Mmmmmmm mmmmmm goood

I’ve rediscovered something in my life that has been missing for a while, and I’m glad to have it back.

No, I’m not talking about exercise or motivation or hair that’s not grey. I’m talking about potted meat.

When I was younger, I loved potted meat. It was one of my favorite snacks. Give me a little can of potted meat and some saltine crackers (which we used to call soda crackers) and a Coke to wash it down and I could make a meal out of it.

The uninformed will often look at potted meat and just go, “Ewwwwww!” This is what everyone in my house feels compelled to do every single time I sit down to enjoy my processed meat delight. But as caviar is more than just fish eggs, and escargot is more than just snails, potted meat is more than just some congealed meat by-product.

What is potted meat? Well, I’m not exactly sure, and I don’t think I want to know, and I don’t really care. It’s meat, and it’s potted, and I like it. ’Nough said.

There are some cousins to potted meat, but I don’t really like those. Vienna sausage are packed in some sort of toe jelly that keeps me away. Starbucks coffee smells like Vienna sausage to me, therefore I don’t drink it. Spam is kind of a dressed-up version of potted meat, but I don’t enjoy it. And deviled ham? Please. Don’t insult me.

My grandmother used to serve fried tripe. I didn’t even like the sound of that, and I liked the taste even less. Apparently it comes from an animal’s stomach. I don’t know why that’s any grosser than eating an animal’s butt, which we do all the time, but somehow it is.

At some point, I decided that potted meat had too much fat (true) and too many calories (true) and too much sodium (true) and no nutritional value (debatable), so I should take it out of my diet. But all the while I continued to eat other unhealthy things, so it didn’t make much difference. Plus it’s a little bitty can, how bad for you can it be?

Since the doctor made me stop drinking beer, I figure popping open a can of potted meat every now and then is not such a bad thing. And you won’t get a ticket for driving after eating too much potted meat, though it might not be a fun ride for the other people in the car.

If you haven’t experienced the joys of potted meat, I suggest you go to your local grocery store, get a couple of cans (make sure it’s Libby’s – the other brands aren’t as good), get some soda crackers, pop the tin top off the can and commence to eating. You’ll thank me, even if your cholesterol doesn’t.

That was a close one!

A funny story in my family concerns how my mother once went to The Omni in Atlanta for a gospel music concert on New Year’s Eve, featuring The Gaither Family and others, and accidentally wandered into the wrong bathroom.

It was her first trip to The Omni, and quite possibly any major sporting arena, so she wasn’t used to the bathroom setup. She went into the restroom, and she said later that she remembered thinking it was odd that there were so many water fountains against the wall, and so few stalls. As she was sitting in the confines of her stall, she heard male voices and realized that what she had glimpsed were not water fountains at all, but urinals.

She sat there, paralyzed with fear, until finally all the voices died down and she made a mad dash out, embarrassed and horrified. To her knowledge, nobody saw her in there, and later, once all the red went out of her cheeks, she was able to laugh about it.

Well, I wish she was still with us, because boy, do I have a story that she’d enjoy.

I had to go to Emory Hospital this morning for a CT scan, and I wasn’t feeling great. I was having what we’ll call “tummy miseries,” even though I hadn’t eaten anything since 6 o’clock the night before. And these are the kind of tummy miseries from which there are no escape – once they hit, they must be addressed immediately. I will say no more.

I was in the car, heading back to work, and I suddenly knew that I had to stop ASAP. The nearest place was a Whole Foods grocery story, so I pulled in there, asked a guy stacking cantaloupes where the restrooms were, and shuffled off in that direction, doubled over and grimacing.

The men’s bathroom in this place was your standard single-seater, and there was a guy in there with the door locked, and it didn’t seem like he was in any hurry. I could see that the women’s restroom, just across the hall, appeared to be bigger. It had a swinging door that didn’t lock, and it didn’t sound like anybody was in there.

At this point, my stomach informed me that I had a decision to make. I could leave and try to go to another store, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make it. I could bang on the men’s bathroom door, but I could hear the guy turning magazine pages, so that wasn’t going to work. So I sort of gently pushed the women’s bathroom door open, saw there was nobody in there, and there were two stalls, no waiting. My decision was made.

I didn’t plan to stay long. Maybe 30 seconds. I just needed immediate relief, or I was going to die. So I slipped in unnoticed, went to the stall against the wall, and thanked Jesus for the empty bathroom.

I had been there maybe 15 seconds when I heard voices just outside the main bathroom door. It was a man, telling a little girl to go on in, and he’d wait outside. Oh no, I thought. This can’t be happening. But it was. I heard the door open, and I heard him urge her to go on in, because a man can’t come in the girls’ bathroom, he explained, and he would just wait outside.

So she came on in, and now my stomach troubles weren’t a big deal, because I was instead having a heart attack. I could see the little girl’s shoes in the next stall, and she walked in, and she just stopped. Oh Lord, I thought. She’s going to look under here and see me, then she’s going to run outside and say, “Daddy, there’s a man sitting on the potty!”

I considered my options. I looked for a window so I could climb out, but it was too small. If the man came in and confronted me, then I could tell the truth, but who would believe that? I wouldn’t, if it happened to my little girl. I would have figured the guy was a pervert and I would have given him a beatdown.

Well, I thought, if he comes in, I’ll just have to charge him and knock him out of the way, then run for my car as fast as possible and drive straight to Mexico, and maybe come back in six months after getting plastic surgery. But with my luck, he’d probably be a professional wrestler, or an off-duty cop carrying a gun. Every way I looked at it, I was screwed.

After a minute, the little girl went back to the main door and said, “Daddy, I don’t know which potty to use.” Then he stuck his head in the door and directed her to the empty stall, and again assured her that he would be right outside. Finally, the little girl came in, did her business, and I just sat there praying to God and Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and the Dalai Lama and Oprah that I wouldn’t be noticed.

She finished up, went out, and I counted to 15, then slipped out of my stall, peeked out the door, saw the coast was clear, and walked as fast as humanly possible out of that store into my car. I should be in the clear, unless they had some sort of security camera rigged up. So if you see my picture on the evening news with the caption, “Police still searching for bathroom lurker,” I promise you I had no choice, and I’ll never do it again.