My tastebuds are probably radioactive.

I get a lot of flack for being a picky eater.  But then, picky probably isn't the right term...the right term is I'm-like-a-toddler-who-will-only-eat-chicken-nuggets-and-fries-and-bread.  White bread only.  Rather than list individual foods that I won't eat, I list categories.

• Fruit.  Yes, all of them.  No, not even bananas.  Or watermelon.  Or grapes.  Stop.  And yes for this, tomato counts as a fruit.
• Any leafy vegetables.  Salads are out.
• Anything that comes out of the water.
• Nuts.
• Peppers.

There are more, but you get the point.  Basically, if it's healthy for me, I'm not eating it.  And if it's not beige or somewhere in the tan color family, it's highly suspicious.  I tolerate green beans and other legumey things, but that's only so I can eat 10 peas at supper and feel like it offsets eating BBQ Pringles for lunch.

I've been this way for as long as I can remember, and I've had different theories over the years.  Maybe it's a texture thing (yes, I know the texture of all those things are different, thankyouverymuch).  Maybe it's the fact that when I was growing up, the only options for supper were Hamburger Helper or bologna and Duke's mayonnaise sandwiches.  Maybe I'm a super taster...which, my friends, is true.

A normal taster has about 15 taste buds in this space.  A supertaster has anything over 30.  As you can see, I have 35.  Yes, I dyed my tongue and took a picture of my taste buds.  People just don't believe you when you tell them you have an "exceptional tongue."  They always want to test it out.  Sigh.  But the proof is in the pudding.  Which is something that I do enjoy, by the way...but not tapioca.  I've never even tried tapioca pudding, but it sounds vaguely nutty, so I've figured I'd better stay clear.

So I'm a supertaster.  I haven't figured out if this means I should be qualified as being an X-Man or I should be given special rights under the Americans With Disabilities Act.  Probably both.

Even knowing the supertaster part of the equation, there was always something else...just out of reach.  Like the memory of a dream.  Something in my past that would explain why the smell of bell peppers makes me heave.  I had come to terms with the fact that I would probably never know and would go to my deathbed wondering why I couldn't enjoy the simple pleasure of a cordial cherry (the kind with chocolate, not the pleasure of meeting a friendly cherry...I have a dysfunctional relationship with food, but I'm not that screwed up, y'all).  I was resigned to never really knowing why I am so picky.

And then my mom unintentionally solved the mystery for me.  As my mother is wont to do, two weeks ago, she heaved a bunch of completely pointless, illogical, confusing, and slightly deranged information at me.  Only this time, it was information about myself.  Sort of.  She had saved paperwork from my childhood and lugged it around through at least 10 different moves (and by moves, I mean evictions).

Here is the point where you are supposed to think, "Aww, that's so sweet...what a devoted mom" because you're picturing report cards and Thanksgiving turkeys with my handprint as the turkey's body and feathers.  But now is when I tell you that included in this box 'o crap were cancelled checks to IGA and a now defunct telephone company.  About 300 cancelled checks as a matter of fact.  From 1980.  Along with that part of my inheritance were coupons for products that don't exist anymore, a receipt for clothing I put on layaway in the '90s, and a club membership card of my dad's to a place known only as "The Annex."  And now rather than picture my mom like some idyllic woman out of a pre-Roseanne sitcom, you should be justifiably seeing her in her more representative form...

And rightfully so.

So amongst all the 25-year-old-lost-baby-teeth and pieces-of-string-I-once-played-with, I found the answer to why I can't eat like a person who is potty-trained.  Although my mom might be is positively obsessive, sometimes that can come in handy.  Like when you're lying awake at night and can't remember how many times you went to the grocery store during the third week in October in 1981.  When you need to know those things, my mom is your man.  Fortunately for me, she also kept a notebook detailing my infantile activities.  No, not a baby book.  That would be...what's the word?  Normal.  She recorded every time I slept, napped, peed, pooped, and ate.  "Oh, but Lisa...lots of first time moms do that.  No biggie."  My mom did this nearly every hour.  For.a.year.  

When I first opened this notebook, I just sighed and shook my head.  I started to close it, but then something caught my eye.  There in my mom's overly fanciful handwriting was the word "Gatorade."  WTF?  Gatorade?  Why in holy hell was I drinking Gatorade before my first birthday?  Were there toddler Iron Man competitions in the early '80s that I was training for?  Were my parents putting me in a sauna for hours on end?  Why were they feeding my little, roly poly, nubby baby body stuff that was formulated for college athletes?

And was this "Gatorade" entry I glimpsed an isolated incident?  Maybe Momma ran out of Pedialyte one night or something.  Surely that must be it.  But no.  Entry after entry after entry of Gatorade.  Back to June 8, 1979.  I was not six weeks old.

Actual, intended recipients:

Actual six weeks old baby:

And not only was I regularly getting Gatorade, my mom replaced half my formula with it.  The fact that it's awesomely loaded with artificial sugars and possibly formaldehyde was obviously of no concern to my mom.  It must've been the it drink of the moment, and so it was good enough for me.  By my six-month check-up, I'd had over a thousand ounces of Gatorade pumped into my little Herculean body.  At that same check up, the doctor told my mom that I was a:  

...and is it any wonder?

And so I'm declaring this mystery over.  Quite obviously, my taste buds were cauterized by almost 70 pounds of Gatorade rushing by them before I could even sit up on my own.  So neener-neener to all those people who swore I'd just looooove the apples in their apple pie.  I have a chronic SPI (Seventies Parenting Injury), and there's no cure for it.  So just leave me alone!  I don't want your meatloaf, and I don't need your pity!  I'll be over here with my peanut butter sandwich and chocolate--the only things that register as "not battery acid" to my poor, abused taste buds.

Me in training.  Don't be fooled;
the blanket is solid lead.