BEING healthy is next to being wealthy.
I purloined this idiom, which I coined this week, obviously from the wise expression “cleanliness is next to godliness.”
I define wealth as the lack of financial struggle caused by a long list of pills and capsules to buy, and hospitalizations due to arthritis, diabetes and other “itis” and “etes” ailments. If you stay healthy, you save money on medical bills.
Eating my carrots like a good boy and stuffing myself with leafy, green vegetables will assure me health and wealth. Then why do I feel as if I am missing out on the healthy-wealthy bandwagon?
Answer: Because I am a ruthless cereal killer.
Green- and yellow-colored victuals closely go with off-white grains and seeds. They all offer fiber, essential vitamins, and even promise mankind natural fountain of youth. Then how come I am not convinced when it comes to oatmeal’s power of youth and health?
Answer: Because I am a ruthless cereal killer.
I remember in my early youth (I am in my late youth) when I would drag my feet to breakfast and make a face at the warm oatmeal waiting for me at the dining table.
My siblings ate their oats with gusto. It took grave threats (from my parents, who else) of being grounded for a week with no TV and phone calls before I could will myself to eat breakfast oatmeal.
My aunt, Tita Blitte, would watch me like an eagle supervising her chicks testing their wings. She was assigned to make sure we all ate our dose of morning goodness.
Maybe I fooled her with my criminal instinct to hide the evidence. I would get three big heaping servings of oatmeal, and scatter it around my soup plate.
Even with a bit of sugar, three tablespoons of powdered milk and raisins, I still had to tell myself that eating my portion would make my aunt happy, and make all nutritionists in the world feel they had done a good job with me.
I would keep pushing the body of evidence around the plate until it resembled something else—an abstract painting done by a cereal killer.
By then my aunt would be busy clearing the table, which was my cue to help her with the dishes—mine especially.
When I recently confessed to her my youthful crime, she laughed. “You never fooled me, hijo. I just didn’t squeal to your parents. I guess I was an accessory to your crime.”
She added: “Look at yourself now; you like oatmeal.”
My cereal killing ceased in grade school when I discovered that oatmeal tastes like ice cream when chilled—if you can swallow my testimony hook, line and sinker.
My conversion was my own making. One morning—I think I was 10 years old—I felt so guilty about fooling people, I decided to hide my crime in the refrigerator. I shoved the bowl in the vegetable compartment, next to the lettuce.
Later that day, I heard my Uncle Gustav talk about how there was famine in Africa. He showed pictures of children my age looking like they were five-year-old kids. Their ribs stuck out and their eyes were hollowed from hunger and neglect.
Deeply affected, I took out my bowl of hatred, ate it with emotion, and it became my bowl of contrition.
But did I tell you how I used to be a milk-hater? No. Maybe next time.