The Aorta

During the holidays, Josh and I were watching tv at my parents' house and an anti-smoking commercial came on. I haven't seen this commercial in our area at all, which is fortunate, because it's the kind of thing that one only needs to see once because it burns onto the retina and offers itself up unbeckoned for repeated viewing. Or maybe one becomes inured to it.

Anyway, the commercial shows a hand manipulating a flexible flesh-colored piece of tube, and the announcer tells us that the tube is actually the aorta of a 30 year old smoker. For some reason, smoking makes arterial walls sticky and therefore more likely to accumulate plaque. I don't remember why this happens, or even if the commercial explained, because what happened next erased most other details from my brain.

The hand begins to squeeze the tube, and out one end oozes a white cheeselike substance: plaque. It looked quite like the parmesan potatoes they serve at Artie's, to be completely honest.

I'm very susceptible to visual imagery of abused body parts like that. When I was 10 and they showed us pictures of tarry lungs in order to discourage smoking, I was 100% sold on the concept. There are other reasons that I never took up smoking, but the tarry lung is up there.

And now I find that the cheese-filled aorta is causing me to rethink many a food choice. Since I don't smoke, I bypassed the whole point of the commercial and went straight to the healthy eating undertones. I've lost count of how many times I've looked at a food in the store or a restaurant and had my happy daydream of eating it rudely interrupted by the memory of plaque oozing, cheese-like, out of the aorta. I think to myself, "Oh god... the aorta," and then I don't eat the fatty food.

It happened just now in IGA. I was thinking of getting frozen garlic bread, but then I glanced at the nutritional information. The aorta leapt unbidden into my mind, and I went home without garlic bread.

I would normally make my own garlic bread, but the kitchen is still not functional and so I have been taking shortcuts.