The Only Thing Better Than Chicken Pot Pie is Deep Fried Chicken Pot Pie With Bacon

I've reached the point in my life -- with a kid and a parental heart attack under my belt -- that I'm really trying to live healthier. I try to eat right. I do a sit-up every now and again. I
read the labels at the grocery store. Okay, I'm still working on the whole concept of portion control, but Saturday I realized I was a lot closer to the right track than I'd previously though. This weekend I had dinner with Cholesterol Jones himself, the walking anti-Richard Simmons sat down and talked with me about his eating habits. I went out to dinner with my pal Rob.

Jim's usually good for a laugh or two, but the other night he had me pretty close to wetting
my pants. I know, I know, peeing your pants is the coolest, but still I tried to stop myself anyway.

A lot of Jim's humor comes from the delivery, so try to imagine this dialogue in a slow paced, dead-pan like a manic depressive Steven Wright.

"So my mom shows me this article she found in some magazine about the ten worst things in the world for you to eat........

There was a long pause during which wondered where in the world this story might be going. Like a june bug in your bedroom in the middle of the night, Jim has a tendency to shoot off in odd directions that no one could anticipate.

"Number one was the Peppridge Farms Chicken Pot Pie... ... ..."

Expecting him to mention the restaurant we were currently sitting in, I definitely wasn't anticipating any talk about pot pie. Why in the word he decided to bring up pot pie, I wasn't certain.

"That's what I had for dinner last night... There was a little picture next to the article in the magazine; it was the same package, the same brand... ... ... ... I mean, what are the odds, that the thing I ate for dinner the night before was the worst thing in the world you could possibly
eat on the day that my mom gives me an article to read about the worst thing you could possible eat?"

"How were things rated?" I inquired, "What was it, a health list or something?"

"Exactly. Fat, cholesterol, calories, sodium..."

"What else was on the list?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't remember all of it. Burger King fries. Burger King chicken tenders..."

"Really? I wonder what makes Burger King fries worse than other fries," I wondered.

"They're nasty," my wife, who does not ever get called to do Burger King commercials, quipped.

"I mean, what are the odds. It's the worst thing in the whole world to eat, and that's what I had for dinner," Jim carried on, his brain all stuck on pot pie the same way the pot pie is probably all jammed up in his arteries. "I mean, it's only this big," he claimed, showing us with his hands that the pot pie was about the size of a pygmy shrew, "it's not a lot of food. How could it be that bad?"

"Well, it's not like you eat those every day," I consoled.

"Yeah, but that's not all I had."

"What else did you have?" I asked, imagining Mr. Anti-Vegetable may have complimented the pot pie with some sort of potato concoction or maybe a bread product.

"I had some tacos," Jim admitted, pulling that one so far out of left field that even the left fielder got smacked in the head cuz he didn't see it coming.

"You ate tacos and chicken pot pie?"

"Yeah, it's small and it took a whole hour to cook, and I had some left over taco meat that I wanted to use up."

"So you had tacos as an appetizer?"

"Yeah, kind of. I guess you could call it an appetizer."

"How many tacos did you have?"

"How many tacos would you think?"

"Well, when we have tacos I usually eat four or five, so I'm guessing, since tacos were just your warm-up, you had three."

There was no response, just a look. A look that said, what are you crazy? Three tacos, that's nothing.

"Four?"

Crazy look.

"Five?"

The same look, only with a hint of exasperation. I remember back in the day, Jim used to eat a ten pack of Taco Bell tacos and still have room for a bag of fun sized Kit Kat bars, two liters of Coke 2, and the hind quarters of a spit-roasted hippopotamus, but that was in high school, there's no way he could still eat like that. "Six tacos?"

Jim gave me this big goony bird smile that was so crazy it made the Cheshire Cat look sane.

"Six tacos and a chicken pot pie? What, losing your touch?" I sarcastically chided. "Didn't you have any rice or beans to go with it?"

"And a bag of chips with salsa."

The look of shock and amazement stood in place of me asking, "What the...?"

"While I was waiting for the pound of meat to cook. Just to tide me over," he explained.

Apparently having said enough about the feast of the century that Jim calls a light supper, he transitioned into a story about his latest trip to the doctor.

"I went to the doctor earlier this week too... I have this whole long list of things that are wrong with me and none of them are taken care of... He didn't do anything..."

"What's wrong?" I dared to ask.

"Well... my left ear is all clogged up, so he gave me this spray to shoot up my nose. Then there's the problem with my eye..."

"Wait," I interrupted, "your ear is clogged up, so he gave you nose spray?"

"Yeah, apparently it's all connected in there. I'm supposed to shoot it up my nose and the gunk will plop outta my ear."

I was still trying not to picture, but to at least understand the ear/nose caverns that allow this to happen, but Jim had moved on.

"Then, there's the fact that I go to the bathroom all the time... I'm afraid to even go to the movies... I go to the bathroom like every hour..."

Suddenly there was no more eye contact, Jim's gaze just kinda drifted off towards the floor, down and to the right.

"The doctor said he didn't think there was anything he could do about that... but he wanted to .... check my prostate just in case..."

"You're only thirty-five. I didn't think you had to do that until you're forty," I wondered.

"Fifty... so I have to drop the drawers... it was very uncomfortable... then he pushed it in even deeper... I didn't like it... and I told the doctor that... 'Bigger stuff comes out of there,' he told me... 'Yeah, but that's coming out... it was designed with out in mind.'... ... ... 'Everyone says that,' the doc said... ... ... 'Yeah, and besides the other stuff is soft... not like fingers... ... ... and I wasn't even bent over a table... ... ... I was just laying there in the fetal position... ... ... very
uncomfortable... ... ... I don't know if it got all stretched out, but I was walking funny the rest of the day... ... ... I hope it goes back... ... ... ... I have a whole new world of admiration for gay
guys... ... ... I wonder if they enjoy going to the bathroom... ... ... ... ... ... at least they seem to walk normal."

The eye contact snapped back. "I also got all this blood work done. A cholesterol test and a bunch of other stuff."

"Your cholesterol was probably around 900."

"It was a little high."

"So you went home and ate six tacos and a chicken pot pie to celebrate?"

"And some chips and salsa... ... ... I really got to start eating healthier."

There was a big sigh and what could only be described as a contemplative pause. Mid life-style rumination, the waitress came over. Jim asked if he could add bacon to his chili-cheeseburger. The looks my wife and I gave him made him feel the need to defend his order, "Hey, I survived the pot pie, and that was the worst thing you can eat."

I sure would appreciate a vote for HumorBlogger of the Year.