Turning into a Blueberry

I've been eating blueberries like crazy! I must be doing something right because I've lost two more lbs, and I now weigh 217. I think blueberries are my favorite fruit. Which is funny, because I don't ever remember eating them as a child, and I know my dad has always eaten every kind of fruit. In college, when I didn't think that I liked them, a friend of mine had a pint, and they looked so cooling that I begged one. And then a few more, and more until I was cut off and then my passionate future with blueberries was sealed.

Maybe the reason I never ate blueberries though, is that I was psychologically damaged by the little girl character Violet Beauregarde changing into a blueberry in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (first film version known as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)! ;) I had already read the book when I went to see the movie in the 1970s, and I don't remember being too upset by Violet's transformation until then. I went to the film with my cousins, and my cousin Andy was sensibly freaked out by the psychedelic tunnel scene, which seems to have bothered many kids at the time. But, that's not what gave me nightmares. It was watching Violet, who stubbornly tried an experimental chewing gum dinner before it was ready, lose control of her body and change into something inhuman and unwieldy.

Violet Beauregarde is now a certain blue fruit in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

I don't believe that I was at all disturbed by nasty kids getting their comeuppance. They could turn Augustus Gloop into fudge or send Veruca Salt down the garbage shoot for all I cared, but when I went to bed that night, I was afraid to fall asleep for fear that I would turn into a blueberry like Violet. This was sort of a baby predecessor of the childhood terror I felt at the idea of The Exorcist (which I've never seen) or the psychotic child with the alternate personality in The Other (that I saw at a slumber party and then had to go home in the night because I was afraid). These unexpected things taking you over from within and possibly destroying who you had been up to that point. Scary. As an adult, I would sometimes joke about it, "I used to be afraid of turning into a blueberry, and now I kind of have!" Lately though, I've been feeling like I have much more control of myself and my cravings.

Violet morphs in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

And, it's important to remember that Violet didn't get to look that way from eating too many blueberries. She transformed because she was a brat who wouldn't listen to what she was told. So, If I have to look like a blueberry, I choose this one:

Blueberry Muffin Costume

It's pretty silly though. Just like this post.