THE FAINTING INCIDENT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF9-sEbqDvU

My friend Ari sent me the link above, saying that it reminded her of me. (You gotta watch the clip in order to understand what the hell I'm talking about, just so you know.)

I can't believe I've gone my whole life never relating to anyone or anything on the level that I instantly connected with Marcel the talking shell. The ONLY thing I didn't say "Yes! Yes! Me too, Marcel!" to was when he said he goes hang-gliding on Doritos for adventure. I would never go hang-gliding, or do anything for adventure for that matter. But... yeah, everything else, spot on.

I laughed especially hard when he said he once fainted from smelling a dirty sneaker because... well... I'm only slightly less pathetic. Or maybe exactly the same amount of pathetic. I'm about to tell you about THE FAINTING INCIDENT.

Years ago when I was in college ( I like to say it that way because it makes me feel cool), I was having lunch with Bex in the University Center on the UCSB campus. We were sitting at a table in the food court, and she was telling me a story. I was being an avid listener, until I banged my elbow on the wooden armrest of my chair. At that point, an electric jolt of intense pain started bouncing along all the nerve highways (scientific term) between my elbow and brain. My eyes went dead, my bottom jaw lost its muscle band, and my mouth formed quiet "Ow"s every three seconds. Bex gave me exactly the kind of look warranted and asked was I okay? "Ow. O-ow. O-o-o-w...." My voice started getting lower, slower, and more earthen. Bex's eyebrows raised in concern just as I face-planted into my sandwich.

...

Oh, what a nice dream. I guess I'll wake up now. Wait what time is it? I opened my eyes and found them staring at my hands in my lap. That's weird, I'm sitting? Where am I? I suppose I should lift my head from its perch on my chest here. Oh. "Hey Bex, um, I was just dreaming."

"(single white female)? (SINGLE WHITE FEMALE)?!!? What the hell just happened? Are you OKAY?!!" Bex was next to me, clearly just as confused as I was.

"Uh, yeah, I just hit my elbow and then... it hurt and then...." **weak laughter** I looked around to see a bunch of old people staring at me and one of them shouting that an ambulance was on its way. Awesome. "No, I'm fine, I'm fine, really. God this is so embarrassing." I wanted to run and hide in my shell like Marcel. I wanted everyone to stop looking at me. And I wanted to eat my sandwich. Unfortunately, the paramedics arrived and I had to hang my blushing head and take me and my sandwich-less tummy outside to be checked out. All my vitals were good (doctor talk, no?) and they started asking if I'd been dieting and not eating enough lately. They asked specifically if I'd eaten anything that day. This was around 1:00 or so in the afternoon. My mouth spewed the truth out before I had a chance to think about it. "Oh yeah, let's see... I had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich... a chocolate chip cookie...a bag of pretzels... like four pieces of cheese... some sushi... a small dog... a stereo... OH, and I was ABOUT to eat a sandwich," I hinted, thumbing behind me in the direction of my fifth meal that day. A moment of silence passed in honor of the fact that everyone was judging me and trying not to laugh.

"Well, miss.... I guess you just fainted from the pain??" The upward lilt at the end of his sentence hung in the air like an unwanted Cheshire Cat's grin. I wanted to take the paramedic's question mark and rap him in the nose with it, HARD. I turned to leave, barely hearing the murmured "take it easy"s and such behind me, eager to put the whole incident behind me.

And I have, really. I haven't fainted since, although I've now developed a FEAR of fainting, so that's cool. The whole thing would've been forgotten years ago, if it weren't for my darling brother's reenactments to keep the running joke going. About every eight months, he'll casually walk by me in a room, pretend to run into something and bonk his elbow, and then he'll dutifully go limp and collapse to the ground in a heap of dead weight. **round of applause please**

UNRELATED NOTE ABOUT VEGANISM: I'm trying to get away from eating so much soy. At the restaurant where I work, I've been spoiling myself with Daiya mozzarella-style vegan cheese, tasty blackened "mock" chicken, tofu sauteed in tahini-ginger sauce, and "milk" shakes made from a soy-based vegan ice cream. All of these things except for the Daiya cheese are chock-full of soy soy soy soy soy. I think all the research done on the effects of high levels of soy products in a person's diet are as of yet inconclusive and wishy-washy at best, but I've read in numerous sources that the phytoestrogen content might be harmful to breast cancer survivors and then might not be good for post-menopausal women, so I think it might mean that everyone should keep an eye on their soy intake. I'm just scared that in the next five years researchers are gonna publish the headline "OH SHIT! OUR BAD! SOY KILLS PEOPLE! SORRY, GUYS!"Juuuuust in case, I'm gonna start paying more attention to what has soy in it. Bex reminded me the other day how important it is to steer clear of ANY processed foods whenever possible, and I am starting to get back to the simplistic vegan roots that got me excited when I first started my journey with the vegan lifestyle. Just a couple days of whole grains, legumes, and lots of veggies, and I'm already feeling like a more efficient machine. Thanks Bex!