Episode XXIV: A Painful Predicament

The last two weeks have been pretty mundane for me, so today I will simply whine about my recent physical deterioration:

The cycle of pain began about a month ago when a friend asked me to fill in for a missing player on his softball team, and I happily obliged. I played second base, and there was a play where the opposing batter tried stretch for a double: I easily tagged him out, but he slid hard, and his cleat went straight into my left shin (I was wearing shorts). A bruise developed immediately.

The following inning I myself was required to slide into second, which I accomplished successfully. Unfortunately, as I was still wearing shorts, I created a very nice scrape right on top of the fairly substantial bruise.

Then just last Tuesday the same friend calls me up and asks me if I will substitute for a missing player on his softball team, and I happily oblige. Near the end of the game, I single, but the first-base coach insists that I go for two. I have built up a good deal of speed, I am once again wearing shorts, and the throw is on-time, so I have to slide out of the way. My shin not only gets scraped up, but also a kind of rash, like a rug-burn except with sand instead of rug. To add insult to injury, the second-baseman tries to tag me late and slaps me in the face with his glove, sending my sunglasses flying.

So now I have a large scrape all up my leg, on top of a sand-burn, which is on top of a previous scab, which lies in turn on a previous bruise. The next day a friend calls me up and asks me to substitute for his missing partner in a sand volleyball game, and I happily oblige. The sun burns my shin, and sand gets inside the scab. When I wash it away, it reopens the wound a bit.

And if you are not feeling sorry for me yet, let me tell you that later that day the same guy calls me up and asks if I want to help him extract honey from some honeycombs, and of course I say yes. I am promptly stung by a bee on my left ear. My ear gets really red, and about 50% too big, and I get a bit woozy.

It is, indeed, a hard-knock life.

Episode XXIII: A Dietary Plan

Due to a number of factors, including my newfound proximity to a Burger King, as well as a generous gift of free Burger King coupons, I decided it would be a good idea to imitate Morgan Spurlock in Supersize Me, in that I would eat Burger King three meals a day for two weeks. I am happy to report that as I type this I am eating my very last BK breakfast. I have survived!

One kind of ironic thing about the whole pursuit is that Burger King has always been my least favorite fast food restaurant in the world, and I had not eaten there for perhaps as long as three years. However, now that I have eaten here about 42 times, I can tell you that Burger King is definitely my least favorite fast food restaurant in the world.

I wound up eating at four different BKs in two different states, and overall the buildings were clean and the service friendly. One kind of neat thing was that there were witty statements posted around the buildings and on the wrappers and containers, such as this one:

The funniest thing about this wrapper is that I can not imagine how anyone in their right mind would actually want to steal your BK hamburger.

And that is really the point: no matter how nice the staff is or how amusing the wrapping is, the food is still fourth-rate.

Anyhow, the diet plan seemed to work! Despite the fact that an average meal there comes out to pack about 1,100 calories (based on the nutritional information), I can claim this to be a successful diet plan, as I lost just over 2.5 pounds in only two weeks. Eat that Morgan Spurlock!