I am not the first to crack wise about food. Jim Gaffigan likes to talk about Hot Pockets. But, he doesn’t fully commit. I paid with my life.

Hot Pockets are death. Nestlé distributes death and your grocer is a death merchant. Try getting Ralph or Von on the phone. Swing by Trader Joe’s and ask for Joe. These guys are nowhere to be found.

Death merchants all.

USDA declares Hot Pockets “unfit for humans.” This is especially true for the ones containing pockets of glass and plastic. Hot Pocket counsel, Ivana Keel Yoo, managing partner of the noted firm, Eet, Schitt, & Dye, says the Government’s claim is just one more case of semantics. “Pepperoni? Plastic? Who’s to really say?”

So, why Hot Pockets? Because death is delicious!

If I’ve noticed one thing 37 days into my second life it is this: Shit on people’s carrot cake and they get defensive.

“We talking just about the cake?”

‘No, Asshole! We’re talking about carrot cake; the dessert defined not by carrots, but by the 33% milk-fat, cream cheese death topping. That carrot cake!”

To be clear. Berries are life. Franken Berries are death.

General Mills is trying to kill you. It’s what generals do!

From this day forward, when you eat carrot cake you will say to yourself: “Carrot cake is death.”

You can’t put it out of your mind, because death is primal. It’s the one fear that binds us as humans. The fear of mutual destruction is the only reason anybody is still here!

Every drama answers the same two questions: How will the writers kill the characters we love to hate, and will the killer use carrot cake?

Humans are also binary. We are literally software; a collection of zeros and ones. No twosies.

It is therefore apt, to frame food and drink the same way.

Coffee is life. Coffee cake is — you see where I’m going with this, right?

Never had to concern myself with good health because I always had it.

My first life was about quantity. I marked time in years.

My second life is about quality. Time, accordingly, will be marked in days.

Down at the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute at Scripps Memorial in La Jolla, they have this guy named Jan on speed dial. Jan is the ultimate plumber.

Your coronary artery is the diameter of spaghetti. Unlike spaghetti it is hollow — right up until the time it’s not because it’s clogged with carrot cake. That’s when they call Jan to re-pipe your spaghetti.

Thanks in no small part to Jan, until the next time I die, I will be insufferable, and November 9, 2022, will forever be known as The Resurrection.

My biggest problem now is deciding whether you should address me as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God of Gods.

Is the Almighty taken?

In My Second Life

Food Is Binary