Podiatric Products Surprisingly Delicious and Addictive

Just imagine that those toes are...olives!

I bought these knock-off Yoga Toes at CVS today to correct a pain in my toes. The brand FLEX-TASTIC advertises itself as "The Secret to Healthier Feet." The box also contained this mysterious and prominent warning:

Do not eat FLEX-TASTIC (TM) - Choking or health problems may result.

This was disappointing, because the first thing I thought of when viewing my new Yoga Toes knockoffs was how good they would taste draped in proscuitto. I really wanted to eat them. Both of them--the one for the left foot, and then the one for the right. See how they have five holes, one for each toe? When I saw those holes, I didn't see spots for toes--I saw spots for OLIVES. Olives stuffed with delicious pimentos!

Then I thought: Maybe this is sort of like the health warning they put on other so-called "unhealthy" items, which everyone totally ignores. Should I really bother to pay attention to it? Why, it didn't even have the stamp of the Surgeon General. I wanted to taste just one of my new FLEX-TASTIC toe-spacers. But suppose this was the one that addicted me? Suppose, just suppose I couldn't get enough of the thick, chewy, molded plastic, and had to run to CVS to buy more? At $8.99 a pack, this could lead to financial difficulties in due time. And the social stigma....

I was nervous, but I couldn't rid myself of the vision of five neatly-rolled cream-cheese stuffed ham roll-ups poking out of each hole in my new Yoga Toes! Other people must eat them all the time and never experience any of this "choking" or "health problems." What kind of health problems, anyway? Couldn't they be more specific? When I eat podiatric products, I like to know exactly what kind of risks I am running, for goodness' sake! Maybe they meant a bit of psoriasis, or increased acne.

Then I thought: They would never have put this warning on the package if these Yoga Toes were not INCREDIBLY TASTY AND ADDICTIVELY SO! That made me want to eat them even more. I stared at the box for a long time imagining them dusted with powdered sugar and fried lightly to a succulent crispness. They would make a clever miniature jello mold! A cute little garnish for a rack of lamb?

I looked at the health warning once again, and noted that it did not use a single exclamation mark. Also, it said that eating the item "may" cause health problems, not that it "will." How dangerous could the things be, anyway? CVS sells them! CVS wouldn't sell anything bad for you. CVS is all about HABA: Health and Beauty Aids! These FLEX-TASTIC brand toe-fixers were simply too tempting to deny any longer.

I ate them. 

Amnesia is Delicious

In fiction, that is.

In Forget You, by Jennifer Echols, Zoey is in a car accident. She hits her head. And the next day, she can't remember much of anything about the night before. Which is unfortunate, because Doug Fox, her nemesis, is acting like a lot went down.

Post-traumatic amnesia is not uncommon in cases of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Basically, the person is unable to store new memories for a period of time after the accident. Zoey actually has a mixed anterograde/retrograde presentation. She can't remember some events leading up to the accident (retrograde amnesia) and she can't remember most of the events that occurred in the hours after the accident (anterograde amnesia). Hence the drama!

Forget You isn't the only YA book with amnesia at its center: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, by Gabrielle Zevin, (haven't gotten to read this one yet) is about a girl who hits her head in a fall and loses her memory of about four years of her life. And the upcoming dystopian Memento Nora, by Angie Smibert, involves Therapeutic Forgetting Clinics, where you can take pills to help you kick those traumatic memories to the curb.

Oh! And don't forget the movies! Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 50 First Dates, Dark City (my personal favorite) ...

Why does amnesia fascinate us so? What makes it such awesome fiction fodder? I think it's because there's something compelling about a character having to find his or her way despite having lost a part of the past. There's something ominous about not being able to remember something that happened, especially when that event was particularly important. There's often a certain romance to it, right? And of course, it makes for a great mystery.

In reality, of course, amnesia isn't that romantic or compelling. It's sad and frightening and frustrating.

Bumps on the head, zaps to the skull, and other physical injuries to the brain lead to organic amnesia, and so can Alzheimer's disease, oxygen deprivation, stroke, and long-term alcohol abuse. But then there are some psychological forms of amnesia, often associated with dissociation. These are, as you might expect, more controversial, but they basically involve the mind trying to protect itself by repressing memories of traumatic events.

What amnesia usually doesn't involve (with the exception of dissociative fugue) is the loss of self-identity. People with amnesia don't usually forget who they are (and here is where reality departs so drastically from fiction).

Amnesia is well-covered in novels and movies, so if you've got an amnesia story, you might want to make sure you've got an original twist (my agent is probably laughing at me right now).

How about you? What are some of your favorite amnesia-fic-picks? Any specific to YA? Have you read Forget You or Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac? Did you wonder about the accuracy of the portrayal? Have you read or watched things where amnesia seemed like a contrivance? Have you read or watched things where it didn't matter whether it was medically accurate or not, because it was just so deliciously good?