she liveth (at least presently)-in a pickle

(I am willing to overlook the fact that I have not posted for five months, if you are.)

So let's get to it: My recent trip exceeded all of my expectations, and I refuse to allow this fact to be eclipsed by my present situation, which mainly involves me sitting on the sofa in front of the computer with a quite recently empty plate by my side and also a quite recently empty glass (more on the dishware in a moment--ahhh, the plot here thickens, I assure you).

An hour ago I was being very responsible by parsing through my backed-up email accounts, separating the "World Will End if You Do Not Immediately Respond to This" emails from the daily "I Wasn't A Girl Scout but That Doesn't Make Me a Lesser Person Just Because I Can't Build a Canoe Out of Postage Stamps" emails, which I admit are of the motivational kind. The world, so it appears, did not stop during the weeks I stopped* while traveling abroad.

Now I find myself in a bit of a bind. Mere minutes have passed since the house phone rang and, as is my habit, I let the call be picked up by the answering machine.** And then came an important, perhaps even life altering, message in what was a strange vocal crisscross among God, Big Brother, and that GPS woman with the overwrought British accent, whom all of your boyfriends select to be the one to navigate them to Dick's Sporting Goods around the corner, as they are pretending:

1) to be dating her
2) to be James Bond
3) or to be both dating her and James Bond.
(This little vixen, by the way, obviously refers to Strunk and White regularly--her grammar is irritatingly spot-on always), though trust me--if she could, she'd be a lifetime subscriber to Cosmo, too. See ** or strumpet).

Over the answering machine, the voice spoke to what could have easily been a non-existent audience were it not for my previously mentioned self-discipline and responsibility.

"Hello. It has been brought to our attention that someone***in your household purchased an organic cucumber from the Howland Giant Eagle between May 25 and May 29. We are calling to inform that person, our valued customer, that an urgent recall has been initiated as it is believed that some or all of our organic cucumbers purchased between May 25 and May 29 may be linked to a salmonella outbreak. Please do NOT (emphasis mine) consume your organic cucumber. You may bring your organic cucumber along with your receipt to the Howland Giant Eagle where you, as a valued customer, will receive a full refund. Should you have any further questions, please contact your Howland Giant Eagle, the Center for Disease Control, or your closest emergency room."****

Right. As I assume my readers are the quick and clever sort, you have already guessed at my problem here (beyond the creepy feeling induced by my stalker local grocer). For anyone who is not putting two and one together: my plate, only very recently empty as just mentioned, and my glass, also only very recently empty as just mentioned, are both so because it seems as though my afternoon tea at The Claridge Hotel in London 2 weeks ago (consisting of not a list, but a book, of tea choices, confections that Kate What's Her Name swore off the day William proposed and you guessed it: an abundance of cucumber sandwiches) inspired me OH BRILLIANT GIRL THAT I AM to make my own little feast of cucumber sandwiches for lunch, which of course required that I buy organic (no pesticides for this Brilliant Girl oh no, no, no) cucumbers from the Howland Giant Eagle. Yes, between May 25 and May 29.

Oh. God save the Queen! I'm fairly certain that I just felt the first pang of a bacteria-induced cramp in my stomach. Just moments ago, I was feeling very prim and cultured as I nibbled on dainty little cucumber sandwiches. And, and! I was feeling very full-speed-ahead-life-is-too-short-for-plain-old-drinking-water, so I decided to spike mine with...OH GOD NO.

Now we feel a bit silly, don't we? It is one thing to be taken down in convulsions from eating the exotic likes of puffer fish or even some disgustingly good chicken salad at a Memorial Day Picnic, but a cucumber? An organic cucumber!!!!

I can see the obit now:

Woman, 32, dies from playing tea party in her parents' house (where she lived)

or

World traveler, 32, perishes not while doing something brave like horseback riding on a cliff or driving on the left hand side of the very (obscenely, really) narrow road in the Irish countryside but from a certified organic cuke

It is very considerate of the Howland Giant Eagle contact me, its valued customer (Business 101: DO NOT KILL YOUR CUSTOMER), but perhaps in the future (God willing) but perhaps in the future, it could be a bit more prompt in stalking me and my purchases.

I imagine that as I sit here on the sofa waiting for the first sweat-inducing wave of nausea to hit, I feel very much like a woman about to go into labor, or a recent graduate skydiving with one foot in the airplane and one foot not in the airplane. THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN. YOUR CONSENSUS AT THIS POINT IS IMMATERIAL.

Should I survive, I have much to write about my recent travels including the present working titles:

The No. 1 Fix When You are an American in Paris Who is Quickly Developing Low Self Esteem Despite Decades of Self-Esteem Education Due to Your Increasingly Obvious Inability to Speak French.

When the Utterance of the Simple Phrase "1776" while Visiting London is Not Only NOT Rude but Totally Called For.

and oh I just thought of this one:

The Bright Side of Food Poisoning: Yeah, Those Five Pounds You Gained from the 10,000 Scones You Ate in Ireland? Consider Them Gone. Cheers!

Keeping calm. Carrying on.
m.

*"Stopped" of course is used here for the dramatic effect which can be achieved through the careful and well-plotted use of parallel grammatical structure and repetition, as astutely pointed out by Strunk and White (for those to whom this reference means nothing, Strunk and White's language guide is to English professors what Cosmo is to strumpets). Visiting nine cities and a (now dead) duck who unfortunately crossed my path suggest that I did not, in fact, stop much in Europe.

**I realize that this post forces me to admit to the world (and myself) that I am in fact living with my parents just a few weeks shy of my 33rd birthday. My parents are one of only four people I know who still have a land line, though I am NOT judging because I was the girl who made all the tenants in my Manhattan brownstone sign a promise to not disconnect their landlines so that in the highly unlikely event that something like the Great Blackout of August 2002 occured again, my then boyfriend who lived downstairs in the building could not entirely ignore me by claiming his cell phone was out of commission and he swears baby he was just in his living room with his roommates having a prayer circle the entire night and sooooo not out with the Wall Street boys wreaking nocturnal havoc in TriBeCa while I was stuck in an elevator. ANYWAYS.

***Me!!!!!!!!!!!!

****OK, OK, I made up this last bit.