A Lesson Not Learned

My much anticipated (by me) return to academia began over the weekend. Without boring you with all the details I'll simply rehash the basics... I'm going to be spending just about every weekend of my summer in a class room. 8 hours every Saturday and 8 hours every Sunday. It's kind of like an academic jihad only in the end I probably won't achieve martyrdom and I certainly don't expect to find 72 virgins on the campus of George Mason University... Really, my goal is to make sure that I'm really ready to commit to this whole 'back to school' thing. Why I needed to sacrifice my entire summer to figure that out is now unclear to me...But like most of the questionable decisions I've made in my lifetime the only defense I'm left with is the age old axiom, "it made sense at the time."

But this post isn't really about me going back to school (or sharing a book on Saturday with a loose moralled 23 year old coed that looks like she just stepped off of a page from Maxim magazine!). I only brought it up because spending all that time in a classroom this weekend led me to make a really bad decision today...

When my alarm clock began it's screeching wail this morning, my body simply didn't want to respond. I had had no weekend. No chance to sleep in. I had been robbed of the relax and recharge time I have grown to depend on.

I'm not really a coffee drinker but I knew my body wasn't going to voluntarily get me through the day. I needed to drug myself with caffeine if I hoped to make it to work. Unfortunately, at the hour my day begins, Starbucks isn't open.

So I went... to a gas station...

Some of you can probably see where this is going.

I walked into the gas station, went back towards the drinks and grabbed the biggest bottle of Mocha Frappuccino I could find. As I made my way to the register I tried my best to avoid the pre-assembled breakfast biscuits sitting so invitingly under the heat lamp... believe me, I tried.

But as I waited in line I caught a whiff of sausage and cheese... Mmmmm... My stomach began to growl... Suddenly, my eyes were watching in horror as my hands picked up two biscuits and placed them on the counter next to the frappuccino. "What the fuck are you doing?!" the rational but often ignored voice in the back of my head pleaded.

You've probably forgotten by now, but this is the exact same scenario that led to me doing my patented half walk/half jog- "walg" into a McDonald's bathroom back in November of 2007, where I narrowly avoided shitting myself... Same gas station... Same drink... Same sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits... Same result? That remains to be seen. I feel okay right now, but of course last time this ended so poorly that I not only wrote about it, but I ended the post with this piece of advice:

"The lesson of course is- never, EVER stop at a gas station for breakfast…"

Hopefully this won't end with any unfortunate "walging" incidents. But if it does, I'll deserve it... Unlike signing away my entire summer so I could decide if I really wanted to go back to school, I can't even say that this decision "made sense at the time".

UPDATE

It is 1:17 pm, Eastern Standard Time. I've been to the bathroom 3 times in the past hour. I never had to "walg" but that was only because the bathroom is less than 20 feet from my office.

I hate myself.