The ONLY way for you to survive a cleanse without killing your partner is to do all of your prepping in advance. Period.
The night before you gather and wash all your veggies. You separate them into their recipe groups, slice, dice, and package them up for the next day. You rise in the morning to the calming Bugs Bunny classical music Morning Song in your head. You descend the stairs, while gently brushing the sleep from your eyes and everything is ready for you. The veggies go in to the juicer, the veggies go into the blender. Everything is going according to plan and today is going to be a great day.
When you don’t…
You hear your partner in the shower already and you sit bolt upright in bed. SHIT. Nothing is ready. You stumble out of bed and realize halfway down the stairs that you only have one pant leg fully on. Your morning song has now been replaced by Flight of the Bumblebee.
Boot up the computer. Start grabbing random vegetables out of the fridge. Check computer, that has exasperatingly chosen this exact moment to do a windows update. Start washing and prepping the usual suspects. Push all the shit you forgot to put away yesterday to the side to find space on your already non-existent kitchen counter. Finally find the #%(^#$& recipes on your computer and start executing.
There is green, orange, yellow stuff flying everywhere. I look like the Swedish Chef on the Muppets and I’m waiting for a chicken to run by in the background.
Juice is done, now the shake. I have a shit for bricks blender that is unbelievable finicky. You must put in the right amount of solids, mix it with the right amount of liquid, pulse first, then blend. Lather, rinse, repeat.
In today’s haste, I defied the blender gods and smashed in everything all in one go. I couldn’t even get the lid on. AND I forgot the protein powder. Dump it in the top and pack it down with a wooden spoon. Gaston comes down the stairs, sees me, sees the shake, and his eyes go big like saucers. The blender kickback makes a giant cloud of protein powder and now I look like a powdery ghost.
I pour more almond milk in to the already full container and try to stir it up with the wooden spoon. The spoon comes out with powdery, disintegrating chunks with green sludge on the bottom. I look at Gaston and he just backs away. He starts researching blenders on Amazon.
I add more water. I pick up the spoon and the ziplock bag it was sitting on falls on the floor. Sticky side down. The blender lid is a sticky, clumpy, hot mess. It too, slips out of my hands and joins the ziplock bag on the floor, managing to caress the wall on its way down. There is green, chunky, powdery, fart smelling gunk all over the place.
More water. The sticky, gelatinous mixture is finally starting to blend. I cross my fingers, hit ‘Liquify’ and let it ride.
Gaston comes back looking worried and asks, “Is something on fire?”. I stop the blender. This is as good as it’s going to get.
The kitchen is a disaster zone. I have kale stuck to the bottom of my foot. I can’t tell if the orange stain on my shorts is from today or yesterday. There was a single chopping session, yet every knife in the house is dirty. There is produce carnage everywhere – on the floor, on the wall, on the fridge handle. The stove looks like a protein powder sandbox.
I can’t even deal.
