Potluck

When people gather and each person contributes a dish of food prepared by that person to be shared by the group, they call it a "potluck". Back in the 1500's Thomas Nashe wrote of it used to mean the food for an unexpected guest, they would get the "luck of the pot". In Ireland, woman would gather together during hard times of persecution and famine and put together their stores to help get their communities or families through. Nowadays we tend to shop for a dish at a store, buy candy or sweets and stuff ourselves beyond reason.

I learned a lesson today, potluck days are dangerous at work. Food is all around and you feel obligated to browse through the maze of dishes and taste a little bit. I noticed that soon I was falling into a repetitive graze cycle through a cyclical path. When you combine that with all of the sugar I consumed, I believe I moved into another dimension. In that world I felt like a little kid eating anything I wanted and it was like Wonderland where everyone smiles at you and offers you more. But you know something is just not right. I became so happy dancing through my happy path, sampling little bits of chocolate and sugar coated goodies. I think I was semi unconscious because I actually started thinking of how lean tools and processes could be applied to my grazing pattern to optimize cyclical potluck-ing.

After sufficient laps through the sweet trough I began to tire. My stomach felt like a basketball and sweat dripping from my forehead. Well in this case it was from my nose due to the chili with andouille sausage. I knew it was hopeless to resist and struggled to my feet for one final lap.

The trouble really started about two hours later as the sugar began to wear off. My eyes began to feel heavy and the amped up sugar feeling began to fade. Whereas I had been buzzing happily around like a sprite, everything started to annoy me. People tried to talk to me but I just could not focus. The nodding game began, and whoa! Do you think anyone saw that? I'm falling asleep at work, and you cannot do that, right?

Made it home in time for a run, it felt good to try to pull myself out of my self-induced coma. And my wife was gracious to not rub it into my nose. I did do better at resisting the gorge-fest than I have in the past. My wife told me to focus on that. Maybe next time I'll opt out, good lord I sound like an addict. My wife the nutritionist would tell me I am. Well for now I'll have to focus on getting better. Day by day...