There is a surprising amount of calories in a bag of LifeSavers Gummies.
Tomorrow marks the first day of the third week of a self-improvement initiative spurred in part by an awkward moment post-gutterball while bowling during which I fell to the ground in protest of said gutterball only to reveal a tiny sliver of...buttcrack. "ENOUGH!" I said in a fit of humiliation and hypocrisy. Refer to CheeseFriesRants blog post dated August 27th, 2009 for a full synopsis of my opinions about the uninvited buttcrack appearance.
I had become one of them. My options were threefold:
1. Buy larger pants, thus preventing further peekings.
2. Surgically remove my buttcrack to prevent further accidental appearance.
3. De-thunder my thighs to return them to their pre-grad school state, thus needing neither larger pants nor surgical alteration of crack length.
Results so far have been mixed.
Lets take it back to last Monday morning. I stumbled out of bed at the wee hours of 5:30 AM to strap on my road shoes and climb into the saddle of my roadbike affixed upon a stationary trainer, a new years resolution purchase which lasted a whole two weeks. I pedaled along to a podcast coached by a woman entirely too cheery to listen to before dawn. As she prompted me to crank my resistance, I obliged, only to find myself toppling to the ground, hip bruised, rug-burned, and shocked.
It takes a special person to fall off a stationary bike.
It happened twice. I took the next day off.
I tried running at the work gym, ignoring the fact that a tumble from a treadmill amongst a gaggle of coworkers could be deemed a form of social suicide. (Although not as extreme a form as Mathletes). My problem with the work gym, however, is the loss of anonymity. My reputation at work does not need to be marred by the visual of me fist pumping to Lady Gaga.
I took today off from spinning to go to Costco. Please congratulate me for not indulging in what might be the world's greatest deal: Polish Dog and Diet Coke for $1.25. You may do so by leaving a comment at the bottom on this post.
Never again will I go to Costco on a Sunday afternoon without the accompaniment of some sort of cattle dog. Quite literally, everybody and their second cousin Billy Bob was there. To cite the words of a great Indian sage, whom I will dub "Dupli," "Maybe Costco is the new Wal Mart."
It would be a shame for me not to share some of my observations.
Odd Costco Shopper #1
Character Description: Middle aged caucasian male, slightly rotund, burnt salmon t shirt, sweat stained visor, olive green zip off cargos and Tevas.
Location: Condiments and sauces.
Oddity: As I carefully calculated how many ounces of ketchup necessary to saturate 500 burgers, Odd Costco Shopper #1 sauntered toward me muttering under his breath, "Kikkoman...Kikkoman...Kikkoman," each time changing his intonation as if he were trying to guess the correct pronunciation. As he came closer, Costco Shopper #1 veered right as if to avoid my cart, then stopped right in front of it. Absentmindedly, he grabbed the hem of his t shirt and proceeded to wipe his face with it. Blinded by the pasty white hue of his fully exposed gut, I averted my eyes and pretended to text until he left, which he did, this time muttering "No....no...no," while pointing to which condiments he did not intend to purchase.
Odd Costco Shopper #2
Character Description: Adolescent female, lime green cami, navy blue sweats, rust orange dog collar.
Location: Checkout
Oddity: Um, it should be obvious. The collar. I'm not sure if it was a budget attempt to mimic the punked out fashion extremists of the 90s, or a vestigial remnant of being a leash-kid. I wasn't aware that Petco had expanded its target demographic to include the troubled socially awkward adolescent. Of course, I'm not one to talk, as I had my awkward fashion statements at that age. As I remember, my favorite T shirt was an oversized, aged Crazy Shirts Maui relic sporting the phrase "DIG IT!" On top of that, I occasionally wore hiking boots in an urban setting.
On that note, I'd like to state that I have zero qualms about children on leashes. If your kid is going to run off and terrorize other shoppers, please do us all a favor and put it on a leash. I do not know why it is illegal to walk down the street with a well behaved unleashed dog, yet it is perfectly legal to let disease spreading tiny humans roam free.
Next time I need to go to Costco, I'm bringing a cattle dog to help me navigate through the crowd. I'll use my child on a leash argument if anyone protests the herding.
At least the Costco Oddities left me only one sample taste, which aligns with my de-thunder thigh attempts.
Which brings me back to my original point. There are surprisingly a lot of calories in a bag of LifeSavers Gummies. My nausea tells me that they're not meant for one person to inhale the entire bag in one afternoon. But I couldn't help it, I had already sacrificed so much. And by "sacrifice" I mean that putting the Snickers Squared back on the shelf was justification for eating the first half of the bag. Second half justification came in the form of resisting the urge to have a glass of wine, knowing full well that another day in the fridge would further oxidize it. All in the name of unintentional buttcrack appearance.
