I want to eat. I hunger. I! AM! HUNGRY!

“Then just eat something, ya’ big galloot,” you say.

Oh, that’s what you say, is it? Well, you must be some kind of super genius or maybe even an idiot savant! Why didn’t I think of that? Good lord, have I been starving for so long that my tiny yooman brain has ceased to function? That might be it. “Then just eat something.” Yes. Yessss… thank you. Thank you for that awe-inspiring wisdom. Your sage like device has been a break through. “Just eat something,” as you so eloquently put it. Brilliant!

Transcription of mine own words recorded into my old, tan Fisher Price audio cassette recorder with built-in mic: I’m leaving my laptop on my cramped, cluttered little desk and exiting my bedroom… a bedroom that sadly has on its walls many of the same posters I’ve been hanging up in various bedrooms of mine since I was in college. College! I’m thirty now. It’d be embarrassing if anyone other than me ever went in here, but still... Oh, anyway, I, under the influence of the fantastic “just eat” advice given to me by clearly one of the great thinkers of our time, YOU, am going to the kitchen… I open my refrigerator and look into it, confusion and dismay growing. All juices and puddings and applesauce and creamy yet lactose free meal replacements and yogurt. No real FOOD. I’m going to the cupboard... Hmph. Chunkless soup, mostly tomato, more pudding… nothing I can really sink my teeth into. You know, nothing I can EAT… Bah! … In frustration, I’m returning to my lappy and am about to put my fingers to the keys again… End of Fisher Price cassette recorder recording transcription.

Why don’t I have any real food, you wonder? Well, the short answer is that I cannot masticate or, in the common vernacular, “chew.” (Don’t be a silly pervert.) As of this writing, I have not been able to masticate for about a month and have two more weeks to go before I can again.

Digging deeper, why can’t I chew? Well, the fairly short answer is that I have this jaw thing that a bunch of doctors over the years told me I should get fixed via a surgeon cutting into my mouth and breaking some bones and resetting some things. After finally getting insurance that would cover most of it, I decided to finally just do the thing… even though I would’ve chickened out the morning of the surgery if not for a kindly anesthesiologist -- whose name I can’t remember and regrettably never will because my memory is the suck -- injecting me with something that calmed me down to the point of feeling pleasant. I do remember being wheeled into the operating room and finding myself wondering why I was smiling and almost about to giggle even though, deep in the recesses of my being, I was terrified because I’d never had a surgery other than wisdom teeth removal. And I’m a big pussy. Anyway, the post surgical existence requires a big plastic thing on the roof of my mouth, said mouth being rubber banded shut, and not chewing as the bones heal.

That was more “fairly” and less “short” than I’d intended, and I apologize.

So, by doctor’s orders, I’ve resigned myself to a liquid diet for six weeks as my jaw mends.

The first week wasn’t that bad from an empty stomach standpoint, but I think that was due to the pain meds keeping me fairly tired and loopy. Swollen faced and high, I drank liquid meals, fruit drinks, and the like. As soon as I was done with the meds, though, pure liquid wasn’t enough. I went for pudding, which was difficult as I could barely open my mouth yet worth it, causing me to use an undignified baby spoon. Drinking soup -- usually tomato -- was easier, but after a while, tomato soup makes a man go mad, especially since the brand I bought seemed to be ketchup in can with dubious claims of being soup.

Since returning to work, I’ve tried to breath through my mouth during lunchtime because every meal my surrounding co-workers purchase or heat up smells like heaven to me. I literally get the nervous, butterflies feeling in my stomach when I smell a pizza or burrito. It comes and goes, and now, as I’m able to at least swallow down mashed potatoes and glorious stuffing. It’s become less traumatic, but I can’t wait to be able to chew again… to test out this supposedly fixed jaw by biting down on a burrito…

But that’s all a few more weeks away.

On the plus side, I was quite plus sized before the surgery and have now, according to the famed Body Mass Index (BMI), gone from the supposedly medically alarming “obese” to merely “overweight.”

I was shown the aforementioned BMI by a doctor that I needed to clear me for surgery. Instead of some sort of physical, my appointment consisted of the drawing of my blood by a moody nurse, and the doctor I’d never met before saying to me, “You’re fat” alarmingly soon after the our first “hello’s.” I was confused, so he repeated, “You’re FAAAAAAAAT!”

I was all, “Look, old man, this appointment is to clear me for a surgery that will keep me from eating solid foods for six weeks, so how’s about you assume I’ll lose some of that weight and stop insulting me, ya’ geezer?”

Undeterred by my haughty response and apparently thinking me a circus freak, he called his staff into his office to bask in my massive size, which in Ohio was just “sturdy” but in LA is apparently “FAAAAAT!” When I tried to protest, he cut me off with, “Shut it, tons o’ fun!” I sighed as he pointed at me and screamed to his staff again, “FAAAAAAAAAAT!!!”

Now, after roughly a month not eating solid food, I think he’d just say I was “fat” -- no caps or exclamation points. So, you know, there’s that.

Stupid LA.

Irregardless, assuming my jaw doesn’t fall out, which has been a recurring post-surgery nightmare, all BMI bets are of once I get the clear to chew again… I must satisfy the HUNGERRRRRRRR…