I’m thrilled to announce that we are going to get fat. Namely, because my wife has been making bread.

Not just bread. Bread-bread. The real kind. The illicit kind of bread. The kind of bread that tempts you in vivid daydreams and lurid fantasies. The kind of bread you want to sign a prenuptial agreement with.

Jamie’s bread obsession all began in Spain. The bread in Spain was unusually good. We couldn’t get enough of it. We were always eating bread purchased from bakeries, and it was almost always exceptional. I was not used to bread like this. I grew up eating the supermarket bread that turns into white Play-Doh if you squeeze it real hard.

FACT: Once I made an entire school art project sculpted entirely out of dough made from smashed Wonder Bread, which was then painted to resemble a pirate ship.

But anyway, one day in Spain, in a far-off village on the edge of the earth, some locals told us about an out-of-the-way bakery in town. They said the bread was

“auténtico,” and we should not miss it. Then, they’d demonstrate how good the bread was by making shuddering facial expressions as though they were having involuntary pleasure spasms.

Jamie and I eventually found this bakery, after weaving through byways and zigzagging side streets. The bakery was hidden in an alley. The store was about the size of a walk-in closet, and there was no signage. It was basically an old woman’s apartment. The old woman sold 12 varieties of bread. Each type of bread was made that same morning. She let us sample them all.

Our minds were blown.

“Omigod!” exclaimed my wife, verging on inappropriate ecstasy.

“Sí,” said the woman.

“Omigod!” my wife shouted again, causing a slight disturbance in the peace.

The young Walmart cashier looked at me from across her counter. She had just finished ringing up my underpants when she recited my total from the register screen.

I reached into my pocket to pay.

No sooner had my hand slid into my rear pocket than I discovered the pocket was empty. A small wave of confusion swept over me. I patted myself. No wallet.

My confusion turned into embarrassment. The same kind of humiliation I once felt when I peed my pants onstage in front of the entire school assembly and all my friends’ parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and next of kin.

I remember the accident well. I remember clutching my bladder while wearing my little Christmas costume. I stopped singing “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” and whispered, “Please, God, no.” I remember the sensations I felt. The feeling of plumbing system failure. The strange momentary euphoria that comes with complete urethral spasm surrender. And suddenly, I had a river of life flowing out of me.

This was that same kind of feeling.

A line of customers began gathering behind me. I glanced at all my bagged items and felt another wave of embarrassment. Still in the cashier’s hand was the new package of cotton underpants.

She said the total again.

“Gimme a second,” I said with a nervous laugh.

I started patting my pockets once more. This time I swatted harder, just in case the added effort might help a wallet spontaneously materialize. Then I graduated to fumbling around in my pockets. Then I started doing the sacred ritual dance of the middle-aged idiot who left his wallet at home.

“Omigosh,” I said. “I think I left my wallet at home.”

The cashier blinked. She was still holding the men’s Fruit of the Looms.

Today is National Eat Your Vegetables Day. Frankly I didn’t know there was such a day. And I don’t know why it exists. Or who invented it.

What exactly are we supposed to do on this holiday? Do we sing songs about carrots? Do we decorate an artichoke and exchange gifts? And if we DO exchange gifts, are we allowed to exchange tomatoes even though, technically, the tomato has always been classified as a fruit before it was legally reclassified as a ‘vegetable’ by U.S. Congress in 1893?

Speaking of which, is Congress really ALLOWED to do that? Reclassify stuff contrary to biological taxonomy? Like, for example, would our legislature be able to parade a horse before the U.S. House and say, “Gentlemen, I move that we reclassify this creature as a possum!”

And would the opposing side shout in response, “Objection! He spelled ‘possum’ wrong!”

“Everyone knows possum is spelled with an O!”

“Objection! You can’t say ‘possum’ anymore, you have to say ‘American marsupial!’”

“Bigot!”

“Off with

his head!”

Either way, somewhere along the way we were given National Eat Your Vegetables Day. And it’s today. And I, for one, am excited about it.

Namely, because roughly 3 million deaths are caused each year simply by not eating enough fruits and vegetables. Which makes lack of dietary vegetables and fruits a leading cause of death. And when it comes to countries with the most annual deaths related to poppy diet—big surprise—America is a pioneer.

This was recently brought to my attention the first time I got home from visiting Europe. My wife and I had spent weeks in various countries, riding trains and spending time in public places. In every train station, airport, and café restaurant they had large baskets of apples, oranges, bananas, cherries, tomatoes, and…