Mixture

Modern employers typically organize an annual event called "Health Fair".  These events are a great excuse for leaving your desk and getting some circulation going in your legs.  Additionally, the free Band-Aids, pens, Mon-Sun pillboxes, and tiny reusable rPET bags at these health fairs make them the willful hoarder's dream come true.  Being such a benign event, I would have never imagined that one such health fair would become the cause for chronic domestic clashes in the LalPav household.

It all began 3 years ago, when I decided to skip my annual checkup with my primary care physician and entrust my health assessment to a company health fair instead; after all my doctor would never give me a free cookie just for showing up at his office!  However, I should have known that I had made the wrong choice as soon as the health fair workers measured my height as 5'2" and weight as 192 lbs, resulting in an obscene BMI of 35.1!  Instead I nonchalantly went ahead and allowed them to prick my finger for blood for other tests, knowing well that non-fasting fingerstick blood draw tests are not as accurate as traditional fasting blood draws.  

A week later, the blood work results arrived in a white self-addressed envelope.  At the time, I had no idea that this piece of paper would soon become my worst enemy -- it said that my triglycerides were 386 mg/dL (normal: <150 gm/dL)!  Obviously, Pavana panicked and had a fit.  I tried to convince her that the results were obviously inaccurate, but she wouldn't believe me.  "I knew this would happen!", she exclaimed, "It is all because of that stupid mixture you keep eating!".  I kept telling her that I was fine, and that the blood work results were incorrect.  I even tried to prove my point by getting a traditional bloodwork done.  As expected, the new blood work showed that my triglycerides were well within limits, but I was still subjected to the harshest lifestyle change, viz. "No more mixture for you!"

Needless to say, I have since avoided getting blood work done at health fairs and relied instead on checkups with my primary care physician.  After receiving excellent grades on my blood tests since then, my mixture consumption rule has been relaxed a little.  However, that one piece of paper that came in the mail 3 years ago has resulted in permanent PTSD; I still feel like a low-level criminal whenever I walk over to the snack cupboard.