The Sudden Growth in Maturity Chronicles: No. 2

Continuing signs that international travel is causing my sense of maturity to grow by leaps and bounds...

I giggled at this one for several minutes...



This one time, Tom, Jeff, and I went to the OCB in Bloomington (Old Country Buffet for the layperson...) We went over lunch and decided to take the Buffet Challenge in the old College Hills Mall. OCB is rumored to put additives in their food (particularly the mashed potatoes) which fill you up faster, thereby depriving you of the Nausea-Inducing FatFest you rightfully paid for. We are Americans, dammit, and demand to stuff our faces in such away that we come out having gotten our money's worth!!!

The trick is to fill up your plates with as much as you can and sit down, scarfing the first plate as quickly as possible. No pacing yourself, folks, this is for serious! You have to get that first plate down your gullet and back up to the line before your brain or stomach are even aware of what happened. Then you start in on the second plate. A little slower now, as you don't want to burst a gasket. The real goal is to try to get onto the third plate before feeling sick. Maybe even dessert.

And important tip is to never use a straw when drinking... it only adds air to your stomach and will seriously decrease your odds of success. In fact, try to avoid drinking anything at all until the very end, as the liquid will only cause things in your stomach to swell.

Anyway, we all made it most of the way through three plates. I do believe I held my own against two mighty competitors who are at least a bit bigger than me in size.

We sighed the sigh of victory and staggered out to my car. I was feeling pretty good about the ordeal, but Tom and Jeff looked considerably less happy. In fact, this was the very day we felt Jeffery's pregnant little belly and discovered just how taut it had become. Rock hard. He just might have a baby...

"Let's just go home," moaned Tom.

"I need to go to the bathroom," cried Jeff.

"I feel pretty good," I replied.

On the way out of the parking lots I hit several potholes, causing a series of loud moans to emit from my fellow passengers.

"Watch the road," moaned Tom.

"I don't feel so good," cried Jeff.

"I'll do what I can," I replied.

I proceeded to hit each and every bump and pothole I could find on the ride home. My passengers sounded miserable and violent and may have become physically aggressive towards me if it weren't for the fact that they were holding their stomachs so tightly.

"I think I'm going to die," moaned Tom.

"I think I might poo a little," cried Jeff.

"I think I'll take the scenic route!" I replied.

The moral or the story is this: There is no moral.

We have always known that inflicting this kind of trauma upon your friends can be amusing.

What we didn't know was this: Speed bumps in Sweden hinder farts.

But only in Sweden.

I wish I had known this. Try as I might, not one bump that I hit on that fateful afternoon did a bit of good to hinder any gastrointestinal problems my friends were having.

And that made my ride home uncomfortable.

Next time, let's hit the buffet over here, fellas!