I love garlic.
I love garlic so much that garlic flavor is just not enough anymore.
"Oh, do you want garlic salt on your pizza?"
"Garlic salt? Bitch, I can't even taste that shit no mo'. Hand me that slap-chop and a few cloves and I will change your sad, miserable life!"---I say that.
Most people don't know that garlic truly does make food a lot better. Bought a shitty jarred sauce? Chop up some damn garlic and simmer it in that shitty sauce for a while. Better than mixing your pasta with what may as well be ketchup. Want a little more pizzaz to your pizzas? Chop up some mother fuckin' garlic and have at it like a champ.
Not only is garlic flavorful and whimsical, but it is also heart healthy. If an Italian ever has a heart-attack, it's because he/she has eaten one too many cannoli, not because he/she did not consume enough garlic in their life. Pinky promise.
Are you afraid of getting bitten by a vampire? Hang some garlic over your bed. This may also result in not getting laid. Like, ever.
...I blame a very long, nine-month dry spell on the garlic on my bed post.
However, garlic does tend to repel predators. You eat a plate of my mom's pasta with her sauce (or gravy as real American-Italians call it), and you're guaranteed a creep-free night at the bar. In fact, no one will even come near you. Ever wondered why I am still single? Thank you, Garlic. Rich people hate flavor.
Don't even get me started on what my Grandma Angie's gravy will do for your life. How do you think I grew all this Rapunzel hair? Why do you think I went through puberty at age ten? Her food was like miracle-grow for children. Kraft mac and cheese ain't got nothing on the Tascione gravy recipe. That shit's for beginners. I was eating cloves of raw garlic with Grandpa Vito Raimondi when I was four without squinting at its bitterness.
...Yeah, fuck with me!
When I was a munchkin back in the 90s, Grandma Angie would wake up at 6 am to start slow cooking her sauce. Everything was from scratch, with the exception of the tomatoes, those were by the can, but it barely made any sort of distinguishable difference. I would be sleeping on the couch in the living room, in which the kitchen was an extension of. I would wake up whenever I would hear my aunt tip-toe to retrieve a glass of water in the night. I could even hear the light switch go on-and-off. That is how close and small these two rooms were in that house.
My Grandma Angie gave, hmmm maybe... two shits about the possibility of waking me up with the crack of dawn on her gravy-making days. If you know Italian Grandmothers, you know that they are usually small enough to fit in their own gravy vats. She usually would store this giant pot/cauldron in the biggest cabinet, all the way in the back. There is no possible way that one can retrieve this massive, steel pot without banging it against everything else that is residing within the same cabinet. And being a 4'10", eighty-something year old, bickering Italian lady, there was absolutely no possible way that she could avoid breaking the sound barrier while doing this.
Not only would all of the pots and pans spill out onto the linoleum, kitchen floor, but she made sure she cursed at everything that got in her way, while getting that fucking pot out. Her whisper-yelling was audible in about three countries and the process of getting the paraphernalia back into its place was usually louder than when it had originally came out. Finally, after I would go deaf from the clinging-and-clangings of her journey, the vat would be firmly grasped in her hands as the cat would run and fumble through her legs. This would only cause more disruption in the mind of Grandma Angie and a very loud, "Goddamn it, ROTTEN CAT! Try'na kill me?"
To which my once-sleeping aunt would reply from her room, "Don't yell at him!"
"Damn cat's always gettin' in my way. Whenever I do anything, he's..."
"Maybe you're the one gettin' in his way!" My aunt would piss on any comment she could.
Grandma Angie would get defensive and then add on an anecdote, "He sure as Hell's gettin' in my way! I woke up this morning to the smell of his litter box. FRESH CRAP is what he left."
This argument tended to last about 10 minutes. 15 Maximum. The whole time as they argued, I lay awake, wondering what the fuck family I was born into.
The gravy's aroma would fill my grandparent's house. Basil and tomato wafted through each doorway. Parmesan and oregano penetrated the walls. Sausage and meatballs would stew inside of the hot gravy. All of these flavors would eventually team up for the ultimate battle that took place on your tongue. Which flavor was the strongest? Who will take over the job of making the breath rancid? Who would be the ultimate taste-bud conquerer of the night?
If you have to ask, then you haven't read this blog correctly and you're stupid. Garlic. The Charlie Sheen of my mouth. Winning.
The smell of garlic has always been associated with people I love. My Grandma Angie smells like it. My mom sometimes smells like it. My sister Bunny usually has eaten something with garlic on a good (or bad) day. My house tends to have a faint garlic smell. Garlic = Home. Home = Family. Family = My Bitches.
People always say that your family will always have your back. Fortunately, my family has always had mine, even in my most selfish of times. When little boys in elementary school told me I was too ugly to play on the jungle gym with them, my mom did not sugar coat it and tell me that he had a crush on me, she would simply reply with, "Well, that little boy is a fucking retard." ...Okay, maybe she did not say those exact words, but she did belittle them to make me feel better. I think that's what a good mother does. I turned out fuckingt stellar...
Members of my family always wanted me to be strong and healthy. When I would get the flu/ sore throat/ stomach virus, etc., my dad would bring me re-heated Campbell's chicken noodle soup with a fork in it and ask, "Ya sick?"
No, I'm bed-ridden for shits and giggles, Pop. "Yeah."
"What the Hell did you do that for?" He'd look me straight in the eye.
How was one supposed to answer a dumb question like that at age six? Like...Um...I wanted to see what it felt like to have a sore throat...again? Maybe... get an ear infection? Oh, Dear Lord in Heaven, please give me the measles!
Always there to support. My Dad.
When it came to outsiders, like my peers and such, I looked like a short, weak, frail, little soul, waiting to get crushed by the fat-fucks that were my school mates. You can also say that I have never went about anything with an element of 'normal' or 'sanity'.
My Grandpa Vito used to play checkers with me as a kid and told me that out-smarting your opponent will always lead to a victory. I never forgot it. And I utilized it on *DumbAsFuckKid...
DumbAsFuckKid sat next to me in the fourth grade. I guess you could say we were opposites in the way we chose to use our brains. While my ADD took me to places where unicorns feasted on stars and marshmallows, DumbAsFuckKid was acing all of the math and science tests. He would laugh at my tests when they were handed back because they would usually have an 'F' or a 'see me!' on them in red marker. He would pull my hair and ask me how it could possibly hurt when I had 'no brain in there to feel it.' I would usually hold in my tears until I pushed the stall of the bathroom door. That's when the ends of my lips would slant downwards and the waterworks would turn-on behind the locked stall door.
I went home that day on the bus, where DumbAsFuckKid announced, "Hey, Everyone, Dana Clark failed her science test! F means Failed. YOU FAILED!" He pointed to my face. I was about to bite his chubby little finger off when I heard the little, blonde cunts in the corner whispering about how easy the science test was, which made my wound rip a little bit more.
I cried as I walked out of the bus. My Grandpa Vito opened the door with a "Hey, Kiddo! Why you cryin'?"
I was so happy to see him at my house, but could barely speak I was crying so hard, "Eh...Eh...Everybody'sssshhhh mean da meee." But it was true. I only had one friend, who was a grade below me and people were just as mean to her (BooBoo), if not worse, than they were to me. "They all say that I'm s-s-s-stupid!"
My Grandpa's voice was not soothing or melodic, but raspy and grungy, like a real New York Italian. "Awww, ya not stupid. You gotta outsmart those lil bastards." This was coming from a man who had done everything from carpentry, to being a tank-commander in the Battle of the Bulge, to playing jazz piano for a swing band at a nightclub. He smelled like tweed and rose wine. He was fresh til' death, that one.
"How? I can't think of anything!"
Now, instead of helping me study for the next science exam, he taught me the art of revenge. Always be one-step ahead of the enemy. Know their weaknesses. DumbAsFuckKid's weakness was the temptation of a dare. I may not have understood what geodes and volcanic rocks did to the earth, but I can always say that I was raised by some 'interesting' souls.
The next day, during art class, DumbAsFuckKid and I had to share a box of Crayola 64's. It had all your basic colors and beyond. Fuschia, Kelly Green, Copper, Aqua-Marine, you name it, Crayola 64 had that shit on lock! They had one crayon that was "mac and cheese" colored. I looked at it and then looked at DumbAsFuckKid and decided to fuck him over, in that instant.
"This crayon tastes like mac and cheese!" I threw out the bait.
He looks at it. "No it doesn't!" He goes back to coloring.
I smelled the crayon in front of him, "It smells like it." It didn't. It's wax! But the mind is a powerful thing.
He smells it. Looks confused. He totally thought it smelled like it. Dumb. As. Fuck. Then he continued, "Just 'coz it smells like it, doesn't mean it tastes like it!" Damn it, he was SMART!
I had to take it a step further. I licked the crayon. "I can't taste it either, but my Grandpa says if you eat the whole thing, it does."
"You're bluffing. That's stupid. You're stupid." ---No, Kid, what I'm about to make you do is fucking stupid.
"I dare you." Now he was tugging hard on my bait like Jaws to a fishing pole.
He looks at it. He smells it again and then hands it back to me.
"I doub...triple-dog dare you." He's fucked. Other kids were looking now.
He grabs it back and peels off the paper. I was probably grinning so hard that I drooled in this moment, but that's beside the point. I was elated when he broke it in half for easier intake. He placed both of them in his mouth AT THE SAME TIME! His mouth slowly began to fill with what looked like cheddar but had the crunch of peanut brittle. He started to grind it down and it became soupy in his mouth. At that moment, I thought, "Oh, shit! He is going to do it. He's gunna swallow it." In that same moment, I jumped back because it hit me that wax is not food. DumbAsFuckKid is going to choke or throw up. Or Both.
Yup. Both.
Thank God I had vacated about four feet behind him when his esophagus rejected the crumbled wax. He starts coughing and shaking. Eventually, he was sent to the nurse and none of us saw him again that day. What a little bitch.
When the teacher asked us what happened, my peers that sat near me knew I had been the one to egg him on. I denied it. I was meek, shy, little Dana. No one could possibly believe I was capable of such evil. The teachers did not even suspect me. I just said in an angel voice, "He just started eating it..."
The next day, DumbAsFuckKid sat in the seat next to me in class and informed me he was going to make my life a 'living heck'.
"Go fuck yourself." Obviously I could have cared less about the rules of cursing in school...
"TEACHER, TEACHER! Dana just said the 'f' word!"
My whole life, I have had peers, and even some teachers, lose faith in my intelligence. I just chose not to flaunt it. Perhaps I would never be a mathematical genius or a rocket scientist. Those people rarely get laid. So I'm not mad about it. But once I discovered the power behind playing dumb, I ran with it like a governor from a hooker's hotel room.
DumbAsFuckKid was out to make my life 'Heck', which I assume is like the 'Hell' with AC, where all your hopes and dreams were crumbled alongside a napkin of crushed cookies. (What?)
Instead of enduring this kid's wrath, I decided that I would make myself less appealing. I did not shower for the next two days, ate 3 cloves of garlic that morning without brushing my teeth and wore unwashed clothing. I smelled like an herb garden was growing in all of my crevasses. I would not have been surprised if I found an onion patch under my arm. The scent of my personal space wafted through the hallways of Hindley Elementary School. As I neared my desk, I could not help but notice the nose-pinching and kept hearing groans as if I had caused my peers physical harm. I planted myself right next to DumbAsFuckKid.
"Woah, Holy Shit!" He shouted.
"TEACHER! He just said the 'S' word!" She heard him without me telling her.
"But she..." He was interrupted.
"No excuses. We do not use this language in the classroom. And stop picking on Dana, she has done nothing to you. All week, you've been causing a raucous. I am moving your seat. Go sit with Andres." Andres was a foreign student from Peru. He did not speak any English, so he was not easy to make fun of to his face. He also tended to let squeaky ones rip after his lunch of rice and beans.
See, garlic really does make everything better. Proof.
End of Story.
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