The benefits of a varied diet

Fun-size Snickers taste better than full-size, we decided at coffee Monday; and no one buys fun-size bars, generally on sale in the days leading up to Halloween, to give away. We buy them, lying to ourselves, to eat (oh heck, they're small, one or two --- or a dozen --- won't hurt).

Then --- realizing the trick-or-treat candy's nearly gone --- make an 11th hour dash back to the grocery store to buy what's left.

By the afternoon preceding beggars' night, all the cheap chocolate's gone. Poor kids. They get those unappetizing little lollipops or disgusting powdery-tasting candies sealed in cellophane.

So driving home, I decided to buy cookies --- figuring they would divert me from the Halloween candy. I only buy Voortman cookies and stopped at Piper's, where Jill sells Voortman cookies by the pound rather than, as at Hy-Vee, in two layers of overpriced and environmentally unfriendly packaging.

She suggested, after weighing my cookies, that a varied diet is both healthy and interesting. Good thought.

When back at Hy-Vee Wednesday morning to buy Folgers after finding only enough beans in the bottom of a designer-blend package to make two cups and caffeine levels had fallen dangerously low, I bought Baby Ruths (no Snickers were left on the shelf).

Now I'm enjoying the benefits of a truly varied diet. But not for breakfast. Not yet at least.

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The other crisis this week involves Vicks VapoRub, necessary for well-being during winter months. A light coating applied to the upper lip before retiring produces mentholated fumes that drive cold and flu germs away.

This was another topic at coffee Monday and according to Jane K., Vicks rubbed onto hands and feet causes arthritis pain to go away. If you've got a cold and are coughing badly, someone else said, Vicks rubbed on the bottoms of the feet will cause the coughing to cease.

So you can see why it's needed.

Usually, one jar of Vicks last me about five years --- but when I pulled the jar out of the medicine cabinet over the weekend to check levels it was empty; the inside didn't even feel slick.

I went to Hy-Vee to buy more. They didn't have it. Didn't have Vicks?  I went next door to Pamida. They had it --- priced at $9 a jar. NINE DOLLARS A JAR?

I didn't buy it. But I'll have to --- eventually.

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Because of the previously mentioned low caffeine levels, all I managed to get accomplished Wednesday was a haircut. I don't get those very often and there's no reason for that. So far as I know, my mother was not frightened when pregnant by a barber.

The thing is, I don't like long hair and I know I should be grateful that mine still grows (why do men with thinning hair get transplants? Bald is so convenient.) It's just always been a personal struggle.

Others worry more about my hair than I do. I once knew a guy fairly prominent in north Iowa business circles with whom I maintained a pleasant but somewhat distant relationship, talking mostly by telephone. One time, after not meeting face-to-face for about two years, we ran into each other at a meeting and shook hands. "I see you've still not gotten a haircut," he said.

In Mason City, where I patronized Great Clips, the stench of "product" was so overwhelming it was necessary to hold one's breath or go outside to breathe deeply. But here, "The Look" smells pleasantly neutral and Margie remembers my name, even though she sees me infrequently and doesn't have a computer to prompt her.

I probably could have gone another week or two without having the hair mowed and baled. But it had reached the point where everytime I tried to take a photo, hair blew in front of the lense. It's very difficult to frame a photograph properly when you have to hang onto your head with one hand.

So I got a haircut --- and my head felt so light when I got up I thought I might fall over. I mentioned that to  two older women entering the beauty shop as I was leaving. They offered to help me to the truck --- but I made it on my own.