Cleansed

I recently embarked on a mission to test my willpower against one of my most cunning demons: Food. Against everything I've ever practiced in my life, I decided to put myself through the Master Cleanse.

For those of you who don't live in California, or who do and live in some bastion of biggie fries like Temecula, let me fill you in on this thingy. For ten days you eat nothing at all other than a ten-ounce mixture of water, lemon juice, organic grabe-B maple syrup, and cayenne pepper, six to twelve times a day. For added delight, every morning you get to drink 32 oz. of water mixed with two teaspoons of sea salt, the (immediate) result of which is ipecac for your ass. You can drink all the plain water you want, and it's recommended to drink Smooth Move laxative tea before you mercifully drop off to sleep, perchance to dream of not waking up again for the remainder of the ten days. After the ten days you should be lighter, thinner, devoid of poison, and elated. During the tens days you will look ravenously at leather shoes and local foliage.

Let me express how difficult a challenge this was to someone like me. I grew up in a household where parental cooking meant one of five truly cultural gourmet choices:

1) Tacos (the white trash version - store-bought hardshells, ground beef, shredded Kraft cheddar, and Pace picante sauce...and lettuce if you felt adventurous)
2) Goulash (macaroni and ground beef)
3) Spaghetti (with Hunt's tomato sauce and ground beef)
4) Chicken breast with scalloped potatoes (store-bought)
5) Meatloaf (ground beef, ketchup, and...I don't know, onions maybe?)

On Fridays we always had pizza, and on most Sundays Gramps and Grandma brought over Kentucky Fried Chicken (when you could still call it that), which to us was like a king's feast, despite the fact that there was NEVER ENOUGH GODDAMN POTATOES. All other meals were from Mickey D's, Burger King, Taco John's, Hardee's, or - if we were bad - Subway.

(Sometimes when my mother really had it out for us she would make roast beef. Some other day I'll relate the various methods I used for faking that I had cleaned my plate. I think my little sister is still sitting at the table, staring at a frigid plate of sliced football, waiting for my parents to release her, or for a starving child from Africa to suddenly show up and trade out his milk-jug shoes for some sturdy roast beef sandals.)

I lived on fast food and government-funded sludge in school for eighteen years, until in college I realized no one could stop me from eating Domino's pizza three square. Luckily I had the metabolism and calorie out-put of a Kenyan track star all during those years, or I'd be writing this from the tongs of a forklift. But sadly, those blissful days of Pepsi and Pop Tarts have gone, and like the earth itself, I'm slightly bigger around the middle.

I survived the cleanse for five days and then decided I'd had enough. Not really because I was having difficulty; physically I was fine, had plenty of energy, and was content and actually somewhat elated. But I work in a restaurant, and seeing the food nightly was making me kind of insane. So I jumped off, only partially heeding the advice to come off slowly, drinking orange juice and sipping vegetable soup. By the next day I was back eating full-fledged endorphin-rewardin' meals.

I've spent the last two days hoping that the block in my gut can be jackhammered out, or I'm going to have to drink a gallon of prune juice. The elation and happiness that I was surprised to have all during the cleanse has now been replaced by a sort of low guilt, a buzzing in my head and gut that feels like stirred awareness.

All these years I've been poisoning myself. Some of it has been by choice, certainly, as alcohol, cigarettes, and a really good hamburger all represent to me double-middle fingers to the stupid shit other people make me do to kill myself. But the rest is just a conditioned behavior. My body needs nourishment, so - ding - I eat a box of french fries, which have slightly more nutrition than gravel. I'm thirsty so - ding - I go for a soda, which contains chemicals that actually make me more thirsty.

It all goes hand-in-hand with my growing suspicion that - among other things -Americans routinely hand over our ability to make logical choices for ourselves due to the relentless crush of mindless jingles and Pavlovian color schemes.

No, this isn't some remarkable revelation. Probably the more important question is, why do people persist in this when they know the consequences? Is the reward of a five-minute happiness spike worth years of misery?

I don't know if I'll try the cleanse again, but this I do know - though I will certainly find myself in a drive-thru again, probably soon, I think before I make any choice that injects my body with mass-produced biological weaponry, I will stop to make sure I remember a week later why I'm so angry and unfulfilled. Perhaps sooner or later I'll erase the instinct of self-destruction for good, and go forward without the weight of American garbage in my system.