It's 2 a.m. and There's Nothing to Eat in This House

Special thanks to Jim Whitaker for allowing me to share his humor here:

Am I famished. It's two o'clock in the morning – I haven't eaten anything since around midnight and that was just a pickle loaf on rye sandwich with a side of rice pudding – and, although I'm not third-world hungry, I'm at least Scandinavian hungry, however hungry that is.

Grab the flashlight and let's sneak over to the snack shelf in my covert panic food pantry. Let's look here … aahhh! … oh … why is there a cat on the snack shelf? Scat! 

 Here's what we have from which to choose the makings of our 2 am gastronomic calamity:

OK, we have potato chips … mesquite barbeque flavor, North Carolina barbeque flavor, South Carolina barbeque flavor, Eskimo barbeque flavor, peanut butter and jalapeño flavor… Eskimos do too barbeque… loaded baked potato potato chips (isn't that like flavoring a steak with drippings from your cheeseburger?), don't call them plain anymore they're "classic" potato chips, lamb and mint potato chips (maybe better save those for Easter), ketchup flavored potato chips (now that's the only flavor on a chip that makes sense), yogurt and green onion flavor, smoked salmon and capers flavor… well, we've hit our limit on the chip flavors once we got to fish. 

OK, we have crackers, wheat, saltines, unsalted tops saltines making them just tines, chicken flavored (have you ever considered just where the cracker and chip people get the meat flavoring for meat-flavored products that normally aren't meat flavored? They may be just one step ahead of Purina.), chicken soup flavored, meatloaf flavored, snack crackers (the crackers that explain themselves), oyster crackers, animal crackers (if an oyster can have its own cracker…), graham crackers (argue about that really being a cookie later, it's 2:15 in the morning, for crying out loud), melba crackers, goldfish-shaped cheese crackers … well, here we are at fish again.

OK, we have dried fruit, just add water. 

OK, we have granola bars, the box is empty, a casualty of the earlier-in-the- evening raid on the snack shelf.

OK, we have cookies … sounds like something we should enable … walnut balls, chip and dip cookies with real crushed potato chips as the salty surprise (must be from the bag the cat was sleeping on), oatmeal raisin, coconut chew, Skoal mint chew (health care reform politically incorrect cookie but really habit forming), chocolate chip, double chocolate chip, chunky chocolate chip, ultimate chocolate chip, peanut butter chip chocolate chip, cherry choc … no wonder Santa Claus is so jolly …olate chip, sugar cookies (who put those Ugly Betties on this shelf?), vanilla cookies with chocolate filling (bipolar Oreos), fortune cookies (it beats handing one of those physic hotlines your cell phone number and fortune cookies are 78.6 percent more accurate), animal crackers (I have absolutely no problem with animal crackers ... why are we "normal" eating rhino cookies yet considerd strange if eating dog biscuits?

Ho-hum. Not much variety there, huh?

If you keep it quiet, I'll take you to the "other" snack shelf – the one nobody else knows about. It's a secret. Well, at least it was until 15 words ago.

Here we have …

Nine Lives seafood gourmet … the cat's been here, too … 

We have chocolate covered ants. Wait a minute, those are just ants. Making off with my chocolate. Environmentalists, turn your heads. Nobody steals my chocolate.

We have canned fried squid imported from Singapore.

No?

Grilled spiders from Cambodia. Oh what a wicked web …sorry.

No?

Deep-fried Twinkies on a stick imported from wherever they're not outlawed now by some persnickety local government with "our best interests" in mind because we can't think for ourselves.

No?

Crocodile tips in mushroom sauce from Australia that some persnickety local government should have banned.

No?

Pocky from Asia.

I don't know what it is. Here, you try it first.

No?

Steamed chestnuts from Great Britain. Ah, they smell like a favorite suit fresh from the dry cleaners. Or maybe prior to the dry cleaners.

No?

Maruka ikaten. 

Yes, I know what it is. Fried cuttle fish. We're back to fish again. 

You're awful picky for 2:27 in the morning.

It's just as well, though. Snacking now would ruin my breakfast. We're having chunky chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. And there's a salty surprise inside, too.

P.S. After my wife read this column and somehow learned about the snack shelves, she's demanding to know just where they are located. Well, I'm not divulging until she reveals to me the clandestine spot where she hides the sugar-dusted double fudge dipped strawberries with watermelon-kiwi bubble gum centers.

So she ain't gonna find out where lie my secret stash. I'll probably have to bribe the cat with maruka ikaten so it'll keep its big mouth shut.

Jim Whitaker is the author of "Hill of Beans" and a Columnist for Staff Writer Cynic Online Magazine.  You can find his book at:
www.whiskeycreekpress.com, at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com