“I’ll take that black and blue,” I tell the waiter at Peter Luger, the steakhouse where I’m ordering my last meal. “And an oversized baked potato with creamed spinach on the side,” I add, reciting the menu from memory.
That’s what I’m thinking about in the exam room, waiting for Dr. Fish. No People magazines here. I’ll never know which celebrity “wore it best”. It’s time for my six-month check-up and blood work. Dr. Fish is running late. I haven’t eaten in twelve hours. My stomach is rumbling—or maybe that’s the porterhouse sizzling on the grill.
I’m on death row but, in my version, the rules are different. You get to have your final meal in a restaurant instead of a prison. I don’t want the smell of open toilets and clanging cell doors interfering with my digestion. And if I’m not too depressed about dying, I might even have the “Holy Cow Hot Fudge Sundae” and coffee with a gallon of cream.
What am I guilty of? High cholesterol and getting fat. My triglycerides are waving a red cape, and I still want to eat the bull. But I’ve been trying—not even a skinny calf has passed these lips in months. And I joined a gym. Maybe next month, I’ll go.
It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when a wedge of brie and a bottle of wine was dinner without regret. I was trim, my liver fit, and the word “lipid” wasn’t in my vocabulary. I was a free woman. But somewhere along the way, my joyful eating became a crime with consequences: jeans tight as handcuffs and blood numbers edging close to a cliff. Now, I’m in low-fat prison for life, with no parole for good behavior. Just statins and hard time in the vegetable aisle. Raw kale and cauliflower are punishing.
There’s a knock. The doctor’s model-thin assistant comes in to weigh me.
“Okay, step on the scale.”
I remove my earrings and socks.
“Please don’t tell me what I weigh,” I say, facing backwards. What I don’t know won’t ruin my day.
Is that look about my weight, or did she notice my bunions and hammertoes? I forgot that my feet, body parts I usually hide, are bare.
“Let’s get some blood,” she says, snapping a blue rubber tourniquet in front of my face. She wraps it tightly around my arm. “Your veins are so thin—you should drink more water to plump them up.”
Did she actually say that I have a body part that needs plumping? She hits her target on the first ouch. Slender and talented! Why is the tube filling so slowly? Is that my blood—or strawberry fudge?
Finally, she slaps on a Band-Aid. With a smiley face. “Dr. Fish will be in shortly. Oh, and that paper gown—it’s supposed to open in the front.”
Of course it is. Oh well, maybe Dr. Fish will think I wear it best.
Thank goodness she’s gone. She’s probably dropping my specimen off at the lab. Maybe they’ll find traces of butter in my platelets. Then Dr. Fish will want to up my statins—and advise me to lay off the wine. He’ll lecture me again on the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet and tell me how it can extend my life. Which would be great if I were actually in the Mediterranean, perhaps on a Greek island with my feet buried in the sand, hammertoes and bunions concealed. But I’m not. I’m in an exam room—or is it death row? And I’m starving.
Diet rules and lab results be damned.
“Waiter. Bring a bottle of your best Cabernet—and the porterhouse, black and blue.”
Maddy is a freelance copywriter, New York City tour guide, and the former director and scriptwriter for Radio City Music Hall’s venue tours. Her creative work has appeared in Newsday, Months to Years, and Little Old Lady Comedy and is forthcoming in Defenestration. When she’s not writing or wandering Manhattan with tourists, she can be found snuggling her rescue dog, Harvey, or eating everything bagels.