A weekend with Carbie!

Oh Barbie… who puts shoes in a vending machine.
B-5 is for mini Nutter Butters!

If this were the world of Mattel toys I would be a doll named “Carb-ie”… Barbie’s slightly chubby friend that’s always raiding the fridge at the Dreamhouse looking for carbs.  If it were Carbie’s dreamhouse there would be a HUGE pantry full of food instead of a closet full of clothes and there would be a (possibly hijacked) ice cream truck in the driveway still broadcasting “Pop goes the Weasel” in that creepy faux music box kind of way instead of a Barbie Corvette.  Skipper would be replaced with a personal pastry chef and Ken (who I don’t believe could bake a damn thing except his fabulous plasticized buns) would get traded in for ‘Ken’-tucky Fried Chicken.

Unfortunately, since this isn’t the world of Mattel toys I cannot raid Barbie’s Dreamhouse fridge and the fridge at my Dreamhouse (aka geriatric apartment described here) sometimes gets empty.  Our supplies were dwindling to dangerous levels when we left last Friday to go on an overnight trip to New York for a wedding¹…

On Saturday morning I woke up starving and attended the hotel’s continental breakfast… which I will be polite in describing as ‘insufficient’.  We went early to the wedding venue and since my husband was tied up with his duties as Reverend I decided to make myself useful.  I dubbed myself ‘freshness checker’ and spent the late morning ensuring that none of the cocktail hour potato chips were getting stale.  After I thoroughly inspected a handful² of chips from all 5 bowls I diligently moved on to pretzels…

The ceremony began around noon- the bride was beautiful, the groom was bearded, and their lifelong bond filled our hearts with love… and now it was time to fill our stomachs.  I proudly set out the bowls of potato chips and gave guests an insightful little wink when I put them down to let them know I had verified their freshness… a couple of people looked at me confusedly and someone asked me if I had something in my eye but I’m sure they figured it out once they tasted those chips 😉

The BBQ luncheon was delicious and filled me sufficiently enough that I could finally stop chewing and mingle with some of the other wedding guests… and then the dancing began.  I can’t normally get into day-dancing at a wedding.  It’s usually not dark enough and nobody is quite drunk enough at 3:30 to really give it their all.  I tried to start a sober, day-dancing frenzy by busting out all of my best dance moves… unfortunately I think I may have actually chased people off of the dance floor as I ‘lawn-mowered’ around.  In the end, despite my best efforts to ruin dancing for everyone, for the rest of their lives, Miley Cyrus’ Party in the U.S.A. set the dance floor on fire and the day-dancing was a success… until someone said the word dessert!

Pirate or should I say ‘Pie’-rate Carbie surveying the loot!

Everyone knows that at weddings dessert is the most exciting part of the meal and dessert at this wedding certainly did not disappoint.  The dessert table boasted a stunning display of 12 (12! I just yelled that!) different kinds of pie and 3 different kinds of cookies.   Most of the pies were homemade by the bride’s father, a master of pastry and fruit fillings who I referred to on that day as not only ‘father of the bride’ but also ‘Sugar Daddy’.  I tried 7 pies, 2 cookies AND wrapped some of the 3^rd kind of cookie to go in some aluminum foil that I managed to find… in my car (you’d be surprised how often this comes in handy, especially when you’re a Carbie!).

After a final dance to AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells- in which I busted out ‘the sprinkler’ and my husband performed an epic leaning, arm flailing maneuver that required medicating with icy hot before he was able to drive- we said our goodbyes and I rolled my pie-filled self to the car.

I woke up on Sunday morning for a long run.  I was nervous that I may have strained some muscles day-dancing at the wedding but everything, including my newly incubating pie-baby, seemed to feel just fine.  I came home, had a protein shake and started looking for some real food³.  It was then that I remembered the sad reality of Friday’s bare cupboards.  Even the foil wrapped cookies from the wedding were long gone, eaten as a late night car snack on the way home.

While lamenting my late night car cookie binge I suddenly remembered a bag of Skittles that I purchased to eat as a car snack but (shockingly) didn’t open.  I ran out to the car and found the cold, crunchy candy covered orbs of sweetness just waiting to be consumed.  Like a person who just found water after wandering parched through a desert for weeks, I knelt down next to the car on the bare ground, tore into the package, and poured it into my mouth… so eager to taste the rainbow.

This rainbow was not quite right.  Upon further inspection of the shredded packaging I pieced together the “Now  with Green Apple” logo from the top of the bag.  Skittles had the audacity to change the ‘original’ flavor combination by replacing lime with green apple.  When did they replace lime and why? Who didn’t like lime?⁴

I spent the rest of the morning methodically working my way through different candy color combinations to determine which made the most delicious flavors when consumed together (naturally, as a candy connoisseur I worked out the most delicious flavor combinations for the actual ‘original’ skittles years ago but my system completely fell apart without lime).  Sometime around noon, or 8oz into the pounder of Skittles, I slipped into a sugar induced coma and I can’t recall anything else that I did or ate that day except for a fruit smoothie that I had around 8:30pm while watching an episode of Magnum P.I. (because I never forget a date with Tom).

The only reason I had the fruit smoothie instead of the chocolate ice cream that I was craving is that I realized I may not have consumed any fruits or vegetables during the day and I feared, cue frightening intro music- dun, dun, duuuuuunnnnn!- The Scurvy.  Yes, I just called it ‘The Scurvy’ instead of just ‘scurvy’.  I like to show the disease some respect as this was not the first day I’ve slacked on Vitamin C consumption⁵ and the loss of my teeth is rather frightening to me.  My husband and I actually talk about it fairly often… so much so that we sometimes just call it ‘The Scurv’.

I finally went to the grocery store on Monday morning and refilled the cabinets with actual food.  I was sure to grab some things that would fight off the Scurv, some healthy items, and some of that fun-sized Halloween candy… for special moments (or until i can no longer chew).  After last weekend’s pie and Skittles bender, and the ensuing gut rot that followed⁶ I think I might need to do some kind of cleanse.

Since I don’t think I could possibly endure whatever that lemon juice, tea, cayenne pepper mixture is I’ll probably just try to cut back on junk food consumption.  I’ve come up with my own 5-step program to use through the end of October or until the fun-sized candy sales end:

1. Open candy jar

2. Remove one fun sized candy

3. Close candy jar

4. Consume candy.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you feel sick or all of the candy is gone⁷.

I’ll let you know how it works out!

1- I will admit that in the past, I have attended events just for the food on offer*, however, this wedding was not simply a gustatory endeavor.  Two of our best friends tied the knot and we’re so happy and honored that they decided to include us in their special day- Congrats Amber and JT!

*That’s right, this is a footnote within a footnote… please put away your MLA Style Manual.  Before you judge me for my past food mooching offenses you should know I don’t do this at weddings.  I attended a couple (okay several) presentations at MSU that I had absolutely no interest in- “How to get your kid through college”, “Following MLA guidelines and writing style”, “Passing freshman Chemistry”- just for the mint brownies.  I also did a brief stint in a book club based solely on the book-themed dinner discussion nights.  It was almost difficult to consume the pineapple upside-down cake while we discussed the complexities of leprosy in the book Moloka’i… almost.

2- I wanted to notate that it is a unique definition of handful that I am using.  Webster defines handful as:

1- the quantity or amount that the hand can hold. 2. A small amount or quantitiy. 3. Informal. A person or thing that is as much as one can manage or control.

“They look like big, good, strong hands, don’t they?”
-RockBiter-

Clearly Webster has not seen me in action at a finger foods party with no plates.  I’ve got hands like the Rock Biter from The Neverending Story.  Except unlike the Rock Biter who let the man with the racing snail and the nighthob get carried away when the Nothing came calling, I’m pretty confident that nothing (including ‘The Nothing’) could possibly pry the dozen (+/- 1) brownie bites or the 5 baby eggrolls from my fingers… except for my mouth.

3- I’m pretty sure finishing a long run gives you the license to eat whatever you want for the rest of the day.  There is actually something called the “glycogen window” during which you need to consume more calories to build and repair your muscles after a long workout.  I heard the glycogen window referred to one time and had it briefly explained to me.  I am not certain what the actual “window” of time is for consuming the extra calories but I like to drag it out, sometimes for weeks, after intensive bouts of exercise.  I remember pulling up to a Wendy’s about three weeks after my first triathlon and using the glycogen window as an excuse to get “The biggest order of fries you have.”  The attendant informed me that was a Large… what the hell happened to ‘Biggie’ size Wendy’s (does anybody else remember this or am I just crazy)?

4- My missing lime Skittle was so reminiscent of my missing tan M&M that I decided to write a letter to the makers of Skittles the following day so we could discuss their wrongdoing (At press time I still had no response).  Luckily I still had the 2003 M&M email to use as a template:

5- Though now that I think of it, I may have been okay since Skittles just might have some Vitamin C in them.  The ingredients lists “Natural & Artificial Flavors” just before  3 red dyes, 3 blue dyes, 4 yellow dyes, and something called titanium dioxide (which I’m going to just go ahead and assume is making me stronger somehow or making my teeth stronger to fight The Scurvy).

6- Which stopped me from getting my blog posting done… okay, okay, that’s not entirely true.  It was the gut rot AND I was working on some blog maintenance.  I wanted to take this gut rot footnote moment to thank all of my new subscribers.  If you’re not a subscriber and would like to be- just click on that lovely blue “follow” button on the right hand side of the screen and you’ll get notification of all my new posts sent directly to your email (does it get any better than that?).  If you’re not a subscriber and you wouldn’t like to be- I completely understand.  To everyone that actually made it this far into the post- Thanks so much for reading!

7- I cannot stress enough how critical Step 3 is!  If you close the jar between candies anybody that comes in won’t know that it’s your 9^th baby Butterfinger, they’ll think you’re just reaching in for the first time.