BEWARE OF GREEN FOOD -- ANOTHER HANDY HEALTH HINT

A while back I had a heart procedure done at a local hospital. As we checked out, Spouse suggested lunch at a Chinese restaurant since they serve many healthy vegetables. This particular restaurant also serves its own version of pizza and a few Mexican dishes apparently for those Chinese-food haters who were dragged along against their will.

I chose my usual favorites – the healthy fried egg roll, the healthy fried shrimp rangoon, the healthy fried rice, making it a point to skip the fish bait which no one should eat unless they want parasites and hepatitis. However, considering I had just been released from the hospital, I did make a concession to have some healthy guacamole.

We weren’t too far into our meal when I loaded my fork with a big glob of guacamole. No chopsticks for me, no siree bob. As soon as the guacamole entered my mouth, I had a nanosecond of exploration of this substance along with the immediate thoughts : Hmmm . . . "What an odd texture for guacamole." followed by a most inelegant "What the f . . . !" right before my eyeballs started spinning in their sockets. Then, while the top of my head blew off like Space Shuttle launch, green stuff started flowing from my ears, nose, and mouth as I tried desperately to rid myself of this Al K. Duh-inspired poison. If you have ever had your mouth fumigated with a blow torch and then rinsed with rubbing alcohol, you have some idea of the experience of this guacamole. Of course, Spouse has no idea of what’s going on and thinks something has gone wrong with my heart again. I can’t talk because my tongue and teeth are in flames, and I’m still trying to get the stuff out before, God forbid, it should go down my throat. Somehow in the midst of my physical chaos, I noticed a woman two tables away pointing at me and laughing. Bitch. She wouldn’t think it was so funny if it was her hair that was singed from the inside-out.

Afterwards, we learned that the Chinese guacamole was actually wasabe, some sort of nuclear horseradish that probably glows in the dark. People who go to Chinese, Japanese, and other -ese restaurants to eat fish bait apply a dot of this green stuff (which masquerades as guacamole) about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Apparently they believe it will act like Germ-X and kill all the parasites, viruses, and bacteria in the fish bait they are eating. And they just may be right.