Boarding school wasn’t too bad, but naturally there were rules we all had to follow-Lights out at 9pm OR ELSE; brush your teeth for EXACTLY 2 minutes (older kids stood there with a stop watch ready to sound the alarm if anyone stopped ahead of time) and if you spit out any of your toothpaste before the time was up, you had to start over; and absolutely EVERYTHING you put on your plate had to get eaten or you weren’t allowed to leave the table.

It was the last rule that left me sitting at the dinner table for 3 hours one particular night. It was just me. And the blood sausage. Mano-a-wursto.

There it was…flopped onto a plate with nowhere to hide. It only took one tiny nibble to make me realize that the innocent frankfurter actually turned out to be the abomination of the sausage world…a bloody tube of horror! Why did nobody warn me?!! Oh. That’s right. I’m in Germany. Sausages are what dreams are made of here…and should never be feared…even the bloody ones.

Ok, I’ll be honest. It really didn’t taste that bad. But I couldn’t stop thinking that I was basically looking down at a sausage shaped scab. I don’t even PICK at scabs, let alone eat them. Even if they are infused with garlic and spices.

Blood sausage is considered a delicacy, and with a shelf life of 2 days, you know it’s one of the freshest meats you can get.

I could hold out for 2 days. They wouldn’t make me eat spoiled food right?

Thankfully, one of the other kids was kind enough to take it upon himself to eat the blutwurst on my plate, in addition to the 3 others he’d scarfed down earlier. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably still be sitting at that table 20 years later.

But spam is nothing compared to the newer concoctions shoved inside cans these days.

Now you open cans to find a whole cooked chicken, beetle grubs, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or even a cheeseburger nestled between two squashed buns. Of course seeing a giant can give birth to a whole, slime covered chicken isn’t the most appetizing thing in the world, but it’s the way of the future…(check out images of the abomination at Tracy’s site-she is my hero for braving the chicken dinner from hell…I would have run away screaming!)

O.K…FINE…maybe it’s not the future exactly, but it’s a good option to have in case earthquakes, floods or droughts make canned foods one of our only options. Yay for being a last resort!

We’ll be able to put together anything from a sandwich to a  whole thanksgiving feast with the help of nothing more than a can opener.

Making a PBJ sandwich isn’t hard work…but if I don’t have the energy to make the thing, I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to open the can either.

BUT they’re an even more effective dieting tool!

Ever try eating a mayonnaise slathered sandwich while watching “The Fly” ?

It’s IMPOSSIBLE!

If you can keep anything down while watching a slimy, mutant fly-man cough up what looks like a rotten vanilla shake then you DESERVE to eat.

The horror movie diet was MADE for me: I can’t even eat yogurt while watching E.T.

I mean, I have nothing against the little guy racking up the long distance charges on the telephone, but he is still pretty gross looking.

Inspiration for the ‘Horror Movie Diet’ came from a whole, crispy chicken that seemed more ominous that delicious while sitting on the dining room table. The zombie movie playing in the background ruined the meal for me.

I could just imagine this headless chicken turning zombie and then ramming itself into my face in a feeble attempt to get at my brains.

Thankfully a headless chicken with cannibalized drumsticks makes for a pretty pathetic zombie.

So, if you’re like me and have trouble saying no to a cheese pizza, burger, or whatever…then just throw on a graphic horror movie…Preferably in HD.