Special Deal

I went out for fast food tonight. The fridge was empty and I needed to pick up some frozen dead food for my freezer. On the way home I pulled into the BK parking lot. I had decided to buy a Whopper for supper. A Whopper plus tax is exactly five dollars. But BK was running a special: Whopper, Chicken Sandwich, or Spicy Chicken Sandwich—any two for six dollars. Sounded good to me.

“Let me have a whopper and a spicy chicken,” I told the cashier.

“We don’t have any spicy chicken and we can’t get any,” she replied.

“Oh,” I said. “You know, the special is a lot less special if you don’t have the special in stock.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll have a whopper and a regular chicken sandwich.”

“We can put spicy sauce on your chicken sandwich if you’d like,” the cashier offered.

“Yeah, do that.”

I told myself that I would eat the whopper tonight and the chicken sandwich tomorrow for lunch. So I put the chicken sandwich into the fridge and ate the whopper. After that, my will power lasted about 30 seconds before I got up and retrieved the chicken sandwich and nuked it. I cut it in half, rationalizing that I would eat half tonight and half tomorrow. That didn’t happen. I didn’t even pause between the first half and the second half. I used to have will power. I know because I remember: I was a two and a half pack-a-day smoker and I quit smoking. Will power, I had it! And now? Phttt. Gone with the proverbial wind.

The sandwiches were tasty, with the requisite amount of fat and sodium. The spicy sauce was so mild as to be undetectable. I could’ve sprinkled red pepper flakes on the fillet and made my own spicy sandwich, and it really would have been spicy. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Next time.

It was a big meal but I worked off the calories by mowing my yard. Yup, I drove that lawn tractor around the yard like it was a Porsche 911. Don’t laugh—steering is more work than it looks.