Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Arson (?)

We're getting to the time of year where my wife & I get extremely busy in terms of our schedules being overrun with matters of the season. For several years now it's been that we're almost always on the move usually from the second week of November right on up through the new year. If it's not a family event it's some other type of festive gathering that has us tied up, but for good reason obviously.

2014 is the first year since we've been married that we did not take a vacation the week of Veterans Day. That had become our week to take a trip seeing as how we both have the Veterans Day holiday off; the free day makes it particularly ideal for going out of town seeing as how that means we didn't have to take as much leave as we would otherwise. We took a cruise to the western Caribbean in 2011 then we went to Walt Disney World in 2012 and 2013. Not this year, though, now that The Duke is in our lives. (I don't want it to sound like I'm blaming him for us not being able to go somewhere because I know that's exactly how that last sentence would make it seem. If I had to choose between a vacation and him, I think you already know what I'd choose!) He'll be able to get out and about soon enough as he'll be getting his immunizations in the next few weeks and at that point we won't have to keep him cooped up any longer.

That said, the past few weeks have been very eventful for us. I hate to say it but we've had a bit of a string of bad luck when it comes to our vehicles. Both my truck and Jill's car have had to have work done here lately - the thermostat in her car went bad and the starter in my truck finally decided to die after having been on its last legs for about a month. My wife's father was able to get her car back in working order (he's that kind of awesome) but the truck wound up costing me in the area of $350 for parts and labor. Car repair never seems to be something people plan for, or at least I don't. I've made the statement to several people in the past that just once in my life I'd like to actually budget for tires as opposed to having to buy them on the spot as a result of absolutely having to have them when an issue arises. That's a goal to work towards, I guess.

At any rate, here's a recap of what's been going on with us here lately.

Thanksgiving

I think I look forward to Thanksgiving more so than I do just about any other holiday, including Christmas. Why? Well, I guess in my mind Thanksgiving doesn't seem like work or that a lot of showmanship is involved when you compare it to the goings on of December. With Thanksgiving you know what you're in for - time with family, lots of yummy food, and nothing else to do but sit around and watch football on TV while enjoying a plate of leftovers. Christmas, on the other hand, seems like it's so much more of a production to me. Not that I dislike Christmas, I simply prefer Thanksgiving.

For the past two years we've hosted family at our home for Thanksgiving and it has been a real treat to be able to do that. There was a point in my life where I wouldn't have believed you if you told me I'd have my own house much less that I'd have the opportunity to do something like we have with these occasions.

It's become something of a tradition that my Father in-law brings his infrared fryer and cooks the turkey for us, and that's exactly what he did this year. I'm not sure how that device works but it somehow uses propane to generate the infrared heat waves to cook whatever is inside it. (Note how I referred to it as an infrared fryer and not just an infrared turkey fryer; you can cook all sorts of things with it, not just turkeys.) Some guy who's way smarter than I'll ever be figured that out and now we have tasty Thanksgiving turkeys for which we should thank him.

My Father in-law isn't the only one who contributes to the meal, of course, as most everyone pitches in with some aspect of the menu. Case in point, my Aunt brings her potato salad which - and I'm not exaggerating here - is literally the best potato salad you'll ever have. She uses a specific type of potato, Duke's mayonnaise (which is the only mayonnaise you should ever consider using for things like potato salad), and adds in diced bell pepper which gives it a great flavor as well as giving it an interesting textural contrast to the soft (not mushy) potatoes. Other selections on this year's menu included ham, dressing, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, as well as an assortment of pies - pecan, sweet potato, coconut cream, and coconut custard.

After the meal while we were all sitting around enjoying each other's company, Jill was looking through print advertisements for sales that would be happening throughout the upcoming weekend. She brought up to me that Walmart had what sounded to be a great deal on an Xbox One bundle that included a copy of a game I've been looking forward to called HALO: The Master Chief Collection. (Long story short, I'm a HALO nut and have been since I played the first game.) The Xbox One up until a few weeks ago had been retailing for $400 but it's recently been lowered to $350 - this deal at Walmart had the console, the game, and a controller for $330. The only trick to it was the fact that it was a Thanksgiving day sale, as in one that would be kicking off at 6 PM. By the point in time my wife had discovered the sale it was creeping up on 4 PM.

In my head I was going over the logistics of the proposal. Yes, I wanted an Xbox One but did I want it at the expense of having to brave the lunacy that would certainly be the Walmart in Orangeburg, South Carolina on an occasion such as this? (As proof of that statement, I offer the story about the time I almost got run over while walking in the parking lot.) With it being so late in the day, relatively speaking, I wondered if there was already a line for the consoles and if the allotment at that location had been claimed by eager shoppers. Jill's Mom was staying with us over the weekend, and she had no issues at all with taking care of the Duke if we wanted to give it a shot, so I knew we wouldn't have to worry about his well being. All things considered we decided to go ahead and risk it - yes, we were going to Walmart on Thanksgiving, and not because we forgot the cranberry sauce.

We arrived just after 4:30 PM and I was more than a little shocked by the fact that the parking lot wasn't overflowing with cars by the time we got there. I fully expected there to be cars jammed into every conceivable spot around the property, but it was only at about half capacity which is about what it is at any given time of day (it seemed very comparable to how it is when we're typically there, to be honest). As we entered the store we were given a map detailing where specific sale items were set up. Fittingly enough, the Xbox Ones were in place behind the counter in sporting goods.

Making our way to the very back corner of the store (I've always wondered why sporting goods get stuck in one of the most remote sections of these stores) we noticed that the central portion of the space had been taped off so as to limit customer access. We could see product stacked up on pallets and wrapped in plastic - to me, they looked kind of like they were innocents being held captive and in restraints prior to being sacrificed to the oncoming horde. There were balloons labeled with the name of an item floating above the locations of each, a tactic I thought was quite clever. Also, I pointed out to my wife that many of the store associates were wearing bright yellow ponchos; we both agreed that this was most likely so that they could easily identify one another amongst the crowd.

When we got to sporting goods and I spotted the Xbox One balloon I prepared myself for the line - which I could not see from the angle of our approach because of the fact it was running down an aisle. I anticipated it being at least 30 people long and that all the consoles in stock had already been spoken for. To my amazement, there were only 9 people in line and I could see at least twice as many consoles stacked up behind the counter.

 My anxiety subsided as all we had to do now was stand around and wait for 6 PM. The goings on of the people around us provided plenty of entertainment to make the time roll by. We chatted with the people around us and we all got a real hoot out of the fact that it seemed as though the section of the store we were in was the most organized of any. As 6 PM approached we noticed that the crowd noise inside the store was incredibly loud and that there was no longer a whole lot of room to move around. About 10 minutes before 6 we heard the sound of plastic ripping followed by the shouts of a store associate who was trying to maintain order around their quadrant. I think by that point an effort geared towards maintaining order was like trying to use a fish net to catch smoke. Suddenly the notion of putting us at the back in sporting goods didn't seem like such a peculiar idea.

When 6 PM finally rolled around it quickly became evident that things weren't going well. For this sale, Walmart was offering two different Xbox One bundles at the same price point of $330, one that came with Assassin's Creed Unity and another with the Master Chief Collection as well as a free $30 Walmart gift card. We were in line in sporting goods around the gun case as they had the systems set up behind the counter there. As the sale starts those of us further back in line begin hearing rumblings from the front that the bundles aren't ringing up at the right price.

Turns out they had a different Assassin's Creed bundle that came with Kinect incorrectly mixed in with their inventory. They were ringing up at the correct price as they weren't supposed to be included in the inventory for this sale. I pointed this out to one of the clerks myself - the boxes were visibly different and no one else seemed to notice.

In advance of the sale an associate had gone through the line, counting out how many people were there to buy one of the Xbox bundles (separating the buyers from the hangers on, as it were). I believe she had our number to be somewhere in the low twenties, and she made a point to announce to everyone that they had 36 of the bundles on hand. Unfortunately that 36 included a number of the Kinect bundles - I'm sure there was at least someone in that line who didn't get a system that day.

To make matters worse a customer that was 2 spots ahead of me in line purchased then returned and re-purchased a bundle. She bought the Assassin's Creed bundle then asked for her $30 gift card. Thing was, the AC bundle didn't come with the gift card, only the Halo bundle got those. So she decides she wants to return that bundle and buy the Halo bundle instead. My point in detailing this is to say that this experience was made worse by the fact that either that customer was a crook or that the associates didn't seem to know what they were selling.

The biggest challenge we faced that evening came after I had my Xbox One in hand - that being the process of getting out of the store as well as out of the parking lot. I would love to know how many people were in the store as we left as I would assume it had to be at least 1,000 souls. We ducked, bobbed, and weaved out way down the aisles until we were out the door and into the sea of cars that was now the parking lot. When I say the lot was full it literally was full as there were people parking at businesses across the street and walking over.

I saw that there were several Orangeburg county sheriff's deputies vehicles up on the curb in front of the store as we entered; apparently they were there for crowd control and not traffic control as it took us nearly an hour to get out of the lot. I have no idea what the delay was from, other than there just being so many cars coming into the lot with nowhere for them to go. We wound up making our escape through a gap created by a pair of empty parking spaces and we got home in the area of 8:30 PM. I'm glad that I got what I wanted that evening but I severely doubt my wife and I will be making another outing like this any time soon!

Black Friday

I said we wouldn't make another outing like the one we had Thanksgiving night and yet we went out on Black Friday - go figure. Truth be told, we're not like your usual Black Friday shoppers in that we don't get up at the crack of dawn to begin the assault on your bank account. Rather we wait until around lunchtime because by then most of the real crazies are already at home or they've found somewhere with sufficient cover to allow them to crash.

I'm not going to go too deep into our experience with Black Friday this year because there's nothing too terribly interesting about the day to share. We shopped, we ate lunch (at Chicken Salad Chick - if you like chicken salad as much as we do, that's a restaurant you need to make a facet of your life), we shopped some more and then we went home. However, notice in the last sentence of the previous paragraph that I said "most" of the real crazies were out of action when we began our day...

We went to the Harbison Boulevard location of Buy Buy Baby in Columbia, SC. As we were getting in the car to head to the next shop I hear what sounded like someone yelling. I didn't pay it a whole lot of attention at first even though it seemed like the sound was somewhat nearby because I wasn't sure what I would wind up being witness to. (If I can at all avoid getting involved in a bad scene I'm going to do so at all costs.) I heard the yelling again and this time it became clear that this wasn't a sound produced by someone in distress but rather someone who was just plain pissed off.

I looked to my right and saw a young woman roughly 50 yards away, probably in her early to mid-twenties, wearing a pink hoodie who was obviously agitated. She yelled something I couldn't quite make out, stomped over to the driver's side of her vehicle, got in and slammed the door in the process. She then proceeded to crank up the car and speed off before pouncing on the brakes, putting the car into a slide with the tires smoking. I hadn't noticed yet but she stopped where she did because there was a man standing on the grass beyond the curb near a tree in the parking lot; I guess he figured he was safer there, although from the look of her she didn't appear to be the sort that would let anything get in the way of her tirade.

The two of them exchanged words. More accurately, she screamed at him about how much she hated him while he stood there trying to talk to someone on his phone. This went on for a few moments then another car pulled up behind where she was - she'd stopped in a lane of traffic, I should have bothered to point out. The driver of the other car honked their horn which didn't help matters at all as the woman got out of her car and shifted her rage to the driver of the other vehicle. Lets just say that this driver saw a couple of wild birds fly by and also got treated to an assortment of colorful metaphors.

I don't know why people get into arguments like that, never having been in one that escalated to that degree myself. Believe it or not the guy she was yelling at got into the car with her. As Tom Arnold's character in True Lies said, "Ballsy...Stupid, but ballsy." Now that I think about it, that quote kind of encompasses the notion of going out on Black Friday as a whole. Something that takes a certain amount of bravery and at least as much ignorance.

Arson (?)

During the afternoon hours of November 29, I was working in our yard assembling our Christmas decorations. We don't do anything too extravagant, just a few rope lights strung along the railings of our front porch and some net lighting in the shrubbery. Later that evening as Jill, my Mother in-law and I were settling in to watch the kickoff of the Iron Bowl our doorbell rang. This was particularly peculiar because of the fact that we don't get many visitors out our way, but especially not of the unannounced variety at night. I got up off the couch while attempting to calm down our dog who is always quick to notify us with a chorus of barks that the doorbell has, in fact, rang.

When I got to the door I saw George, who is the teenaged son of one of our neighbors. I opened the glass door and while pointing to his right he immediately said, "THAT HOUSE IS ON FIRE!"

My brain didn't instantly process what he was saying. I looked in the direction he was pointing and my eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing.

The house two doors down from ours was on fire. (I took a tiny amount of relief in this realization because at first I thought he meant the house directly beside ours. My fear there, of course, was that the fire might spread through the trees that separate the two lots and that it would then jump to our home. That house is new construction and, fortunately, is unoccupied.) "On fire" is too subtle of a description for the flames that were coming out of the house. "Blazing inferno of Hellfire", maybe, but to say it was just "on fire" is a horrible understatement.

We're all in our pajamas at this point and I was barefoot. I went back into the house to put on a pair of shoes, and of course the most readily available pair were my trusty Nike sandals. (I believe Jill told me later on that when she first went into the yard she was only wearing socks.) Jill grabbed our house phone, called 9-1-1 and alerted them to what was going on. We saw one of our other neighbors running to the house next door to the one on fire to get the elderly woman that lives there out of harms way. In the mean time, George and I were standing there watching the blaze when I realized that the grass was burning.

The flames were advancing like a tiny wave of destruction, consuming the dry, dead grass and leaves on the ground. I knew that the fire department would be on their way but I had no idea as to how long they it would take them to respond. I did the only thing I could think of doing at that moment - I went after one of our garden hoses and began unreeling it.

My first thought was to take the hose and connect it to a spigot on the house beside ours. I knew there had been water there as the builder had set out sprinklers and taken great care in making sure the fresh sod he put out got plenty of water. Apparently the water had been shut off, more than likely at the tap in the yard, because the spigot was dry. My next best option was to drag the hose back over to our house and hope that it reached far enough to do some good. I believe that hose is 250 feet in length - if it had been any shorter than that it would've been useless.

Luckily by the time I had the hose ready to go the fire department showed up. It felt like it took them 20 minutes to get there but in reality it was less than 5 minutes from when Jill made the call to 9-1-1 to when the first truck was on the scene. I was relieved, certainly, but with the adrenaline that was coursing through my system I'd be lying if I said that I was a tiny bit upset that I didn't get to earn my amateur fire fighter status by participating in the containment of the blaze. My hose may not have had the girth of theirs but I was more than ready to do what I could (no, there was no way I couldn't not make that joke here).

Bear in mind that the temperature that night was around 40°. I was wearing basketball shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. Between the heat from the flames and the adrenaline in my system I didn't feel the cold at all - not until an hour or so later, that is, when the fire was mostly out.

We've learned since the fire that this house was nearly 100 years old and that it was built out of what's called fat lighter or fat wood. I had never heard those terms before, so if you're like me and are wondering what that means I'll tell you that essentially it means the house was built out of matches. Fat wood is typically used as kindling nowadays but in the period this home was built it wasn't uncommon to see houses made out of it because of how hard the wood is. There was likely very little that could've been done to save the house as the fire spread very quickly across those old timbers.



Once the fire was out, there wasn't much left of the house. It's difficult to see in the picture below but the majority of the structure was gutted and the roof had collapsed.

The photo below is an image of the vinyl siding on the house directly beside ours. I'm guessing here but I believe the two houses are roughly 100-150 feet apart. That's all the evidence you need to be able to understand just how hot the fire was burning. (In contrast, there is another home on the other side of the one that burned. That house is less than 20 yards away yet it suffered virtually no damage at all.)

I believe there were either 3 or 4 fire trucks that responded to the fire. In addition there were a number of volunteer firemen who drove their own vehicles, at least 1 ambulance, several Saint Matthews Police Department patrol cars, and I believe trucks from a few of our utility companies as well. I can't tell you how much we appreciate their responsiveness - it goes without saying that there were plenty of opportunities for an event like this to get out of hand, but thanks to them the damage was limited to only one piece of property.

In the next photo you can see just how much damage was done to the home.

You may be wondering about who was living there at the time. This house was actually a rental property and was vacant before the fire. We had very little interaction with the people who had been living there (they offered us a dog once; we respectfully declined) and, as a matter of fact, it had been several weeks since we had seen any cars parked at the home. Allegedly (I use the word seeing as how what I'm about to add to this story is hearsay) the electricity had been turned off, they had been evicted, and they were supposed to have been fully moved out by the day of the fire.

If that isn't a suspicious scenario I don't know what is. The day after the fire, our local police and agents from the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division poured over the scene. I have no idea where they stand with their investigation but I feel as though there's a high probability that this was a case of arson.

My faith in humanity has wavered because of this incident. It absolutely baffles me why someone would do such a thing in a crowded residential neighborhood. Did they not stop to think about what would have happened if the fire had spread? Forget the houses and the stuff in them - all that can be replaced. What about the potential for loss of life? If you have a grudge with someone, settle it with them - don't set fire to a property that's nestled in between so many other homes filled with families.

A Funny Thing Happened on Our Way Out of Walmart...

First and foremost, this isn't a blog about an experience I had with a Walmart so much as it is a blog about an experience I happened to have had while I was at a Walmart. There is a difference, obviously. While I've had plenty of reasons to develop a sense of disdain for Walmart over the years (case in point, this post from all the way back in March of 2011 - "Reason #340,781 to avoid Wal-Mart") I'm not going to drag the company into the mud when it's not deserved. No, this is more of a look inside the minds of the kind of people you encounter while at Walmart.

My wife & I have something of a routine on Sundays. We typically get up around 7:30 AM, get ready for church, go to church, and then when we're dismissed from the worship service we go to Walmart to pick up our provisions for the week. (Occasionally we'll have lunch out with my Mom as well but that doesn't happen every week.) We attend Cornerstone Community Church in Orangeburg, South Carolina so, of course, we go to the Walmart in Orangeburg. Could we shop elsewhere? Sure we could, but we go to Walmart because of the same reason everyone else goes to Walmart - it's convenient and, generally speaking, the prices are better there.

This past Sunday (September 21, 2014) was different than usual as that particular day we were on our way back from a brief overnight trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. Our plan was to drop off our bags at home then come into Orangeburg to get our supplies as well as pick up our dog, who was being looked after by my Mom.

It was around 3 PM by the time we made it to Walmart. I know my wife well enough to know that she wasn't looking forward to being there at that time of day. Going to Walmart early on a Sunday morning as we normally do (almost invariably we're out of church by 10:30 AM) is ideal for a number of reasons, primary among them being the fact that there aren't as many people there, meaning it's a bit easier to get in and out than it would be otherwise. Judging by the volume of cars in the parking lot, it looked like a fair segment of the population of Orangeburg had beaten us to the punch. To show you how different my wife and I are in regard to our individual attitudes about this shopping excursion, my only fear as we made our way into the store that day was whether or not there would be any good bananas left.

Because, priorities.

We rounded up our supplies (Jill gathered sustenance while I went in search of wheel & tire cleaner and other necessities), paid our bill (just over $80), and made our way to the exit. Heading out of the store I had command of our shopping cart, as I do more often than not. After having walked past the salon, the manicure/pedicure shop, and a cavalcade of oddly positioned merchandise displays (we're not certain but it appears as though some sort of renovations are being done to this store) I navigated past the first set of sliding doors, on into the void between the store and the outside world, then finally I passed through the final set of sliding doors.

Before I go further, I feel as though a visual aide is in order.

What you see here is an image taken from Google Maps of the entrance/exit we were using that day at the Walmart in Orangeburg. There is nothing unique about it as this is an example of what you can expect to find if you were to look at a similar view of pretty much any Walmart. You can see the building, the cars, the parking lot, and most importantly the white painted (albeit faded) lines on the asphalt directly in front of the store. If you weren't aware, these lines denote a pedestrian crosswalk, a construct that is also made noticeable to oncoming motorists via accompanying signage (yes, this is one of the actual signs at the Walmart in question).

For guidelines regarding how the operator of a motor vehicle is to conduct themselves when they approach a pedestrian crosswalk, let us refer to section 56-5-3130 of the South Carolina Code of Laws, which states:

When traffic-control signals are not in place or not in operation the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way, slowing down or stopping if need be to yield to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk when the pedestrian is upon the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling or when the pedestrian is approaching so closely from the opposite half of the roadway as to be in danger.

I looked both ways as I exited the store that day to make sure there weren't any oncoming cars nearby. I saw one to my right but it appeared to be far enough away that I would be able to begin crossing the distance from the store to the parking lot as I, being a pedestrian, would've had the right of way. As I got about halfway between the store and the lot I noticed this car didn't appear to be slowing down - it wasn't going all that fast but it also wasn't showing signs of yielding.

I kept walking.

The car slowed a bit but was still coming towards me.

I kept walking. By this point I'm probably 75% of the way to my objective.

The car keeps coming - slowly, but it's still coming.

I'm about 85% of the way across the crosswalk. The front bumper of the car (a black Ford Focus sedan, similar to the one my wife owns oddly enough) is now so close to me that I had to angle our buggy out of its path else it would've struck the cart. I stop dead in my tracks then turn my head so that I'm looking directly at the driver of the car, a black woman wearing sunglasses (the kind that make the wearer's eyes look like that of a bulbous insect). She looked back at me, expressionless - we were in something of a duel at that moment, waiting to see who would make the next move. Suddenly her passenger, a black male, shouted at me through the open window on his side of the car, saying "You need to look around!" I began pushing our buggy out of harms way and as I was doing so I pointed at the ground then said back to the passenger "It's called a pedestrian crosswalk..." It was meaningless effort, but it made me feel a little better.

I know what some of you are probably thinking. "You idiot, that woman could've run you over and you just kept walking in the road!" Yes, that's entirely possible. I could have stopped at the moment I first noticed she wasn't going to slow down and let her pass. I didn't do that because I had decided there was a point to be made in standing my ground, however chauvinistic it may have been. I'm not the one who deserves to be chided for their behavior in this scenario because the driver of that car had decided, willfully and without provocation, that she had no problem with hitting another human being with her vehicle.

Why? I'm a 34-year old white guy. I'm speaking directly to the driver of that car here - would you have been so bold as to aim your car at me if I were a black guy of the same age? (Oh yeah, I'm going there.) Or perhaps if I were a little old black lady who was just out to pick up a gallon of milk and some bread? Do you still want to run me over or do you yield? Likewise, what if it had been my wife in my place or possibly a child? Are you still alright with potentially killing someone or does the race, age, gender, etc. of your potential victim have something to do with your decision?

Would it have been worth injuring me or damaging the buggy and our groceries to say "I belong here and you don't"? I don't think there's a personal injury lawyer in this state that wouldn't have been knocking at my hospital room door had she actually done harm to me. I can only assume she would've been fine with going to jail for that act. I don't know what kind of jail time a vehicular assault conviction carries but I'm sure it's not pleasant (or so I would hope). What would her defense have been, "He shouldn't have been walking where I was driving..."?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people like this woman exist. I think we encounter people of poor character every day, unfortunately, but they reveal themselves in varying degrees. Sometimes they might drop an empty soda can out the window of their car, then sometimes they might cheat on their husband with one of their co-workers. Sometimes they might eat a few grapes off the bunch they intend to buy while walking around a store, sometimes they might beat their son with a broom handle when he wets the bed. Sometimes they might take an extra newspaper from the box, sometimes they might bring a pistol into a crowded movie theater. My point being to say that we never know what evil exists inside of a person until it's let loose into the world and by then it's too late. You just have to hope you're not the one who winds up on the receiving end when the levy finally breaks.

My Attempt at a Juice Cleanse/Fast

A few weeks ago I saw a promotional trailer for a documentary film called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead which follows the story of an Australian man named Joe Cross who was - as the title would imply - fat, sick, and nearly dead. He was 100 pounds overweight and suffered from an autoimmune disease, but through a combination of juice fasting, exercise and diet planning he was able to heal his own body and is now living without the need for medication.

My health is nowhere near as poor as his, thank God. I'm overweight and I have hypertension but that's kind of like saying you have an iPhone and a drive a sedan in that most people seem to fall into that category these days (not to dismiss them as being acceptable, mind you, just to say that I'm not out of the ordinary). Still, I was intrigued by the notion of a juice fast and cleanse. The idea of your body functioning purely off the liquid residuals of pulverized fruits and vegetables was fascinating if not somewhat baffling (notice I used the word "was" and not "is" in that sentence). Part of it was because I wanted to do something to benefit myself, however I will admit that another aspect of it was a desire just to try it for the sake of seeing how my body would react.

In the film, Cross' fast lasts for 60 days. I knew I wasn't going to do anything near that - as I told my wife, at some point I'm going to want a cheeseburger and I'm only going to be able to deny myself for so long. As it turned out, my fast lasted for the better part of 2 days before I decided to throw in the towel.

When I initially had the idea of doing a juice fast, I bought a juicer from the Walmart in Orangeburg, South Carolina. I can't help but be honest in stating that positive experiences with this particular Walmart have been few and far between for my wife & I, and I should've had that in mind when I went there with the expressed purpose of buying a juicer. I hadn't done a whole lot of research into juicers but I knew I didn't want to invest an arm and a leg in one. They had a Black & Decker model on display that caught my eye - it was a low-end device based on its price point but I figured it would work well enough for me. I have always gotten good performance out of the Black & Decker tools I own so my confidence in it as being a quality purchase was somewhat high. I grabbed it with haste just in case anyone else might have been eyeballing it at the same time as me because it was the only one of that particular model left on the shelf.

As I put the juicer's box up onto the conveyor at the checkout counter, I noticed that it appeared as though the tape on the packaging had been tampered with. Suddenly I became worried that this unit might have been purchased previously and returned. "It'll be alright", I told myself. "Just wash it out when you get it home to be safe..." When I opened the box at home, this is what I found.

 

As I feared, the juicer had in fact been purchased and returned. I had not counted on it having been purchased, used, returned, and then set out on the shelf for purchase again without every being inspected. I would like to blame the original purchaser for having lied to the staff at customer service about not having used or opened the juicer, but at the same time I blame Walmart for having not taken the time to inspect a return prior to pushing it back out onto the sales floor. To that end, I will say that when I took the juicer back to Walmart I met no resistance in making the return however the employee who reclaimed the device from me marked it as being defective. It might have been defective, or it might have worked fine - the truth of the matter is that I don't know. All I do know is that this almost turned me off to the prospect of juicing as a whole. As you might expect, I was quite grossed out by having brought God only knows what kind of refuse into my home. Even so, I put the money I was returned towards the purchase of a Hamilton Beach juicer which wound up being about $30 more expensive than the Black & Decker.

I've learned that when it comes to juicers (or juice extractors, as they seem to be referred to more commonly) there are two types, centrifugal and cold press. Centrifugal juicers are less expensive; they work by forcing the unlucky specimen to be juiced through a metal blade which spins at an incredibly high rate. The spinning motion helps to separate juice from pulp as the two diverge into separate containers. These juicers aren't seen as being the best option, nutritionally speaking, as the blade builds up heat and heat can lead to a loss of nutrients. Cold press juicers, on the other hand, are more expensive as they grind up their victims then press the resulting bits in order to squeeze out their vital fluids. Apparently they yield more juice as the process is more efficient and they don't generate as much heat so they produce a higher quality juice.

In preparation for my fast I did a fair amount of research (read, I Google'd something) regarding juice recipes. Full disclosure here; I wasn't looking at nutritional values when I considered recipes, rather I was trying to put together a menu of sorts that included concoctions I thought would be pleasing to my palette. I figured if I was going to be putting myself through this I should at least be having drinks that are tasty. Trust me when I say it's tough to figure out what's going to taste better when A) I have no idea what vegetable juice tastes like outside of a good, old fashioned V8 and B) my experience with raw vegetables is somewhat limited. If it hasn't shown up on one of the local salad bars or a pizza, chances are it is a completely foreign substance to me.

At the same time, when looking at recipes I tried to keep in mind the fact that our local grocer isn't exactly known for carrying what I'll refer to as exotic selections of flora and fauna. It's a Piggly Wiggly for crying out loud (or at least it is right now; Bi-Lo bought a bunch of the Pigs in the area and they're supposed to be converting them to Bi-Lo's soon), what do you expect?

As it would turn out, I was able to find a majority of the ingredients I went after - cucumbers, carrots, lemons, limes, apples, etc. I wound up having to substitute romaine for spinach as the only spinach to be had was a carton of baby spinach. Likewise, I had to omit other ingredients like beet root and ginger because they weren't available.

I don't remember the complete contents of my purchase but the grand total was in the area of $35. That wasn't too bad of an expense in my mind. I figured since these materials were going to replace my meals for the next few days $35 was reasonable when compared to the average per meal cost. I didn't realize this when I was in the store but my wife pointed out when I got home that a lot of discounts were in play according to the Pig's mail ad we'd received that same day (an effort on their part to clear the shelves as much as possible before Bi-Lo's stock arrives), and fruits & vegetables were included in the sale. I take the time to point this out because in actuality what I bought for $35 might have normally been much more than that.

This is as good a transition as any into talking about the cost of this endeavor as juicing is criticized as being an expensive approach to wellness. At this point I'd invested roughly $100 into the project between the $60 I paid for the juicer and the $35 spent on fruits & vegetables. Lets assume that I bought enough food to sustain myself for 3 days in that purchase. By this arrangement, were I to continue the fast for a longer period of time - say the entire week - I'd have been looking at spending $70 or more, which equals out to roughly $10 a day. That's not bad, so long as you're dedicated to doing what you're doing and can bear the burden. However, I will say that my wife and I typically spend in the area of $60-$70 per week on groceries; that's for the two of us and it includes a lot more than just a bunch of stunt doubles from VeggieTales. What I'm getting at here is that in terms of bang for your buck, it would appear that juicing isn't the most economical option but that should be no real surprise. For a number of logical and illogical reasons, fresh foods are simply more expensive than their boxed and canned counterparts.

I planned on starting my fast on a Saturday as I wanted to be at home when I kicked things off for fear of how my body might react. For my last meal, as it were, my wife and I ate dinner the night before at a local Sonic Drive-In. Yep, high class big spenders me and her, that's what we are. I had a large order of tots with chilli, cheese, and jalapenos while she had a corn dog. We wound up ordering desert as well, mine in the form of a small caramel java chiller and hers a molten cake sundae. I figure it was about as poor of a meal as could be had considering I was about to embark on a journey to health & wellness. My stomach apparently agreed with me as I had to make a number of emergency trips to the restroom during the night (FYI, I'm not done talking about bowel movements yet so stay tuned for more of that).

The next morning I made my first juice, a recipe that had been named "power punch". It was amusing to me when looking at recipes that most of them were given monikers that were affirming and overwhelmingly positive in nature. Looking through them made me feel as if I were going to be drinking a motivational poster instead of a juice cocktail. In hindsight, the motivational poster probably would've tasted better than some of the juices I put together.

Power punch consists of 1/3 of a pineapple, 1 lime (the original recipe called for 2 limes; I only used 1 in fear of 2 making it too tart), 1/2 of a cucumber, 6 romaine leaves (which I substituted in place of spinach), and 2 apples. I'm not lying when I tell you this was actually quite good, especially when it was ice cold. The pineapple juice paired up well with the apple and lime, making for a very refreshing beverage. True to its name, I did feel a boost of energy after I drank it. This was a good debut and it made me look forward to trying other combinations.

Unfortunately, power punch wound up being the only juice recipe I tried that didn't taste like I was drinking the scum scraped off the interior walls of a poorly maintained swimming pool. Not that I know what pool scum tastes like, mind you, but it seemed like an appropriate analogy. I blame this lack of palette-ability on the inclusion of cucumber juice in most of the other recipes. Admittedly, I am not the world's biggest fan of cucumber as I will eat it in a salad but not in large quantities and not without the addition of a dressing (because a suitable amount of ranch dressing can make anything taste better, that's why). The cucumber juice was oddly overpowering, even when mixed in with a variety of flavors. I use the word oddly there because cucumber doesn't normally come off as being especially pungent, although it was in this scenario.

I knew that preparing ingredients would be time consuming but I didn't know how time consuming it would wind up being. I'm unaccustomed to breaking down foods as part of my normal routine of receiving sustenance, meaning it probably wasn't as bad as it seemed to me but all the washing, peeling, and cutting got old quickly. I tried to use the time spent in prep mode to focus, not really meditating but at least concentrating on what I was doing and keeping a good internal monologue going. I was talking to myself about how much I'd sooner have been eating Chinese food, in other words.

The preparation wasn't the only aspect of this process that became a chore. Cleaning up after each juicing session might have been more bothersome than the prep work, if for no other reason than I wound up having to scrub the blade/strainer apparatus thoroughly after every juicing lest bits from the previous batch stay lodged in the device and affect either that juice or the performance of the machine. It became a hassle, is what I'm getting at, and that sensation built over the course of the weekend. Not only with the process but with the fact that I wasn't allowing myself to eat.

There's the real beast you wind up fighting when enduring this or any other kind of fast - the feelings of hunger and, in my case, its associate, the caffeine headache. By about 2 PM that first day I'd begun to feel empty, and this was after having had several juices and lots of water (water will only make you feel full for so long but it was quite good at rinsing out from my pie hole the putrid flavors I'd forced upon myself). I usually drink a cup of coffee in the morning and have a soda with my lunch, which is why I assume the headache was caffeine related although it could've been associated with my sinuses as I have random issues with allergies. At no point did I regret what I was doing and it wasn't as if I'd put myself in any kind of danger, I just didn't like being hungry because in my mind I knew I didn't have to be.

All this was compounded by the fact that my wife was out & about for a majority of the day as she had a handful of events to attend, meaning I was home alone with no one to express myself to other than Roddy, our beloved miniature Dachshund. I can talk to him but I have a feeling he only listens because he can't reach the treat bags himself.

I mentioned earlier the fact that the meal I had prior to kicking off my fast had an unexpected cleansing effect, if you catch my drift. It was a surprise because that's the kind of reaction I normally get from eating at Subway, not Sonic. I can only assume that because of this the juices didn't do what I'd expected them to do in the way of de-cluttering my colon. (Perhaps the juices I made weren't rich enough in fiber to do the job.) Other than when I was dealing with the residuals of my Sonic tots, I didn't poop at all that weekend. Not a once.

I kept up with my juicing into Sunday but by Sunday evening I'd had enough. Wifey was out of the house again, this time off to the theater with her Mom to see a live production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and it was just about all I could do not to eat the entire contents of our kitchen (appliances and flatware included). I didn't like being hungry and I really didn't like the way my juices were tasting. At that point I gave in and made myself a ham & turkey sandwich with a side of Wheat Thins. Believe me when I tell you that food never tastes better than when you've gone without it for more than a day.

In wrapping this up I will say that my expectations for this experience were not met. I hoped to come away from it feeling revitalized and confident in the choice I'd made to try and improve my well being through wholesome consumption of pure nutrients. What I got was a piece of kitchen technology that I will more than likely rarely or never use again and a variety of leftover fruits & vegetables. I hope my depiction of what I went through would not dissuade others from juicing, though, as I will be the first to tell you that I lack the dedication to stick with something like this for a protracted length of time as being hungry is not fun. Those who do certainly are equipped with a greater constitution than I as it takes a lot of heart and mental toughness to stick with this or any other restrictive diet.

I'm not a nutritionist and I can't say that your results will be as fantastic as those of Joe Cross, but if you're in poor health or you're eating yourself to death this might not be a bad option. It is do-able, you just have to want to do it more so than anything else for it to be successful.