I had a young lady come into the Vitamin Shoppe (my “day job”) the other day asking after some multivitamins “that don’t stink.” I asked her what she meant, specifically, and pointed out several different kinds of multis that we carry—she wrinkled her nose at each of them and said “That! That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout. They stink!” My coworker then asked incredulously, “But ma’am, shouldn’t you take the vitamins even if they smell a little bit like vitamins, if it’ll help you feel better?” She replied in the negative as though the answer were as obvious as her standing before us.
I tried giving her the benefit of the doubt: I figured, well, maybe she just doesn’t understand the foundations of our objection to her objection, right? So I tell her plainly, “But ma’am, aesthetic considerations should never come before your own good health.” Surely that’s something to which we can all agree.
She cocked her eyebrow at me with all the seriousness and candor as if I had suggested to her she dumpster-dive for a seven-course meal. “Sure they should!”
I admit, I was flabbergasted. I don’t even use that word, let alone exemplify it, but maybe once or twice a year! Later, when I had time to laugh it off outside of her presence, I realized that I was genuinely curious to hear her justification of that. It’s a matter of course to hear someone justify doing something that feels good in the physical realm while being detrimental to one’s mental or spiritual faculties (e.g., smoking pot, overeating, fornicating, &c.)—but to hear that matters of taste (primarily a physiopsychological and highly subjective value judgment that may or may not affect anything but whether people laugh at you for wearing a black belt with brown shoes) win out over matters of one’s own good health (also physiopsychological, and arguably foundational to other kinds of well-being and societal usefulness) was just a little too much.
Isn’t this one reason why Europeans hate Americans? That our selfish, fat, concupiscently inclined bodies rule where better judgment ought, even in matters as simple as taking care of ourselves on a basic level?
