Originally a Mastodon thread.
I’m feeling a #VicorvaStorytime coming on.
Have I ever told you about the Condiment Lunch?
It’s quite the harrowing tale.
This is a story that is somewhat infamous among the people that know us.
My partner, Joh, loves sugar. LOVES sugar. In all its forms.
They will eat more than their fill of sweets.
They will eat bag after bag of jam donuts.
They will eat punnet after punnet of fruit.
They will eat sugar until they are stuffed, and then, if offered more, will keep eating.
It therefore won’t surprise you that we rarely have sugar in our house.
So: the context.
I had been working at a fairly distant library for a few months. Joh usually picked me up from work on a Friday, my 10 hour day.
They’d been going through a period of struggling to feed themselves at lunch, to the point of complete exhaustion, so on this Friday, before I left for work, I said ‘When you pick me up, I will ask you if you’ve had lunch today. Can you make sure you have lunch?’
They said yes, and we both hoped that would be true.
So when Joh picked me up, late in the evening, I asked ‘Have you had lunch today?’
And they said, ‘Yes, I had lunch.’
And I was very tired, so I left it at that, and more or less napped the rest of the way home.
That was the last time I ever asked after their lunch in such a vague manner.
Over the next couple of weeks, they gradually developed better habits.
We worked together to make sure lunch was made and ready the night before, since they were so tired when lunch rolled around.
I felt like things had improved. I thought nothing about that first check-in, beyond that it was good that they’d fed themselves.
Until a few MONTHS later, when they were looking for a quick snack and we were low on shopping.
I saw them get out the jam and a spoon and immediately went: ‘You aren’t … going to eat that, are you?’
Joh shrugged. ‘I’ve done it before?’
‘When?!’
And thus the confessions began.
Because on that long Friday, before Joh came to pick me up, they realised they’d had no lunch and were feeling really run down.
But making something was a bit beyond them.
So they thought: ‘Sugar is good energy. We don’t have any sweets, but we do have jam.’
And so they’d had a few spoons of jam.
And a few spoons of ketchup.
And some honey.
Some golden syrup.
There was, in fact, some chocolate ice cream sauce at the back of the cupboard, so that was had as well.
And then some more ketchup to finish up.
They admitted that when they got in the car, they were feeling AMAZING.
Almost too amazing.
In fact, they started to think: ‘I may have had too much sugar.’
They were BUZZING. They were so happy and full of energy.
They were surely not far from a complete crash.
And when I asked them about their lunch, they said ‘Yes,’ and hoped I wouldn’t ask specifics, which I like a FOOL did not.
We got home okay.
They faded fast after we got back though, and slept the rest of the evening.
Now I know why.
They had meant to tell me, it turns out, but they were so tired they couldn’t do anything more than sleep.
And then they forgot, as it seemed a very minor detail, until that conversation a few months later.
We have a new rule in our house that nobody else seems to need: NO CONDIMENT LUNCHES!
Anyway, that’s the story of how I started to keep a close eye on the condiments in our house for reasons of safety.
THE END.
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