I’ll take my doctor’s advice, but deep inside I’ll be mourning two lost food friends

Several years ago, after spending an embarrassingly long time pushing a grocery cart up and down the aisles of one of the largest grocery stores known to humankind — it’s been called the Taj MaTeeter — I finally ended up in the checkout line.

Gazing into the buggy, I laughed out loud because after nearly an hour of hunting and gathering, surrounded by every kind of vittle imaginable, I’d ended up with precisely two items — a bucket of fried chicken from the deli and a watermelon.

Sweet dreams are made of these, amirite?

I wasn’t laughing last week, though, when my doctor, alarmed by my so-called pandemic weight gain, (Yeah, sure: let’s blame the pandemic) started listing things I could no longer eat.

The first two things he named were — I swear — fried chicken and watermelon, (although, I may have actually asked about the latter, certain that he’d respond “Sure, eat all you want.”)

He didn’t say that, though. Noting the severe side-eye I cast his way, he quickly amended “No watermelon” to “Any kind of melon,” and cited its high glycemic index rating.

The first thing one does upon hearing something like that is think “Are you a real doctor?”

The second thing you do is look around the office to see if there are hidden cameras broadcasting your stupefied reaction around the world on some prank TV show.

But dude, the doctor was serious. I should eschew, not chew, chicken that’s fried, he explained, because it’s high in fats, calories and carbohydrates. He warned that watermelon, which I’d always considered the favored food of the gods, was loaded with sugar.

When I protested that cutting out those two life-sustaining entities was like taking away Popeye’s spinach, he offered what he must’ve considered a suitable compromise: I could eat chicken that’s been baked or grilled.

Hmmph. Some compromise. I immediately thought of that old Shakespearean sonnet:

When ol’ Sawbones said it could only be eaten baked, I almost cried.

Don’t he know chicken ain’t chicken unless its been fried?

Unlike a lot of people, I’ve never tried to hide my love for the barnyard pimp or watermelon, nor felt any shame for it. If anything, I’m wary of anyone who doesn’t like them and regard such people with the same suspicion that I view people who profess not to like Elvis, Al Green or sugar in their grits.

Of course, there isn’t enough money to get me to go on TV and sing, dance, smack my lips or moan orgasmically as some people do for a certain fried chicken sandwich.

You know who you are, now cut it out!

Years ago, America’s favorite bigot, Archie Bunker, objected to having a Black female doctor give him a blood transfusion prior to his surgery. She — speaking in a heavy Jamaican patois — sought to reassure him.

Doctor: Don’t worry, m’dear... Everything’s going to be marvelous. Only one thing, though.

Archie: What’s that?

Doctor: When you come out of anesthetic, you may have a straaaaange craving for watermelon.

I must’ve had the same transfusion, because I always wake up with that craving, especially now that my doctor told me I couldn’t have any.

There’s no scientific evidence to back this up — and believe me, I searched for some — but it seems that when a doctor tells you to cut something from your diet, you crave it even more. Why don’t they ever tell you to forgo beets, broccoli or quinoa?

My doctor is a wise man, who in 20 years has never led me astray, so I’m inclined to follow his advice. When you see me in a few months I may be looking buff and fit, but deep inside I’ll be mourning two lost friends.

Raleigh News & Observer Editorial Board member Barry Saunders is founder of thesaundersreport.com

This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 2:28 PM.