Tantalus

Day 7 of the Death-by-Yam detoxification regime:
For the most part, sticking to my strict yam-nivorous diet has been relatively easy. You see, one of the ways my mother convinced me to even try out her detox thing was by assuring me that both her and my father would be detoxing at the same time as me. So for the past week, they've as good as kept thier word. Our fridge was only stocked with yams and brown rice and grains and the only thing to drink in the house was water.
Until yesterday.
I came home from work, absolutely famished. I was longing for pizza, cupcakes and a big bottle of guinness. Or at the very least, a Tim Horton's medium one and one with a honey cruller.
Just a bit of coffee to moisten my lips even.

I ran into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Yams, brown rice, a soggy eggplant and more yams. They mocked me.

I closed my eyes and reached for a yam. I ate it, chewing my requisite thirty bites per mouthful and gulped. It felt like a dry wad of paper slipping down my throat. Never had I hated eating something this much before.
In the end, I was full but not satiated. I drank two cups of water in the hopes it would fool my system into thinking it wasn't craving cookies. It didn't work.

I went to my room and curled up with a novel to keep my mind off my naughty food list. I heard my parents come home and muck about the kitchen preparing their yams and brown rice. I buried my nose deeper into my book and prepared myself for hte stench of steaming yams wafting up to my room.

But none came.

Instead, the most amazing odor my depraved senses had ever smelled came wafting up in a warm, delicious wave- tickling my olfactory sensors and causing me to involuntarily salivate.
I wiped my chin and wandered downstairs. I followed my nose. It always knows.

The smell got stronger as I neared the kitchen and dining room. I closed my eyes and stepped into the dining room. I opened my eyes and stood there, stunned. My parents, like guilty deer in headlights looked back up at me from most amazing feast ever: tender pink smoked salmon with a slice of lemon, steamed whole dungenous crab, barbecued asparagus, and a delicately chilled bottle of chardonnay.

"I only said I'd go on the diet for a week," said my father defensively before I'd even said anything.
I looked at my mother and gave her a 'and what's your excuse?' look.
"Don't look at us," said my mother, between concentrating on ripping the juicy meat off a crab leg, "FLEE FROM TEMPTATION! FLEE! Go back to your room and read."
She dipped the meat in some red wine vinegar and raised it to her lips.

I plopped myself down at the table and just stared at them.
"We did the detox thing with you for a week to get you going on it. We think you're well on your way now so we can stop."
"How is that fair?! How come I have to do the full twenty one days?! WHY ME?!"
They gave me the whole talk about how I was looking "toxic" and it was for my own good and how they did the diet for twenty one days in February already.
"YOU! Y-YOU CAN'T EAT THAT IN FRONT OF ME RIGHT NOW!" I screamed at them.

My dad told me to go to my room. But I didn't want to go. I couldn't go. I was transfixed on the smoked salmon. And the crab. And the wine. I wanted it all.

"You're just making it worse for yourself."
"Whatever. I'm staying here and I'm going to stare at you both while you eat. Just to make you squirm."

My parents shrugged and kept on eating like I wasn't in the room. I wiped the drool off my chin and asked my mom if I could just sniff her wine and her smoked salmon for a bit. "I'm not going to eat it. I . . . I just want a sniff."

My parents exchanged concerned looks and finally, my mom shooed me from the table and told me to go to my room and finish reading.

I sighed and left the table. As I got to the base of the stairs, I turned and shouted back, "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!! WHAT KIND OF SICK FREAKS EAT SEAFOOD AND WINE IN FRONT OF THEIR STARVING DAUGHTER?!"

All I heard back was "MMMMMMmm, this crab sure is good!"

Cruel. That's what they are. Although, to be fair, I'm not actually starving. In fact, I've gained four pounds since I started eating this stupid detox diet. You eat like a cow, you start weighing like one. Why is it that all the vegetarian/herbivores out there are the fatties in nature? The hippos, the elephants, the cows, pandas and camels. They're all Fatty McFattersons. You never see an overweight cheetah or lion running around do you? Bears are the only chubby carnivores I can think of and they mostly live off berries anyway.

It really doesn't make any sense.

Then again, what makes sense anymore? I'm stuck here eating yams and brown rice while my parents are in the other room right now entertaining my dad's old navy buddy's family with barbecued steaks, rack of lamb, barbecued chicken wings and beer. I just sat at the bar in the kitchen and kept eating watermelon till I thought I would explode.

I was eating the watermelon, but imagining it was a barbecued chicken wing. It didn't really work. All it did was make me pee twenty times in the last hour and drain me of my electrolytes .

I went into the kitchen just now to ask my mom to at least give me a salt lick. "You can't make me drink three litres of water a day and not allow any salt in my diet! I'm going to die!"

My mom let me pour a few grains of Lawry's seasoning salt on my hand and lick it off. For a second, it felt like I was licking the skin of a crispy roasted Peking duck. I bit into my hand to get more duck.
"OW!"

Low point.

But not as low as when I was feeding the clinic cats today and almost tried to eat their food cus it smelled so good to me. I was just about to lick the spoon I had used to scoop their food for them before I caught myself and told myself, "SNAP OUT OF IT VIV! IT'S CAT FOOD! YOU'RE A GIRL! YOU'D BE AN ABOMINATION!"

Definite low point.

You have no idea how good that cat food is smelling to me these days though.

But enough about me and my obsession with food.
I must go now and face my demons.

Wish me duck.

I mean luck.