Pistachios

Take the bag, open it, eat one and I dare you to stop... stop anytime before the bag is empty. Yes, I know, you can't. Neither can I, and I tell you, I'm not much of a nut person. So yeah, I'm nuts, but I'm not nuts about nuts. Peanust are fine, and peanut butter only if inside a Reese's pieces. I hate almonds in all their forms and varieties, pecans are not one to take my breath away, nor hazelnuts even though I like to eat them from time to time because they look like brains; and I like chestnuts only as mashed cream. But pistachios...

Let's start with the fact that they sport my favotire color: green.

Early in the morning, I come to the office talking on the phone with my boyfriend the last 100 mts, since the system manager decided AGAIN to close all verbal communication forms thought the Internet, and yet I want to hear his voice everyday. Yes, you gara be in love to do that.

So we are talking, mainly me bitching about the thesis and our ever-so-adorable-and-understanding tutor, Hyne bless his soul, and eventually things turn to: "Let's meet online". Well, when you have to deal with monthly calls from Hungary to Costa Rica and vice versa, you do want to ensure the "financially healthier" choice. Well, my boyfriend was about to fix himself some lunch (yes! he can ... well, maybe not Iron Chef Hungary in the kitchen, but he does know his beginer's way around the stove!), and so we agree to meet around here when he's finished. Phone placed on the receiver, and I'm left to my devices and find my own food. Sure, I could pick up the phone again, dial and have Bagelmen's deliever me a bagel with butter, toasted and two regular cokes, or maybe go to the seven-eleven and pick some bread, some yoghurt, some coke (I actually have to replenish my coke reserve. It's depleted, truth to be told.), some Raisins Kellogg's Komplete and Hyne knows what else can I dump in the cart before hitting the exit. Never, never send a compulsive buyer alone to the seven-eleven. We can spend an average medium-low family's monthly food budget on one breakfast.

However, due to the world crisis and the food crisis that stroke down months ago, and will strike again soon, plus all the banking crisis, the bailouts and the growing unemployment, I decided to have breakfast from what I have in the office, assuming I have something. I found a bag of pistachios on my desk, and first I thought "what a drag. This will be a poor breakfast". I opened the bag and that was the end of it. I did found in my food drawer all I need for a wholesome oatmeal (the one with pear pieces. Haven't been able to find the one with apple and cinnamon, my favorite, or the one with peach), which I did started to prepare, you mind, but I just couldn't lay off the pistachios.

The rhythm with which you eat them borders maniac behavior. You compulsively reach for more and more, peeling the hard shells off, risking to get your tips nipped by the clamping shells, and fiddlesticks, getting them nipped! (Fiddlestick: for those whose English is poor, it's the name of that long, straight arch like thing that people use along with the violin to play the violin. In this case, fiddlestick replaces an "f" word I don't want to use. Yes, I've been watching The Skeleton Key again.) There's hardly pause and therefore there's no way you can multitask while eating pistachios. When you are with the pistachios, you are only with the pistachios! You may really like to do something else, but both your hands are engaged in a fierce battle to free the green, salty, tender nutty trapped in the armor of two clamping pale shells.

It is a battle for the pistachio, for the taste and for the joy.

At the end, well, I had a very nice breakfast put together: oatmeal, tea, Everess beverage, Reese's Pieces... you can't ask for more... and yet I had to finish my pistachios. ^_^

What drives YOU nuts?