The Virtual Pew Daily: Don't Mess With a Hungry Man

Okay I think it is time for something like this, I hope you are ready because today, well, today I have to get some things off my chest.

I have been on this diet, The Michael Thurmond 6 Week Makeover. I am eating 6 times a day, it seems like the same ol’ same ol’. For breakfast oatmeal and egg whites, for snack, tuna and fruit, for lunch, vegis, meat, and fruit, for snack, meat and fruit, for dinner meat, fruit, vegis, and for snack meat and fruit. I never have more than 4 OZ of meat, and if any kind of read meat, never more than 3 oz. per meal. To say the least I don’t care how many ways you try, tuna, tuna still taste like tuna. I am also seriously limited on carbs. My delight comes for dinner when I get a medium sized baked sweet potato. I could say a lot more about this diet but, to put it all in perspective, after the first week I had only lost 1 pound 2 ounces. I have to tell you, I was starting to wonder if it was worth it. Would you rather be healthy, live a little longer and never satisfy the taste pallet, or die young, fat, and enjoying things like barbeque, a hamburger, ice cream and you can only imagine.

Another thing I have started, which I have yet to do today, take a 2 ½ mile walk, at least 5 days a week, plus get in a workout at least twice a week. Now I don’t mind the walk, will say more about that later, but the work out is with rubber band type things. Now I am going to tell you, you can tell how out of shape you are when you work out with rubber band type things and get tired.

Now on to the walking, we found this great place, a public park in town with a great walking track. We have been going each morning and I enjoy the time with my wife. Yesterday we decided to take the dogs, a little wiener dog named Oscar, and our white German shepherd named Kersey. Here I am, thinking that the little wiener dog isn’t going to make this walk. Our white shepherd seemed to be in great shape, a trim female but normally pretty active. Well let me tell you, after about a mile and a half, our German shepherd decides to plop down and won’t budge. I don’t know what it is, I think she was so out of shape that she got tired, maybe her hips bothering her a little bit and then she just plops down and won’t move. Now this is a gentle, loving dog, never shown me her teeth or anything but I didn’t realize she was hurting and tired and boy did I make a mistake. I finally got tired so figured it would be best if I carry her the remaining ½ mile to mile to the van. Big mistake, my arm now looks like a big ol’ vampire took a bite out of it and I have bruises on one side and teeth marks on the other. Now don’t get me wrong, the dog wasn’t the bad one here, it was me. I was seriously concerned that our big puppy was going to die from a heat stroke or something. She is doing fine now, but lesson number one, don’t mess with a dog, or person that is tired, and don’t want to be messed with.

Now I was also excited because after all of the time on this diet, and feeling that I could afford to cheat for a day, I thought, “hummmmm, Sonic (A popular drive in restaurant in the area) was offering free root beer floats, why not go get one.” Guess what? We decided to go get one. Well on the way there we saw a line of cars that went back a quarter of a mile into the road, so as patient as I am, I decided, no root beer floats. There is nothing like wanting to cheat on a diet, then not being able to. What do I do? It is really quite simple, I go home, mad and upset that I didn’t get my root beer float.

Time went on, things were so so and my wife says to me; “Know what I would like to have?” “No.” I responded. “I wouldn’t mind having a sugar free frozen fudge bar.” Guess what? I agree, decide to hop in the van and drive down to Wal-Mart, (A store I don’t like shopping at that much but all that is open here after 11:00 PM. On the way, we see that while Sonic is full, we can end up getting into a parking spot, so we decide to forgo the purchase of a fudge cycle and end up going in to get our free root beer float.

There we are, we make it into our spot, and call our order in. Then, we wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. After about 25 minutes waiting a car pulls in beside me. On the other side of me is a boy on a bicycle, seriously, a boy at a car drive in on a bicycle. Now he has his root beer float and low and behold if the car hop doesn’t come out, and give him another after we had ordered ours. That was bad enough, but when the people beside us, who hadn’t been there for 3 minutes, (honest to goodness, no more than 3 stinking minutes) the car hop gives the two of them in the car, three root beer floats. At this point, I have to tell you, I begin using language that I later had to pray about and ask God to forgive me for. I was a little upset. Thankfully there weren’t any cops around when I pulled out of Sonic or I would have gotten a ticket for “exhibition of speed,” that’s when you peel out and stuff like that.

On the way out of Sonic I decide to go down to the Wal-Mart and get the frozen fudge bars we had originally set out after. They were sugar free and would be okay, wouldn’t be cheating too bad I thought. Well we finally get to Wal-Mart and it is now approaching 12:00 midnight. I get the bars, and then with my wife, get in line to purchase the bars. Now can someone tell me, why it is that at a Super Wal-Mart with 30 something check out lanes, they only have 2 of them open? Of course I decide to get into the speedy check out, you know the one with 20 items or less lane.

I don’t mean to be rude, but let me tell you, not only do strange people shop at 12:00 midnight; strange people work at Wal-Mart at 12:00 midnight. The line I am in has about 8 shoppers in front of me. The little lady paying for her items sends all 19 or 20 items through the check out in the 20 item or less line. The check out lady is, no kidding, is the slowest checker I have ever seen in my life. After the shopper has all of her items sent through the check out, she then gets out her check book, borrows a pen, writes the check, and pays for the items. Of course this isn’t all, after she gets her receipt, she stands there, and checks off every item in her 12 bags, (I still don’t know why you need so many plastic bags at the store) with her receipt, and after about 10 minutes, (no kidding) she leaves. Needless to say, we finally get to the check out to purchase our frozen fudge bars, a sugar free pack of popsicles and a diet Pepsi. I give the lady a $20 to pay for our $6.52 purchase and I have to stand there and wait an additional 5 minutes to get my change figured out, and handed back to me.

Whew! What a night, but it wasn’t over. On the way home we noticed that there were only 4 cars at Sonic, guess what? I pull in to get my free root beer float. I was surprised; it was no more than 5 minutes before the car hop brought me the float. I am now in the car, with my wife, and my son, (who should be in bed by now) and we have 3 root beer floats. There is only one problem, the ice cream machine is not working right and instead of root beer and ice cream, we have root beer with watery (not frozen) ice cream mix. It was horrible, how horrible may you ask? Horrible enough that I took one sip, gave it to my son, and he ended up pouring it down the sink when we got home.

What did I do, and what did I learn after all of this, well I ended up eating a fudge bar that took me an hour and a half to get, some 4 miles from my house. I also got home and ended up watching a few programs to calm down before going to bed, you know the reason, right? How you should never go to bed angry. As to what I learned? Well it is really quite simple, when on a diet, or making a commitment to do something, it isn’t worth the little cheating that we do here and there. I have learned one lesson; stick to my commitments, and as to that lesson, maybe we all need to hear that on occasion.

Click on the following link to see a great clip of someone slowing things down, I could almost guarantee you that you will laugh. If the video don't appear, just click on the link, otherwise, click on the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLqTnJPpwto