The Hungry Barbarian

Soon after I passed out last night, I woke back up to my entire tent being fully lit scaring the crap out of me.  

Martians?  CIA?  Farmers wanting revenge?  Would they kill me over a few onions?  

Unfortunately it was soon obvious that the thunderstorm had finally arrived.

So today would be a quiet day in comparison to yesterday’s Delta squad raid on the local farm.  With the rain clouds still dark on the horizon  in the morning, I knew it was going to be a full day of reading in my 4×6 tent.

Once upon a time a fire-pit full of water and a soaked wood pile, would have made me alternate between weeping and yelling in frustration until the neighbors called the cops:

But not today!  I could care less as I was dining on the breakfast of champions:

Slices of tomato layered with fresh onions is priced at about $8+ at Peter Luger’s steakhouse in NYC; the only cost for this meal was my dignity.

When done, I felt the most unbelievable sensation. I was full. So full in fact that I couldn’t finish the one onion and one tomato that I had sliced up. For a man who had once downed 60+ McDonald’s chicken nuggets in one sitting, this blew my mind. Was I dreaming? For the first time in 6 days, I was actually full. For a minute I had though that sensation was indigestion, because it was so foreign.  I likely had a bit of that as well.

Immediately afterwards I had to batten down the hatches and jump back into my tent because the heavens decided to ruin my victory parade. Looks like I’d be spending the rest of the day alternating between reading and staring at the ceiling of my tent, a full time hobby.  My family on the other hand was inside dining on a Father’s Day feast of pasta, fresh bread, ricotta and homemade cake.  That’s was ok as I only had 2 days left and enough solid food to tough it out.  At this point I’d take my situation over theirs.

I might be lying.

Soon after their dinner was over though, the sun came out and promised to give me enough time to have the first hot meal that didn’t cause me to gag (specifically mussels) in days. Today would be the leftovers from breakfast with some garlic thrown in:

Along with that I boiled an onion. There was so much food I didn’t have enough room on the grill!  Holy Cow!

It turned out to be good, so good that both grandfathers reached in and grabbed a taste.  I guess they weren’t full from dinner. I could share though; I had eaten breakfast for the first time since I started this madness and couldn’t even touch the boiled onion as it would have burst my stomach.   It seems I had breakfast for tomorrow.

Tomorrow by the way is the last day of my adventure.  Despite accusations of stupidity from my parents (and my girlfriend’s), there’s no turning back now.  I smell, I’m tired, but I’m going to make it.    

I just have to keep my eye on the prize, tough to do when the Crave is calling me.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Day 7. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.