Tennis & Oreos

I had a startling revelation today. Except replace the word startling with blueberry and the word revelation with monkey. Monkeys are funny. Now replace monkey with thought, and delete blueberry altogether. I had a thought today. That’s still not the right word, but it’ll do until I can find a better one.

Right now I’m sitting in an airport bar (a sports bar, but in my defense it is the only bar in the terminal. Plus they are showing women’s tennis on TV, and that’s just hot) reminiscing about my diet during the 5 or so days that I was working down in Florida. I was looking at the menu (after ordering a beer of course – I have priorities) and I realized nothing sounded good. I’ve eaten so much crap over the past few days that food is dead to me. This is common – it happens on just about every program. But why? I’ve never really stopped to analyze the cause of my gluttony. Experience has taught me that structured meal breaks are few and far between while I am on the road. While my clients have scheduled meals and breaks, for me those times are more likely to be slated for rehearsals and other production related tasks then they are sustenance. As such it is now ingrained within me that my very survival hinges upon the handful of cookies I am able to pilfer from a break station. Pastry for breakfast. Cookies for lunch. Cookies for dinner – followed by a “real” dinner around 11 because one can not live on cookies alone. And then we get to the real culprit – leftovers. On those (not so) rare occasions that there is leftover food after a client’s meal function has completed, that food will typically be delivered to the staff HQ for our consumption. This is the high point of the staff’s day - myself included. I don’t really have the words to describe how exciting this is to us. The merest hint of an impending meal sets off a phone tree that would do any PTA proud. “Cookies spotted in Salon A”. “Lunch being delivered to HQ in two minutes – tell your crew”.

Sorry I lost my train of thought – was watching women’s tennis again. Damn. I mean seriously, damn. Anyway I was thinking about this food phenomenon, and I may have figured out why I continue to engage in this destructive cycle of male pattern baldness. Sure part of it is that at heart I’m thrifty, and if I can eat free food instead of spending my per diem I will do so every time. There’s more though – it goes pretty deep. I think the reason that I (and my coworkers) engage in such poor dietary habits while on the road is that food is the only real outlet that we have. While on the road I’m usually working crazy insane hours – and even if I have an evening off it’s usually with the understanding that I’m on call and could be required to return at any moment. Most of my clients also have a non-fraternization policy, which basically means that hotel bars and what not are off limits even if we had time to patronize them. Food is really the only thing we have left to add excitement to our lives. This is why it’s okay when I eat an entire box of Oreos in 3 days or have 2 deserts with every meal. I feel fat.