FAT IN INDIANA

Yeah I kinda plagiarized the title of this post, sorry Joe.

So sue me, or make me Vice President. It just seemed to be a fitting title given the subject matter to follow.

Every since I moved to Greenwood and started my diet I having been wanting to chow down at the local Golden Corral. It's been many years since I have eaten there and for some reason I thought I was missing something. I kept telling myself that at some point I would reward myself for my weight loss and have dinner there, till tonight I hadn't felt like I was due that reward.

I spent last weekend in Loogootee. Friday before we left I was getting close to dropping the weight I had gained while in Fort Myers. Then the weekend of moms ham salad, The Schnitzlebank restaurant and Sundays spaghetti and meatballs took its toll.

In two days we set off for our Nations Capitol, the bastion of Democracy, well former bastion of Democracy.

Anyway I figured the diet would begin anew once we get back from DC so I figured what the hell, time to hit the Corral.

When I got there I immediately checked my smartphone to see if they had built a Walmart next door.

Inside the Golden Corral was every person I have ever seen in every Walmart I have every been to in my entire life.

No new Walmart's in the area but I swear Wally World must be running a shuttle service or something to this place.

With much trepidation I entered Walcorral, I paid the hostess/garçon my $10.79 and took a table close to the action.

I didn't notice the family sitting at the table next to where I had decided to make camp at first, I guess I was too busy dodging the overweight Walking Dead eating from their plates while walking the football field length buffet line and staggering toward their tables making their usual guttural gurgling gorging noises while tailings of flesh dangled from their jaws.

I claimed my table and steeled myself for the feeding frenzy. I made my way to what would be about the 40 yard line, this would be the carnivore section.

The carnage was impressive, Noah would have been pleased with the representation of the animal kingdom here. From the taste of it Noah probably knew most of these animals personally.

 I got back to my table with a non-embarrassing amount of food on my plate, sat down and started the insanity.

I was about halfway through the first round when I began to notice the very hefty family next to me.

The first thing that caught my attention was the little, (little is a relative term here) girl, she had two fist full of cotton candy. I said cotton candy! Cotton candy for Gods sake, I had no idea you could get carnival food at Walcorral.

Mom and dad were wallowing in the entrails of a wildebeest. I looked away in horror, undeterred I began my own eating ritual.

At first I kept my head down and ate at a normal pace for a human, minding my own business. But you know how it is when you drive by a horrible wreck, you tell yourself you're above that sort of thing and look straight ahead, then you give in and allow yourself to sneak a peak. By the time your along side the wreck, there you are staring with your head hanging out the window like a damned dog!

So it was with the family at the next table and the other Walkers in the place, the more I looked at them all, the more it seemed I was out of my element here.

They were huge and they were eating at an amazing rate. I would never get my fair share or my $10.79 worth at the pace I was going.

I moved to a larger spoon and dispensed with table manners. Second helping would require two plates and I began to see the wisdom of eating while on the move like the other Walkers.

Step chew, step chew, step chew, yes this could be done! 

My pace was improving now and the faster I ate the less I tasted whatever the hell it was I was eating and I think that probably was a blessing given the quality of food.

Now I was cleaning my plate and spiking it down on the corner of the tables end-zone just in time for the waitress/plate collector to scoop it up and return to the sideline.

As the night progressed, I had less and less interest in my fellow masticators and less and less disapproval for their eating habits and body structure. 

A line from the movie Jaws came to mind, "what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks."

So it was with us Walkers, we perfect eating machines. It's actually possible to empty your plate before you return to your table.

The next few hours were a blur, as things were winding down, I noticed that I had not only developed the Walkers gait, I now make the same guttural gurgling gorging sounds they do and I liked it!

As I shuffle to sit at my table for the grand finale of deserts with mass quantities of cotton candy stacked on top of my head like a Nubian queen, a feeling of satisfaction fills my soul as tightly as Noah's bill of lading has filled my stomach.

I damned sure got my share of grub and I sure as hell got my $10.79 worth from Walcorral.

Now for the ice cream, candy, cakes, pies and cookies, The memory of Jeff Goldblum and his portrayal of The Fly served me well. Dipping my proboscis in this collection of sugared regurgitation I finished off the last plate.

The family that had been at the table next to mine got up to leave, disgusted at the sight of me. The mom pulls out of her pants the napkin wrapped cookies she had planned to secrete out the door for a late night snack and leaves them on the table, shaking her head at me.

I slide the cleaned plate away and smile the smile of the satisfied, I am immune to their scorn, my hunger is slaked. Tomorrow there will be plenty of time to review how disgusting that $10.79 worth of so-called food was and there will be time to review how disgusting my eating performance was.

I don't have a moral to this story; for a year and a half I have been wanting to eat at that place.

What the hell was I thinking?!