The Aftermath of Ivan

If I worked in marketing, or if I owned a local gym, I would have rushed a new commercial onto the airwaves.

"Hey fatso! Did you sit around the house during the hurricane eating like a big FAT pig? If you did, get your blubber-butt into the gym!"

Seriously, it seems that the only thing everyone who stayed here in New Orleans for the hurricane had in common was food. Jeff and I both ate like it was going out of style. While I focused on the huge container of tuna salad, in the interest of full disclosure, I admit to eating (in two settings) an entire box of Stove Top Stuffing which I made in the microwave. Jeff on the other hand, inhaled an entire box of chips ahoy, a bag of tostitos, a jar of peanuts, a container of potato salad, half a container of chicken salad (I ate the other half) and god knows what else. I started quizzing people at work last night about this phenomenon and got some very interesting answers. One friend admitted to eating not only an entire bag of Lays Sour Cream and Chives chips, but to eating TWO giant Hershey bars SMEARED with peanut butter. Another friend ate tuna salad too, but tuna salad made with only tuna, pickles and a little mayo. He scooped it up with potato chips. There were admissions of eating "just junk food," but one story took the case.

One of my friends seems lately to be in between homes. He had said that his grandparents were going to fly him out of town but given the difficulty of flying out of the city on a days notice during a hurricane, I assumed that was going to be impossible. When he came in last night I asked him where he rode out the hurricane. "At the bathouse," was his reply. The bathhouse? The Bathhouse? I hadn't thought about it, but if I had, I wouldn't have guessed that they would be open, let alone that someone would seek refuge there. He said that he slept most of the time but that there was some action going on, obviously he wasn't the only one who wanted to "ride out the storm." Later I asked him, "Well, what did you eat?" He got a sheepish look on his face and said, "A ham and cheese sandwich from the vending machine, hey they're fresh! And a bag of microwave butter lovers popcorn." Thus winning the contest of worst food eaten, not necessarily by content, but definitely by situation.

If anyone out there has an entry for "worst food eaten," then drop me a comment below.