Worst Ways To Die

Not great

My parents came in for brunch yesterday and naturally the topic of worst ways to die came up. Actually my mom mentioned Tuesdays With Morrie as being a great book, and then Aliza and I started talking about The Five Jerks You Meet On Earth, which is a hilarious parody of Mitch Albom's abdundantly corny and manipulative tear-jerker book, The Five People You Meet In Heaven. We then started talking about ALS (Lou Gherig's disease) and how that's a bad way to die, and I mentioned that I was recently wondering whether dead people feel hot when they're being creamated, to which my mom said no, to which I responded that nobody could ever know for sure unless they were creamated.

In any event, I contended that the number one worst way to die, excluding diseases, is by being lit on fire. Being lit on fire is the worst because it would be like being outside on the hottest day of the year with 100% humidity and no shade and no water, in addition to the pain of being on fire. So basically you would not only die, but you would die in a bad mood. Aliza maintained that drowning is far worse because you're struggling for breath, but I think we can all agree drowning is better because at least you're in cool water and you're not sweating AND dying, which is the worst of all possible words. L.G. then contended that plane crashes trumped both being on fire and drowning because it involves realizing you're going to die seconds before you actually die AS WELL AS being lit on fire, at which point my parents agreed with him and Aliza and I were forced to concede that plane crashes were pretty bad. L.G. later recanted his position and said that he read somewhere that being skinned alive was actually worse than plane crashes, but this is clearly false.

The Problem with Brunch

Nevermore

In theory I like the idea of brunch, but in practice, brunch is disgusting and a no-win situation. Take, for instance, today, when my parents came in to NYC for a "birthday brunch" with me and Aliza and I was faced with the age-old brunch menu problem. Basically the options are some sort of eggs - omlettes, scrambled, and other things - or a completely gross but exceedingly delicious stack of pancakes, french toast, waffles etc. While my heart says "pancakes" my brains says "eggs" but the problem is that I have never really gotten back on the egg bandwagon after an unfortunate egg incident in college, whereby I made scrambled eggs for myself every single day for a month and then grossed myself out, resulting in egg overload and an extreme repulsion to both eggs and ketchup for an entire year. So basically that leaves me the pancakes/french toast option, but that's like eating 30 cookies for breakfast, which, while delicious, is a one way ticket to obesity.

So every time I sit down to brunch, I'm forced to choose between eggs that pretty much make me want to throw up, and pancakes where I know I'd feel like a disgusting slob and spend the rest of the day monitoring my face in the mirror for bagel-face syndrome and walking around uncomfortable and angry and about to burst out of my jeans. Ultimately I went with the eggs today because shit has to be looking top notch for the ATL Meet the Editors Happy Hour on Tuesday and if I ate the buttermilk pancakes I wouldn't have enough time to undo the damage, but someone needs to look into this brunch problem very soon because it's getting out of hand and someone needs to invent another option, and don't say granola or a salad because nobody wants that shit for brunch.

Doggie Bags & Brunch Plans

This past Friday I was on a datetastic and since I knew that I was DEFINITELY NOT paying for myself, I starved myself all day in order to gorge on free food and delicious alcohol that night. So after 3 vodka gimlets, 2 refills on the bread basket and a pear, gorgonzola and apple salad appetizer salad that I requested to be supersized to an entree, I was pretty much about to explode. The waiter came back with the dessert menu and asked if wanted to have dessert, and my date looked at me and I made my usual throw up noises to indicate that I was exxxtremely fully, so the waiter took the dessert menus away. So as we're sitting there and I'm working the Marin Magic (TM), the waiter brings back the check and I pretend I don't see it when the waiter asks me if I would like the rest of my salad wrapped up to go. I look at him like he has just asked me if I wear underwear on my head routinely and I said "Um NO" because the last thing I want to do when I'm so full that I'm seriously considering lap band surgery is eat EVER AGAIN and least of all eat the same shit tomorrow that I just ate. Like if I'm about to die of fullness do waiters really expect me to say "Yes - I definitely want the leftovers" and then look like an obese loser carrying around food for the next four hours and pretend that I'm not extremely repulsed by the food and plan for the future by envisioning that tomorrow I might be hungry at some point because that will never be happening.

It's the same thing with brunch plans - like Megan asked me on Thursday night after I had just inhaled two of her delicioso enchiladas whether I wanted to do brunch on Sunday and I told her that unfortunately I could never imagine a time when I would be hungry again so my answer was definitely not and maybe she should check back in a few days and see if the situation had changed.