Doing My Part

I don't typically get into patting myself on the back, but sometimes I can't help it. An opportunity presented itself today. It was an unusual opportunity to help people out, and I took it.

Utterly demolishing our opponents in today's touch football game caused several of us to work up quite an appetite. (Granted, those opponents were short a player, but that doesn't really change the fact that we demolished them. Or that we were hungry, for that matter.) So we went to our normal place to eat and watch some people play tackle football for money. When we got there, the team's coach and I noticed a card on the table advertising their Apple Krisp dessert. It sounded pretty good, but the not-so-fine print was even more intriguing. It pointed out that there was nothing more American than apple pie. Because of that, the restaurant would donate all the proceeds from the sales of Apple Krisp to the Red Cross to help with the Hurrican Katrina relief effort.

The coach and I were intrigued. We were both willing to avoid quibbling over the fact that it's apple pie and not Apple Krisp that is innately American. And we couldn't help but wonder what we had done to help lately. So we said we were going to get some after we had our meals.

Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Champps, but they have some seriously big portions. That's one of the first warnings they give you when you sit down at a table there, and they seem proud to be contributing to all of us inching toward obesity. Anyway, I didn't even eat all of my huge entree, but I was quite full afterwards, and I was thinking that this talk of ordering Apple Krisp might be one of those cases of my eyes being bigger than my stomach. Upon returning from a trip to the restroom, I was informed that the coach had ordered the Apple Krisp for me. I was a little uncomfortable, having considerably changed my level of hunger since we first discussed it. I was considering canceling my order.

However, I was forced to ask myself some hard questions, and I hope you will ask yourselves the same questions if you are faced with a similar situation: what have you done to help your fellow Americans? What have you done lately? Maybe you've given money, clothes, food, or even your time, but have you eaten a potentially tasty and definitely fattening dessert to help out those less fortunate than you?

With those questions in mind, I ate the hell out of that Apple Krisp. I'd do it again, too. That's just how generous I am.