Wormy Lettuce

The summer after the infamous “bat incident” occurred, my ex-partner Justin and I were still living on the marijuana farm in Northern California. This part of the country has been heralded as the mecca for growing pot, due to its rich soil, clean water, moist coastal air, and climate. But it’s also a haven for growing other plants. There exists a multitude of wineries, fresh produce, and wild-growing edibles. Blackberry bushes lived in harmony with the weed. I tasted my first crabapple there, realizing it was indeed crabby as if it’d already been jaded by the cruel world before even touching the ground. Where we lived, the owners had extensive vegetable gardens, ripe with enough produce to satisfy the hungriest of vegans.

I wasn’t a so-called granola cruncher, but was health-conscious and had experience as a health professional. I’d also just completed a term with AmeriCorps, where I walked high crime neighborhoods promoting healthy behaviors, before returning to the safety of my car and lighting a cigarette. My health awareness only grew after moving to California. I was actually exposed to real vegans, those experienced meltdowns after discovering the packaged cupcake they were enjoying contained gelatin. An understandable response when trying to live an animal-free life, but I would soon come to understand that sticking to one’s dietary plan is much more complicated than simply reading a label.

Justin and I were encouraged to eat food from the land anytime we wanted because it was in such abundance. One day, the owner of the property invited me to one of her gardens and handed me her kitchen shears, telling me to take some lettuce home. If there were a beauty pageant for produce, the lettuce I cut would’ve won. The heads were huge, especially for being grown organically and without pesticides. I chose three glorious ones, and although I’d always loved salad, this was the most excited I’d ever been about eating it. As I seemingly floated back to the trailer we were living in, I imagined the salad toppings I’d use, like sunflower seeds, olive oil, tomatoes, canned tuna, and much more.

After having shown off my bounty to Justin, I got to work in the kitchen. There I stood at the small counter, chopping up the lettuce with care. I gazed dreamily out the window while rinsing it off, then noticed something peculiar after shutting off the water. There was something dark speckled in the mix, like an oil stain tainting fresh snow. I picked out the intruding piece of organic matter and held it up to the trailer’s dirty overhead light. It was a bit squishy, reminding me of an ear that had been sliced off a chocolate gummy bear. Confused, but not letting it ruin my salad-high, I wiped it onto a paper towel and went back to rinsing my award-winning lettuce.

I had only turned the chopped leaves over once more when I saw another piece. Remaining calm, I again added this to the paper towel, but suspicion began sinking in. Inspecting the lettuce more thoroughly, I started noticing more and more pieces of this strange material. I continued placing the sticky pieces onto the paper towel, and when I had a good dozen or so, stopped for a minute and said aloud, “What is this?”

Picking up one of the pieces and rubbing it between my fingers, I knew it wasn’t dirt, because rather than break up, it merely smeared like a partially melted Sour Patch Kid. I ruled out a contaminated strainer, as I knew it was clean before using it. Puzzled, I considered the options of what could have infiltrated my freshly picked lettuce. Before even realizing it, the word “worms” spilled from my mouth. Could it be, I wondered while studying another sticky piece.

Frustrated and needing a second opinion, I yelled for Justin to help with the investigation. After following his suggestion to see what transpired from putting the pieces together, I was horrified to realize that I must’ve chopped up a dozen worms with my lettuce.

“How did this happen?” I asked him in disbelief.

“You should’ve rinsed them first,” he said, with the smallest hint of a smile.

“I never had to do that before,” I said.

He reminded me that the lettuce I’d had before California was store-bought and doused with pesticides to keep any of Earth’s natural inhabitants, like worms, from reaching it. The excitement of fresh produce had blinded me from common sense.

I considered throwing it all away, but my pride had other plans. Determined not to let a little worm ruin my dinner plans, I began tediously picking out every bit of worm carcass. But there were a lot. The lettuce was practically littered with body parts. To make matters worse, the consistency of the worms had changed after hacking them to pieces. Rather than whole pieces I could actually remove, they seemed to be melting as if I’d microwaved them.

After picking out everything my eyes could see, I gave the lettuce another rinse and put some in a bowl to try and enjoy. Justin opted out of salad that evening, and I noticed how convenient it was that he wasn’t hungry anymore. Using a fork, I nudged my dinner around in the bowl, before pumping myself up to actually take a bite. You can do this, I thought to myself.

Realistically, I’d already ingested worse things since arriving in California. In the first trailer we lived in, our kitchen cabinets had been covered in rat feces, and we had brown recluses as bunkmates. A generator sourced our only electricity, and an ice chest was on the porch as the community refrigerator. When trimming the fresh marijuana, my sticky, resin-coated fingers stuck to plenty of things the way chewed gum does. Most of what I handled ended up in my body from either ingesting or smoking it.

I also had the knowledge from a previous bug-infested Easter candy experience, that the FDA allows a certain percentage of bugs into the food supply. From a quick internet search, I realized the average person unknowingly eats one to two pounds of insects each year. In my late teens and early twenties, I had worked in restaurants at a time when cooks were still allowed to smoke on the line while plating up customers’ meals. I’d seen more than one stray hair on a plate and had on more than one occasion made the tough decision to continue drinking a glass of red wine after fishing out a fruit fly or five.

Then I remembered the first time meeting Justin’s family, we’d spent an afternoon at the bug museum in New Orleans, tasting grub worms and crickets. But, I also recalled that the bugs were prepared by a gourmet chef, and we’d been day-drinking, which skewed my decision-making, specifically when it came to eating bugs and riding a mechanical bull in front of my future in-laws.

Like it had been my mantra for years, I quietly chanted, “Worms come from dirt and dirt don’t hurt,” then held my chin up high and took a bite. Despite the desire to leave my city girl attitude and lifestyle behind, to become the mountain woman I was meant to be, my body rejected the wormy lettuce. The back of my mouth began to water, and my eyes opened wider as I strained to control my body’s visceral reaction. My chewing, slow to start, quickened as panic began to set in. I quickly swallowed and had to keep swallowing to keep the roughage down.

Just like old times, I chased the vileness with a large cup of water and looked over at Justin. He stood still, wide-eyed, with an incredulous stare. When we recently rehashed that moment, he quotes the look as being, “One of pure love, with a sprinkle of disgust.” I guess that’s all I can ask for in a partner.

The lettuce stayed down, but I was unable to eat the rest of it. Justin quickly swept me off my feet and drove us down to the Rivershed, a local Mexican restaurant that was also a biker bar. We sipped IPA’s and ordered burritos that resembled in size a full roll of paper towels. When our plates arrived, I initially eyed my meal with trepidation, wondering if the chef had unknowingly added any extra ingredients to it. I hesitantly took my first bite, and after chewing for a moment, realized that ignorance was, in fact, a sparkly form of bliss and that my burrito was damn good.