Day Two: I Want to Lick a Goat

The problem that I have always had with goat is that it tastes like goat.  I imagine that if you licked a goat, it would taste like goat milk, goat yogurt, goat cheese, or a goat gyro.  That is the problem that I have always had with goat.  It tastes like goat.

Today, I had the urge to lick a goat.

I think this statement probably requires a little backstory.

Several months ago, my wife finally got the guts to do a detox.  We’d talked about it before.  I’d discussed it with my chiropractor.  She’s the one who finally got the nerve to do it.  Of course, in fashion that truly suits her style, she stumbles across this thing called “The Master Cleanse.”  And, of course, being who she is, she decides to take this path of most resistance and attempt the ten-day cleanse.

Calling it a cleanse is accurate.  It is accurate in ways that I will not explore with you, gentle reader.  Calling it The Master Cleanse may sound like hyperbole, but, truly, it is not.  It is the grandaddy of all cleanses.  Not that I’ve personally undertaken “others.”  However, I am beginning to feel the fury of THE MASTER CLEANSE.

It goes like this: for ten days, you eat nothing.  Instead, you drink lemonade all day long.  Sounds like a plan, no?  The lemons must be fresh.  The water must be purified.  To the lemonade, you add maple syrup.  Not the kind you get at Denny’s, mind you.  This stuff is REAL maple syrup.  It’s called “Grade B” or something like that.  It’s pure, and it doesn’t taste anything like Mrs. Butterworth.  To this concoction, you add cayenne pepper.  That’s right; cayenne pepper.  It’s not a secret recipe, folks.  Just Google it.

So, my wife does The Master Cleanse.  I get it into my thick head that I, too, should like to do The Master Cleanse.  However, the timing isn’t right.  So I wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Until, suddenly, I get the wild hair and decide that I should like to do this Master Cleanse now.  That is where I currently find myself: at the beginning of this ten-day journey.

So, it has been two days.  Two very long days.  I am already beginning to understand the mechanism of hunger.  It is much more psychological than anything else.  You see, the lemonade provides vitamins, minerals, and enough calories to sustain moderate human activity.  I won’t be working out too strenuously these next eight days.  So, I am truly not starving myself.  It’s more like…a less-than-nutritional diet.  Of course, I am not doing this to lose weight.  With day three on the horizon, I am simply trying to stick with it.

Day three is supposed to be the hardest day.  Today was hard.  Luckily, there was no free food on the Cabinet of Carnage at work, the resting place of all leftover food.  Fewer people at the meeting than you thought would come?  Leave the food on the Cabinet of Carnage.  Leftover pizza from a team recognition luncheon?  Leave the food on the Cabinet of Carnage.  A few surplus donuts after that breakfast presentation?  Leave the food on the Cabinet of Carnage.  This is how my world works.  And today, for a change, my vote was cast for an empty cabinet.  One day down, eight more to go.

Do you know what is amazing?  I’ll tell you.  When, for two days, you haven’t eaten anything solid or that doesn’t taste like lemonade with maple syrup and cayenne pepper, you notice how intricately linked your sense of smell is with your sense of taste.  When you breathe deeply enough of any aroma, you can actually taste that which you are smelling.  I came home to the smell of pasta with tomato sauce, and I could literally taste it in my mouth.  You know, the tongue of a snake actually picks particles up from the air.  The tongue is placed in a special organ in the roof of the snake’s mouth commonly referred to as “Jacobson’s Organ.”  I don’t know why.  The organ is actually comprised of two pits in the roof of the mouth.  They are separated, much like our nostrils are.  This is why reptile have forked tongues.  There; don’t say I never learned ya nuthin’.  In essence, they are tasting what they smell.  Or smelling what they taste.  Something like that.  Point being that the two sense are linked.  Intricately linked.  Remember that the next time you stand next to something, or someone, with an unpleasant aroma.

Hence, my goat theory.

With smell quickly replacing taste, I find that all this stuff happens in your brain more so than in the actual parts of your body.  Or, rather, I should say that the processing of these senses happens in the brain.  I know, not a huge or universe-changing revelation, but you become more acutely aware of how your body works when you push it outside normal operating parameters.  And that is precisely what I am discovering: that my physical body is something entirely different from and, perhaps, detached from my conscious self.

Damn, Erin was right.

Unfortunately, my conscious self wants a sandwich.  The only other thing, apart from the lemonade, which I am required to drink and which has a pleasant taste is tea.  Not any tea, of course.  This is a…laxative tea.  Called “Smooth Move.”  Seriously.

My mouth yearns to chew.  My tongue yearns to taste something other than lemonade with maple syrup and cayenne pepper.  And it’s only day two.

I want to lick a goat.