For anyone who has ever had an MRI, this might be old news, but for those who have never had the pleasure of being slid into a tube and asked to remain motionless for an hour, I feel like some sort of analogy is in order… so here it is: now I know how a Hot Pocket feels.
You might think that this would have been a momentary feeling, but it wasn’t. For an hour, I felt like a Hot Pocket.
Of course, thirty years ago, I would have said I felt like a Pop Tart being slid into a toaster but with the advances in microwave technology, I feel that the Hot Pocket analogy is even more spot on. I will forgo the obvious questions surrounding what flavor of Pop Tart I would have been, just like I’ll avoid the question of what Hot Pocket meat would be lurking inside me. Those types of inquiries threaten to derail even the most stuffy story.
If, despite this warning, you feel the urge to shout out “Strawberry!” or “Brown Sugar Cinnamon!” I’ll ask you to try and restrain yourself moving forward.
If you feel the urge to repeat the words “stuffy story” in your head a few times, I completely understand.
So, I was in the tube and with everything that I am- Enriched Flour (wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Reduced Fat Mozzarella Cheese (pasteurized Part Skim Milk, Nonfat Milk, Modified Food Starch, Cultures, Salt, Vitamin A Palmitate, Enzymes), Pepperoni (pork, Beef, Salt, Water, Dextrose, Spices, Lactic Acid Starter Culture, Oleoresin Of Paprika, Garlic Powder, Sodium Nitrite, Bha, Bht, Citric Acid), Tomato Paste, Palm Oil, Margarine (palm Oil, Water, Soybean Oil, Sugar, Mono & Diglycerides, Soybean Lecithin, Potassium Sorbate And Citric Acid [preservatives], Annatto And Turmeric Color, Vitamin A Palmitate), Whey, Soybean Oil, Fractionated Palm Oil, Modified Food Starch, Yeast, Dough Conditioner Blend (calcium Sulfate, Salt, Lcysteine Hydrochloride, Garlic Powder, Tricalcium Phosphate, Enzymes), Salt, Dried Garlic, Sugar, Spices, Dried Onions, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Maltodextrin, Potassium Chloride, CitricAcid, Soy Flour, and Egg Whites- I wondered to myself, “Will I be delicious?”
It was a long hour, lying still while embracing my Hot Pocketness.
Eventually, I felt the little tray I was lying on begin to move and I realized I was leaving the safety of the MRI machine. My stomach tightened. What I waited for my whole life was about to happen. I was literally made for this moment. Was it fear or exhilaration I felt? About to be consumed. Transformed. I envisioned an enormous creature waiting for me to emerge so it could bite off my feet. I realized I would no longer feel them as it chewed, but I would still be fully aware of my fillings beginning to squirt out of my legs.
Am I delicious?
In the end, it doesn’t really matter if I’m a Pop Tart, Hot Pocket, or human; life is finite. Everything we do is just a story and every story builds up to a conclusion. The best we can hope for is that we enjoy the ride and that story takes some interesting twists and turns before we stop being one thing and become another.
Did I find love?
Did I find meaning?
Was I delicious?