Letters to Jyl: July 20, 2026

This week, Jyl talks a panicking reader off the ledge. Is this just the tip of the iceberg? Lettuce discuss if this letter a #2?

Every week, readers send me questions about relationships, career problems, family disputes, supernatural incidents, neighborhood feuds, and the occasional eldritch inconvenience. This week’s is entirely human. It comes from a reader who has fought to lose weight his whole life, is finally winning with the help of salads and a certain popular shot and has just watched the great Cyclospora scare turn his beloved lettuce into public enemy number one.

Dear Jyl,

Okay, I need to put this out there first…I am a big boy! Like a living teddy bear.

I have been fighting my own Battle of the Bulge my entire life.

Way back when, I tried the chips made with Olestra while on a picnic date. We ate, we relaxed, we made out, and in the course of making out, I TRAGICALLY sh!t my pants. Yeah, those pants were dead to me. As was a budding relationship.

I’ve been to doctors and tried every damn diet under the sun. I had a doctor come in and tell me, “You are addicted to food.”

NO SH!T SHERLOCK! Good on you for coming into the room and telling a fat man he is addicted to food. You cracked the case, Columbo. Needless to say, he was not my doctor much longer.

Well, I am now losing weight (yeah, the magic shot and lots of salads).

This is my quandary…lettuce.

Now lettuce is bad for me. To make matters worse, I have two weeks to see if my ass is going to become a weapon of mass (or should I say ass) destruction! Will I be sitting on the toilet when, all of a sudden, the nuclear launch codes get punched in and I break every environmental impact law!?

Oreos never did this to me.

Doritos never did this to me.

Cheetos never did this to me!

Do I have to get on my hands and knees and eat my f@cking lawn?

Sincerely,

Exasperated on my lawn

Dear Exasperated,

Cyclospora, qu’est-ce que c’est? Or, as the internet has lovingly named it, diarrhea lettuce.

Before you tear up the lawn and start grazing like a nervous goat, breathe. First things first: lettuce is not out to get you. It’s one very specific lettuce: shredded iceberg traced to a single supplier in Mexico, and it turned up at Taco Bell and in bagged grocery salads. As of the writing of this response, the contaminated lettuce has been shipped to twenty-seven states, and the illnesses themselves now span thirty-four. The good news: it’s being pulled from shelves as we speak. And let’s be honest, eating at Taco Bell was already a trust fall with your colon.

So, here’s the thing. This is not anything like Olestra. Those chips came with an actual warning about anal leakage, and we ate them anyway. The call was definitely coming from inside the house. This is different. The parasite got onto one bad batch of iceberg, and that’s as far as it goes.

You can save those launch codes for another time. You are not in danger of becoming a one-man violation of the Clean Water Act if you skip the fast-food and bagged shredded lettuce for a minute. The rest of the produce aisle is still your friend. Spinach, romaine, kale, whatever you like is still safe.

And that’s the part I actually care about. You’ve been fighting to get here your whole life, and right now you’re winning. The shot’s working, you’re eating vegetables on purpose, and I’m not about to let one bad batch of lettuce chase you back to the junk food. You’re right that the Oreos and Doritos and Cheetos never did this to you. But that’s not because they love you. It’s because they’re playing the long game.

Not a lot of my readers know this, but I’m a master’s-prepared registered nurse. I’ve spent my whole career in healthcare, so let me tell you exactly what that doctor got wrong. Naming the problem is the easy part. Anybody can do that. The real work is everything after: the plan, the follow-up, working with you to figure out how to make it stick. You came in for help and walked out with a label. No wonder he wasn’t your doctor for long.

So, get up off the lawn, I’m begging you. There’s no fiber in it and you’re scaring the mailman. Keep doing everything you’re doing and keep going. You’ve survived Olestra. You’ll survive iceberg’s villain era too.

—Jyl

Have a question, problem, curse, feud, haunting, career crisis, cryptid-related concern, or suspicious situation of your own? Send it to letterstojyl@gmail.com. Anonymous submissions are always welcome. Recurring correspondents are encouraged.

Jyl Glenn is a writer, editor, formatter, anthologist, poet, and a medical-legal writer and consultant. Her lifelong love affair with horror began at a very early age when she was left unattended on the weekend Poltergeist debuted on HBO. And then she figured out she could read any horror book she liked as long as she hung out at the public library, even if the librarian deemed it not to be age appropriate. Jyl was born and raised in New York and now lives in Tulsa with her dog and kitten. She loves creepy art, dark poetry, and pink dinosaurs. When she isn’t dabbling in the macabre—she’s most likely asleep.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.