HumorIs – Adam Overland

Bathe me in A1 and au jus, for I am not a salad eater, though I long to be one.

I bought two bags of croutons and three bottles of salad dressing and now the croutons are gone. I bought these items in yet another attempt at becoming a person who eats salads, a person who I am not and have never been but want to be. One of the normal people, the people who respect their bodies and the planet. Instead, I am a person who eats croutons, like chips out of the bag. I have consumed A1 sauce straight from the bottle and would happily bathe in au jus. My body exists for warfare, in ceaseless battle with the more devious parts of my mind.

This is not my first salad foray, but this time my intentions were particularly premeditated. Back in May, I planted this loose-leaf lettuce (I don’t know lettuce names, but it’s not the round ball kind). It’s right outside my kitchen window in a little flower box so that I can see it every day, waving at me in the breeze, taunting me. And so finally, with the salad overflowing the flower box, I went to the grocery store and got the croutons, knowing they are a key salad ingredient—perhaps the most critical ingredient, at least for the salad novice. Though the dressing seems to be equally important, and so I purchased Greek vinaigrette, house Italian, and restaurant style Italian. Are these good dressings? Because I do know the value of condiments. Condiments are key—entire refrigerator doors are dedicated to them. 

This time I’m trying to be a salad guy because I recently attended an event for a freelance story I’m working on. The Minnesota secretary of state was there, and lots of business people. Working from home since the pandemic, I’ve not once put on my fancy pants, which is what I call my work pants, which are pants that basically are not 1) jeans 2) shorts 3) sweatpants. 

So this was about the first time I’d dressed up in four years, and as I was putting on my fancy pants I went to button them and the waist fell a full inch short of button and buttonhole shaking hands, so to speak, in agreement. Instead, they disagreed and did not shake hands and my pants did not fit, not by a long shot. I tried different pants but got the same result. What of the shirts?, I wondered. They too were in disagreement. Is it possible that because I have worn sweatpants so often, my waist has now expanded due to a lack of compression, whereas when I went to the office, my pants were compressing for 40 hours per week? Fortunately, while pondering this, I found one pair of fancy pants with an elastic waistband, and I had to go with a less fancy, more flexible shirt than I’d intended because the upper parts of me had also possibly become less compressed.

This was not entirely a surprise, as a few days earlier the button on a pair of shorts popped off. I had taken a deep breath to assume buttoning posture, only to exhale and hear a soft pop and see the button drop sadly and settle to the floor, relieved of its duties.  

Truth be told, I prefer snaps to a button, or better yet, a clasp, because otherwise, even in a best case button scenario, you’re dealing with four small holes, each threaded with an amount of thread that could not possibly hope to match the integrity of a waistband, which consists of many more threads. And so naturally, the button is the weakest link in the waistband continuum. It should be banned entirely from pants in my opinion, but the powerful sewing lobby will never allow it.

In my mind, the ideal pants might have some kind of ratcheting device, like those straps you use to tie down a boat or secure a load in a pickup truck. So that you could crank your pants together until they meet, whether they want to or not. And in fact, this is essentially the role of the belt, except that one must button the pants and then belt the pants all before one exhales from buttoning posture or one will find his sad button alone on the floor. So a threaded button is no good. Give me instead the riveted button, put together like an airplane’s fuselage, so that the button does not come undone mid-flight, no matter the turbulence encountered from locomotion or a really big lunch. 

Eventually, you should know, I did make a salad, but I could not finish it and have yet to make another. So has my salad quest failed again? I don’t think so, not yet. Instead, I think it’s possible I’m just not eating the right salads. I believe that what I need now is a transitional salad—a meat salad that acts as an on-ramp to an eventual salad superhighway where I will finally merge gradually into society’s salad lane, joining the good people, respectfully traveling where the arteries flow freely, and where the deer and the antelope play. 

Stay tuned for more salad adventures.