Larabar

One man's trash is another man's snack.

Writer David Sedaris tells a story about his late father, Lou, who would eat anything. According to Sedaris, Lou opened up an old suitcase and saw, in his words, “a brown something-or-other” which he then popped into his mouth. Sedaris wondered why “a full-grown man would place a foreign object into his mouth, especially if it was brown and discovered in a rarely used suitcase.” Lou’s defense was he thought it might be a cookie.

Which brings me to my husband Sam. See, every spring our town has bulk trash pick-up, and yesterday, while riding our bikes, we saw one of those highly engineered baby jogging strollers out on the curb. Thinking it would be perfect for our grandson, we raced back to get the car to retrieve it. Once home, we set the jogger down in the driveway to inspect it more closely. It was in sound structural shape, and though moderately filthy. I had gone into the house to get cleaning supplies and on my way back passed Sam holding a fistful of wrappers.

“Were those in the stroller?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, his mouth full.

“Wait. What are you eating?”

“There was a Larabar that hadn’t even been opened.”

Bear in mind the stroller had been sitting out on the curb for god knows how long and in some cobwebby garage for god knows how long before that. It was destined for the garbage truck. Somewhere in its dank underbelly sat the forgotten Larabar beneath a layer of wrappers, ignored even by the rodents who had started to make a meal of the foam of the baby seat.

“The wrapper was intact,” he said.

“It was sitting in an abandoned baby stroller.”

“It had a sell-by date of October 2021.”

“Oh my god, Sam.”

“I didn’t eat all of it. Just a few bites. It tasted fine.”

Generally speaking, I find Sam’s casual approach to food dropped on the floor or left to fester for way, way too long in the refrigerator appalling. And yet, here is a man who has had food poisoning exactly zero times. I have had food poisoning several times, apparently because my digestive tract has been pampered by my common sense avoidance of foodstuffs I suspect are crawling with bacteria.

As much as I found this jaw-dropping, I also found it fascinating. To have the impulse to put something you just came across randomly and don’t know won’t kill you requires a certain faith in your body to handle it, which Sam possesses in spades.

Post Larabar, I waited for Sam to start projectile vomiting, but he just went on to have a regular day.

I realize I am married to a man who settles the question about something being edible by eating it. It’s not my approach, or the approach of a typical person, but the part of me that isn’t shuddering is quite genuinely and totally in awe.