Home Alone, Clown Cocaine and the Damage Done

My friend Adam would use half a stick of butter and a healthy squirt of ketchup. I think he is in prison now, or at least he should be.

I have a shameful relationship with food. For years, most of my life really, I have abused food in ways that should land me in a dank church basement, sitting in a circle, ruminating out loud on my past to a group of strangers who slowly and painfully nod their heads in recognition. I feel I have legitimately destroyed my body by eating at all times of the day and night just for the taste. I hated it. I hated how I felt every morning of my life, bloated and angry with myself, repeating again and again that it would be the last time. It never was. I don’t know why I ate like I did, but when I took steps to stop myself I noticed that I never seemed to feel hungry anymore. After exercising, I would feel woozy or hangry, but I never felt the empty hunger in my stomach. Decades of eating all the time stripped me of that ingrained survival tactic. I was a fat, spoiled mess. And I blame Home Alone for it.

Toward the end of the 1991 holiday comedy classic, there is a scene where Kevin McCallister sits down to eat a plate of the most delicious-looking Kraft Dinner I have ever seen in my life. The way the light hits the glowing gold noodles makes my mouth water in a dangerous way, even now as I type this. That’s when it began. Watching the movie dozens of times as an 8-year-old, I used to look forward to that moment as if it was a sex scene. I’d lick my lips, rub my fingers…