Distractions... and something else

I thank my lucky stars for them. My distractions include: hanging out with friends, watching entire TV series in minimal sittings, reading, blogging, hockey, hockey, making ill-advised purchases at the mall, cooking... I am so grateful to have these distractions as they allow me to flip the switch to completely block out the stresses of ninetofive. (More like ninetoseven). (I'm not saying I hate my job, not at all. It's the highs that make it great, and the lows that make me a crab some days.)

I swear it's like night and day some days. I was told I was a crab at work today. (Being called a crab is kinda funny, I just picture a red crab with a pouty face...) Tonight, as with many nights, hockey saved me. And we even lost. And I'm sitting here in a great mood. It's just so helpful sometimes that I had to give it a shoutout. Thanks, hockey.

And... I'm adding another distraction, Wednesday bowling league. It's just down the road, 4 to a team, 2 hours of bowling (~3 games I hear), pizza, and a pitcher of beverage for $15. FUN. I suck at bowling. It's all about the fun. Can't wait... starts 2nd week in Feb.
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Now I'm going to go off on a mostly unrelated subject... McDonald's.

I have a buddy who lives somewhat near my place, and I'm over there quite a lot. When I'm over there and we feel the need go out to grab some quick food, his later-in-the-night options really kinda suck. At that point in the night, nobody wants to go to the grocery store and make something... we want our fast food damn it, and we want it now.

Anyways, the late-night options nearby are: McDonald's to the South, and McDonald's to the West. (Insert expletive and vomit sound here) And there have been instances where I fail my duty to pre-plan for the night and end up succumbing to the convenience and horror of 'dons. (Lately, it has been given the nickname "'dons", commonly referred to in our circle of friends in the phrase "sack-of-'dons". I think that makes it sound worse. Just picture it. "Sack-of-'dons". As opposed to "Mickey D's", which isn't so bad. "Sack-of-'dons". Bleh.)

The point I'm sort of getting to is that before our hockey game tonight, my friend decides to make a totally unnecessary confession. We're in the locker room and he says "Oh man, I shouldn't have eaten that sack-of-'dons right before we play." I felt sick right there.

Another has to ask "What'd ya get?!" (well, someone had to). And the answer was "Three McChickens, a double cheese and a fry". I'm seriously, not even kidding, ready to puke for real now. Why, why, why, WHY would you ever do that to yourself before a hockey game?!?!?!?!??!! You could realistically ask why anyone would do that in the first place, period.

It gets worse. Someone chimes in "Man, you should go poop out that 'dons before you play." Just shoot me. We should have forfeited the game right there. Everyone listening to this (which was everyone) was now, to some extent, more queasy than they were five minutes earlier. That pretty much equates to you're-gonna-have-a-bad-game. And lose. (Ok maybe I'm unfairly blaming our loss on this. But there's no way it helped.)

And yes, someone added the "You shouldn't have had that sack of 'dons before the game" comment as we lugged our smelly losing asses back into the locker room.

Which actually reminds me of another McDonald's-related story about me...

If the following were a post in itself, it would be entitled "I'm an Idiot".
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It was sophomore year in college, and we lived on frat row, far, far away from the engineering school that I had to walk to (for the record, I was not in a frat). It was over a mile away. And in the winter, this walk sucked. And I had some, what I would call, "early" classes. (Yeah yeah, 8:50 AM class, in reality, is cake). So, I felt I "deserved" to have McDonald's breakfast on these days. And a lot of times, I did.

More often than not, I got the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit meal with hash browns and OJ (nasty, nasty concentrated OJ). If I was really hungry, I also got the two apple pies for a buck. (I'm sorry if this makes you sick. I actually still like McDonald's breakfast but when I get it now, I feel much more guilty than I did back in 2003.)

Anyways, one winter day, I have an early class, and I stop at McDonald's for breakfast. I'm hungrier than normal that day, so I get the two pies in addition to the norm. In the end, I end up eating just one of the two pies. It's a Thursday. (Wondering why I'm mentioning what day it was?) I stick the uneaten pie in my backpack. (Uh oh, do you see where this is going yet...)

Thursday passes.

Friday passes.

Saturday passes.

SUNDAY passes.

And... it's Monday night, it's around 9 PM, and I'm in my room studying Physics 201 (this is a vivid memory). Hunger is setting in. Since I sometimes leave goodies in my backpack and it's nearby, I grab the backpack to scavenge. (Uh oh.) I. Find. The. Apple. Pie.

There is a ten-second sequence where I: stare at the red unopened pie box, raise my eyebrows, think about whether pies can go bad or not, and since I can picture regular apple pies sitting out on a kitchen counter for a few days and staying good, I think "Hey, maybe it's still good."

I decide to open it and use what it looks like to determine whether it's still good.

Read that last sentence one more time.

I then step past the point of no return. Like the Nicholas Cage movie, it's gone in 60 seconds.

Epilogue

30 minutes later I was in the bathroom ralphing my guts out.

I'm an idiot.