For the last 48 hours I’ve been sustaining myself mostly on hospital food and it’s forced me to make an observation. OK, observation might be too strong a work… nothing earth shattering but it’s something I’ve realized over a set of recent events from my life.

First off, I rarely eat breakfast but I’ve two bagels in as many days. A couple of years ago I opted to cut out one or two meals from my daily menu. Before the fitness people jump on me: please, don’t bother. I’ve had this body for 30 years now and I know that if I give it three meals a day – no matter how small the meals are – it will gain too much weight. I’ve had this body longer than you have and I don’t care what reports say – I know what works for me. I exercise six days a week and my metabolism is fine – three meals just gives me too much food. So I dropped breakfast from my daily routine and I sometimes have only a couple of apples or some popcorn for dinner. It suits me fine.

So anyway, the morning bagel is already a change. After that it’s been miscellaneous food from throughout all parts of the local hospital. I’ve been fine but I’ve been retained by my sister to act as a bouncer while she’s in here for recovery. She’s fine too – thankfully! – and is recovering from a surgery. Why a bouncer? We’re Italian. Trust me – it’s required. The single most repeated request that she made in the weeks leading up to the surgery was “Please don’t have a billion people in the room!” because as much as she appreciates the visitors, she wanted a nice and quiet recovery period. Fact is that Italian wakes, hospital visits, and birthday parties are often very similar – the guest of “honor” is often forgotten as stories are told and re-told throughout the room… my services would obviously be required for at least one of the nights she’s in here – I can handily scare children out of a candy store.

And so I’ve had random bits of food from the cafeteria and coffee shop… so much for the skipping a meal or two a day. Just finished a cookie that my Mum had to buy. The coffee is mostly mud. The cheeseburger from yesterday was fried and well seasoned but still sorta snack bar-eqsue quality: OK to eat but hardly something you’d come to the cafe for on purpose…

The revelation? The only two things that prevents hospital food from being called “gas station food” is the lack of unleaded fumes in the air and the fact that you can’t charge it to your Exxon card. Told ya… nothing earth shattering but still sorta profound, I think.

I think I’ll look into writing fortune cookies for baka guijin as a new career…