Man vs Food

Congratulations to me!

I had my first bout with food poisoning last week. Either from package trail mix or packet of peanuts.  Either way, it hit me from nowhere like an IED while I was driving in rush hour traffic on the 51. From sharing stories with other survivors I've decided it was a mild case of it. Don't feel bad for me though, I think I had it coming.
 
The Gastro Gods or Food Karma or something along those lines finally caught up to me and unleashed a wrath of justified retribution.  Here's a little back-story...

Seven or eight years ago, at a place at which I don't work any more, my co-workers and I were very active in the way of playing practical jokes on one another. We'd pull pranks that ranged from the classic "Cup full of water precariously balanced behind the cubicle overhead door" to rasterizing a photo of someone and displaying outward from the office windows to creating a Craigslist personal add soliciting a 4th guy for a weekend full of man on man sex (complete with photos and contact info.) too.

The common thread among the pranks was that, in the end, the victim(s) eventually were let in on who was behind that particular gag until, that is, I decided to go rogue and up the ante.  Like most office-based work environments we had the communal refrigerator in the employee break room. As an extra bonus there were refrigerators on two other floors PLUS someone had a mini-fridge at their desk.

The joke was simple. Periodically search the refrigerators, take one bite of whatever looked tasty, put it back, and then sit back and wait for the bitching.  To deflect any suspicion I pretended to be a victim by half-eating my own lunch too. I did this, undetected, on and off for about two years and never got caught. That is until last week.

I was working late one night and started to get those hunger pangs we usually get when we've skipped a meal. I was under a deadline on a project and couldn't really afford to leave to go grab something quick. However, I knew a co-worker had a stash of snacks in her desk so I decided to snag something from her. By that time she had already left for the day but I figured I could pay her back the following day. Apparently the Universe figured I was up to my old tricks and had a different payment plan in mind for me.

One generation of people can remember where they were and what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was shot. The same can be said for all of us the day the World Trade Center went down. And specifically, for me, I recall that I ate a packet of peanuts at 3:37 p.m. on Thursday last week and at 5:28 p.m. the cramping, dry mouth, and persistent sweats began. Unfortunately I had to work a promotional event and struggled through it until I got home. At 9:15 p.m. I was curled up in a ball wondering when I'd fall into unconsciousness and leave this world.

Although, when I woke the next morning, I felt much better but the effects continued to haunt me until I knew the event had passed by the following Sunday afternoon when I actually ate food for the first time in two days.