Pour Some Sugar On Me

I am the worst hypoglycemniac (is that a word?) that I know of. If I go for too long without eating I will get the world’s worst headache that won’t go away. Just before the headache though, comes a period where I sort of enter “the quiet zone” and my personality flat lines. I can literally hear myself talking like a robot. It hit me last night as I was trying to finish my holiday pre-shopping scan of every item in every store. Unfortunately I had just entered a store and had just started my scan when I flat lined and an extremely perky salesman approached. I felt my force field go up immediately. That’s a barrier no salesperson can penetrate.

He wanted to know what I was looking for, in what size and what color. I let out a stream of monotone “I’m just looking” and with each non-emphasized word, he got more excited. It was a challenge; I had dropped the gauntlet and he was picking it up. Oh my word, couldn’t he tell I was running low on sugar and thus out of “sweetness”? I was a hungry sourpuss, a Grinch who was Christmas shopping. All of his excitement and sales-witchery bounced off my low glycemic brain like water off of a Rain-X’d windshield. I just didn’t have the time or energy to explain that I was pre-shopping scanning, or what that was, or why I MUST do it that way. I needed silence to ensure my scanning downloaded properly. Silence was not part of his game plan.

Salesman (SM): …but if you did know what you were looking for , what sizes would you need?

Me: (flatly) I have it written down on a list in the car.
SM: What are the favorite colors of the people you are shopping for?

Me: It depends on what it is.

SM: (Sensing that he was getting nowhere, he switched to his “How to deal with a difficult shopper” sales routine) Could you help me with something? I am not trying to sell you anything; I have some things picked out for myself and would like to get your opinion on them. (I zombied over to him) See these suits? I am trying to decide about tie and sock choices.

I looked and he had two gray suits laid out with three ties and three pair of socks. Each tie was nice and had a few spots of bright color . In the first, it was silver for the most part with a few little dots of lime green. The socks were bright lime green. The next was a tie, dark gray, with some bright blue spots in it. The socks were bright electric blue. The third was in the purple category. Somehow in the midst of all this, I hit the “I’m over it” stage and was really ready to just go home.

SM: I love these tie/sock combinations with these suits; my boss thinks I am crazy. What do you think?

Me: (Without taking a breath and looking him right in the eyes) I think your boss is really smart.

He stood there frozen and silent (I finally got silence). I heard a loud gasp to my right. I turned and to my right was the cashier. Her jaw had dropped to her chest while she took in lots of air really quickly. I looked back and the salesman and he said, “Ouch”.

I felt so bad. Where was my Southern hospitality? Where was my smoothing this over and not hurting his feelings? I know better; I was raised better. Apparently my sweetness is directly linked to my glycemic levels. I made a robotic effort to tell him that the ties matched the socks and looked good together but that I would have to wear them without the suit…..what? I realized how odd that sounded but as it seemed to give me an exit note, I took it.

SM: Now watch how I turn this around and sell you something.

Me: Watch the door.

I exited center stage. I knew it was time for me to go home. I knew I needed to eat something ; my batteries we just about dead. Did I go home? No. I remembered that I needed to get a kid’s gift and ran into Old Navy. While there, I decided to do my least favorite thing in the world…try on jeans.  Why? I have no answer for that other than I wasn’t thinking clearly at this point. I tried on every style in two sizes and none of them made me look the way I think I should look. I sat down my stack of reject jeans by the first stack of rejects and the tired dressing room attendant said,”So, did any of these work out for you?” She had no idea that she was dealing with a drone at this point who was suffering from IBS (irritable boy syndrome) . I was really hitting the point of no return and I answered, “No, none of them worked. They are all either irregular or I have a fat ___.”  (Sorry ladies, pardon my French) I’ll let you fill in the blank. Every now and then, when the blood sugar is low and the timing is right, I speak French. The dressing room attendant just looked at me and said, “We don’t carry irregulars.” Bazinga! It was time for me and my glutes to exit stage left.

 I am going to have to start stocking my car with Power Bars or something so that I can enjoy the Christmas spirit when I am in the midst of the hustle and bustle of it all. You know something is wrong when you are expecting peace and quiet in the middle of the holiday shopping frenzy. You also know something is wrong when you are not patient/kind with people who have to put up with the crazed crowd of deal hunting shoppers. Let’s face it, they are stuck in a big over scented/overstocked box, listening to the same songs over and over again…all day long. It’s holiday waterboarding for those poor sales people. I am going to have to go out and spread some cheer today to make up for last night. If you are looking for me, just follow the trail of Power Bar wrappers and you’ll find me.

 

 

Holiday Stuffing

I am not a “have a pizza delivered” kind of guy. I don’t know why but it is just something I have actually never done. I’ll bet I can count on one hand the number of times I have gone out and gotten a pizza and brought it back home. The only time I actually ever eat it is when I go out with people to a pizza place (or Marina’s on the square). For some reason, Sunday night, I had a hankering for pizza.
We had just had a two hour car ride from our relatives get-together ( a good time was had by all) and I had partaken in everything that was served. I told myself that I really didn’t need anything for dinner as I was about to explode but somehow, around 7ish, my man/bear/pig appetite kicked in. I was out an d about and decided that since there was really noting at home to cook that I would just go to my favorite Chinese restaurant “Most Happy Panda”…or something like that. Yes, before you ask, that is the one that I am pretty sure served me dead baby koi for the Shlimp Spayshell but I think we have mended that fence. On the way to MHP , I started thinking that I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to wait for them to cook it and that maybe I should just run to Subway, get a pretend healthy sandwich and call it a night.

I pulled in to the parking lot and suddenly remembered that there was a new pizza place across the street. My stomach and inner bear growled and my pig squealed to I drove passed the glass door of MHP and in my state of paranoia I am pretty sure the owner was looking out the door and saw me slow down and then drive off. This feud needs to stop. Anyway, the thought of pizza had more appeal than the thought of steamed “chickey brahkrees” and I went to the new pizza place.
The only kind of pizza I eat is veggie , with the occasional chicken pizza. I rationalized all this in my mind as no being so bad since it had to be somewhat healthy and that maybe I just needed to think of this as some kind of “cheat day”. So I walked in the door to order just a small veggie pizza. In my temporary state of perceived starvation, I ordered the medium bacon pizza. Bacon? I don’t eat bacon...except for Christmas morning (it’s a religious thing…something about a manger, a giant star that shined like bacon in the night, etc). Anyway , they told me it would be about ten minutes. Apparently this is the kind of place that people normally just “call in” because I was the only one there waiting…the entire time.

I have no idea why, but after a while I found myself reading information about “fat burning exercises” on the internet. I don’t normally read that stuff, especially not on my phone but for some unknown reason I felt compelled to learn more about this subject matter. The site was filled with  info and several videos on how to perform the exercises. I can’t remember which site I was on  but there were tons of mindless videos to help me not sit there and think about how hungry I was. After a while “seatitis” set in and I had lost all track of time. It just seemed like I had been there a really long time.
I heard a guy in the kitchen say, “Who is that guy sitting out in the lobby? He has been out there forever.” I looked up to see everyone staring at me and I slowly mouthed back the word “FOREVER”. Two men came up front and opened up some kind of storage hot box and said “Oh here it is; are you Perry?” I told them I was and asked what had happed. All I got was a “thank you and have a good night”. I asked if they thought it was now going to taste like a cardboard box but I got the same reply, “thank you and have a good night. So I left and looked at my ticket. I had been there 40 minutes. Mentally, I was dying of starvation.

I got home and checked the DVR and sat there and ate a few pieced of pizza while watching some show that was just too important to miss but that I can now no longer remember. Mmmmmm bacon pizza…with a little pineapple (you’ve got to get in a serving of fruit…if you are health conscious) and a hot spicy crust. If I had to guess, I would say they brushed the outer ring of crust with jalapeno juice. It was good but it set my tongue on fire. I could feel the burn….feel the burn….I remember reading something about that on the fat burning website. I WAS feeling the burn; it had to count for something. The more I ate the more I burned.

The reason I went for the medium was so I could actually have the rest for lunch the next day. As I sat there I remembered I was going to a company party the next day for lunch and wouldn’t need it. “Bacon pizza, that should be good for breakfast,” I told myself. So that was the plan until I started thinking about the fact that every day of this week was going to be some kind of “cheat day” and that just because I had overstocked on pizza it didn’t mean that I had to eat. Then that “starving kids in Africa” saying sounded off in my head….so many voices in my head, it ‘s just hard to always know which one to listen to. I decided to not save any for the next day. All I can tell you is that the last piece was just as good as the first.

So yesterday, I finally remembered that I was out of all my vitamins and went to go restock. A very energetic, salesman, who was, from what I could tell, a doctor of supplementation, gave me a free sample . As he was putting this miracle drug in my bag, he said, “This is going to give you a really/super/hard/intense workout. I informed him that I don’t actually do really/super/hard/intense workouts but that if it gave me a little energy, I would be happy. He replied, “No, you don’t understand, if you take this, you WILL have a really/super/hard/intense workout.  I just said, “I don’t see that happening but I will give it a shot.” He replied, “Oh, it’s going to happen…by the way, you may get body tingles for a minute, that’s normal; it’s fine. It’s supposed to happen.”

I drove to the gym wondering why this guy thought I needed to workout harder by just looking at me. So with that in mind and a fond/loathing memory of a bacon pizza (RIP bacon pizza, you were loved), I looked at the ingredients to this early stocking stuffer that had been put into my bag. It looked like vitamins, amino acids and caffeine…a  thing of two I couldn’t pronounce but sounded like native plants from third world countries, so it sounded relatively safe. I mixed it with water and went in to do my  “slothfit” routine. In just a matter of minutes my face started to tingle. It was weird. It was just my face, somewhere between a tingle and a burn. It eventually went away. I think it did give me a little more energy, kind of like tons of coffee (with the added splash of Icy Hot as facial lotion feel). My heart wasn’t racing or anything. I know, I know, I shouldn’t do these things but the 20 year old supplement doctor said it was safe.

This morning I woke up and looked like a teenager. Wow! By “looked like a teenager” I mean my face had broken out, not that I didn’t have any wrinkles. Apparently I woke up the acne demon from my teen years. It had to be the face tingle. I don’t think I am going to put this product on my Santa list. So today I am back to my whole grain rice/barley/spinach trifecta and I will be once again trying to Frankenstein the low fat/sugar free/ mocha frappaccino…with a shot of protein…maybe. More Christmas events coming up and visions of sugar plum demons dance in my head. I know: pacing, portion control…it only happens once a year…life’s too short…you only go around once…yadayadayada. I will enjoy it, don’t worry, every last bit of it...bite of it. Oh, oh, oh, Merry Christmas.