Man Versus Coke Bottle

 *Yesterday was a bad day for me and food. I got up early (which I NEVER do) had a protein shake (because I wasn't REALLY hungry yet) and proceeded to spend the next four hours at work engaged in relentless physical labor.

"Poo! Poo!" you say. "What kind of hard labor could you possibly be doing in a library?"

Well, I pulled over 2,300 books off their shelves, in groups of three, and replaced them. And I'll tell you what: no bid deal doing that with a couple hundred books, but by the end of approximately the 2,000th book, my lower arms and hands were shaking a little bit. In the spirit of making a long story short, I'll just say that I spent more calories than I was inputting. I got home, promptly informed everyone that they could not expect a coherent conversation with me until I had fed my brain, and stuffed my face. (Travis has coined a phrase for this state of mind: "Grungry.")

I have a small stomach and a fast metabolism. It's a curse. And don't throw any of that, "But you're so skinny!" crap at me. I could write volumes about how difficult this aspect of my life is. But I will forbear for now. Anyway...I starved, and then I ate. And I thought that was that.

But no.

Later that day, I found myself sitting in a movie theater, about to watch the hotness that is Tom Cruise in the eagerly-awaited fourth installment of Mission: Impossible, but (for reasons I will not go into) I had not had time to eat dinner. "Erin, Erin, Erin..." you tsk tsk, "You just don't take care of yourself."

Shut up. It was out of my control.

It was a poor substitute for real food, but I happened to have smuggled a bottle of coke into the theater. My blood sugar level was plummeting (once again) to starvation levels, and a headache seemed imminent...so, I thought, if I could only get into that coke...those measly 150 calories just might help...

What Travis and I failed to reckon with, however, was the stubbornness of the Mexican bottle cap. It would not be twisted off; it would not be keyed off; a belt buckle proved utterly useless; SHEER FORCE OF WILL had no effect whatsoever. That sucker was not coming off! At last, I leaned over to Travis--though it pained me to do so--and told him it was no use. As if he didn't know.

It's silly now, but I thought I would cry.

I didn't. And eventually I got home and ate something. But I guess, in closing, I will just say (as if it weren't obvious to anyone reading) that Mexican Coke bottle caps are real sons of b------, and they have messed with me for the last time.

*By the time I'm posting this, this will not have happened "yesterday." However, the trauma, I have no doubt, will live on and on.