s only five seven. What does he know? He’s never going to be Paul Van Bunyan. The brown-haired woman behind you with the Dior dress and the stethoscope around her neck has just fainted. Give her a helping hand up. She says, “Don’t you know those foods are unhealthy?” And now, for the first time in your life, you get to tell a doctor what you and everyone else have always wanted to say, but suppressed, “Are you out of your fucking mind? Who do you think you are, God? You shrimp!” You grab her stethoscope and throw it in the squishy, overripe, organic peaches…splat!
The clerk stares at you anew. Then he applauds. The woman packaging groceries behind him applauds. The nearby clerks applaud. Now, everyone around with no idea of what happened but assuming it must be something important, like the anniversary of your Bar Mitzvah, break into applause, then whistle. You feel like Hans Brinker right after winning the Olympics in ice skating.
The manager comes over and says, “You are such a great customer, a great person, here take those groceries for free.” You skip down the aisle, and at the door, yell “It’s the cheese!”
You bounce into the parking lot. The green grocer and others are on your tail, the newly-converted, minion mice following you, the cheesy pied piper (you knew he was a blond, right?). You see a drop dead, six foot two, blonde with a perfect body, loading groceries onto a $10,000 bike, made in Holland, natch. You can bet she’s a member of the tall, Dutch consul corps. Wave. Pull that eight foot long string cheese out of your woven, green bag and swing it above your head like a lasso. The blonde gives you an enticing smile with teeth so white, you almost drop the milk. But you don’t. She throws her Dutch, wooden clogs in the air in romantic, expectant celebration and runs over to you. Your heart melts like butter.
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Ido Dooseman is a freelance writer in freeway-insane L.A., but soon to hang his pigpie hat in Portland. A former TV wordsmith, he has also written plays concerning ethics (or lack of them) and altered perceptions. He’s put his computer keys to work for Walter Matthau and Jack Palance, but has never done one-arm pushups at the Oscars or at the YMCA. His last novel, while considered incredible and by his friends, didn’t get quite that response from literary agents. His wife Niki is a produced playwright and his daughter Alexa has also published here.