Nag, Nag, Nag

Nag, Nag, Nag
This has been a week of nags for me.

The nagging began with my Monday night class. Several of my students felt that I was losing too much weight. They felt I should be eating for calorie laden foods like left over Halloween candy.

While it is nice to have someone concerned about your health, I wonder if these students were more concerned with their low grades than my health and were shamelessly trying to curry favor with the instructor. It would not be the first time that some of my students were more concerned about their failing grades late in the term. It will also not be the last time something like this happens.

Tuesday was Election Day and everyone seemed more concerned with that. There was no nagging for a change.

My no nagging luck ended on Wednesday after my morning class. The students are more interested in other things. I left school to go visit my friend Gloria at her ice cream and frozen yogurt store. This should have been an excellent time of the day for me.

But, there is always a dark cloud in the sky somewhere.

Gloria has a radio playing in her store, loudly for the most part. I guess this for her younger customers. The radio makes it hard for me to hear what she is saying.

Maybe this is a good thing.

Gloria thought that I had lost some weight since the last time I had stopped by. I had; I mentioned to Gloria that I wanted to lose some more weight over a period of time. Gloria thought I should be maintaining my weight at a minimum and probably gaining a few pounds.

I did my best to gain some weight by having a large scoop of her very rich chocolate ice cream that I topped with chocolate and caramel sauce and chocolate sprinkles.

I did my best eating the ice cream and did not get any on my white dress shirt.

I came home from Gloria’s ice cream store and decided to take a nap I was tired from a late Tuesday night course that was followed by a Wednesday morning course. My nap was interrupted twice by wrong number phone calls.

The Corner Bakery – A Review
I went to the Corner Baker in Redondo Beach on Pacific Coast Highway to pick up a sandwich for my dinner last night. I used to go to the Corner Bakery at the Block of Orange in Orange County when I was taking classes for my Doctor of Business Administration program so I was familiar with the food.

This particular Corner Bakery has been open for a little over a month now. I think I had gone maybe five or six previous times.

I placed my order and waited for the sandwich to be prepared. I also decided to try some of their Big Al’s Chili since I was hungry because I essentially had skipped lunch.

My sandwich was completely wrong when I took it out of the shopping bag when I got home. I checked my receipt and the order that I gave the clerk was the one of the receipt. The kitchen staff apparently cannot read simple English.

I had ordered a turkey sandwich with cheese on bread and ended up with a ham sandwich on pretzel bread. I really have a very strong distaste for pretzel bread. There is nothing I can say about that would make me want to order it again.

Let me qualify that last statement slightly. If I was starving, I mean really starving; I might consider eating pretzel bread.

I thought about going back to the Bakery so they could get my order right. I decided that doing so would take at least forty minutes and I was tired. I picked at the sandwich. I scrapped the ham and condiments on to a couple of slices of sourdough bread that I had in the flat and had that for my dinner.

It was acceptable but only just barely. I threw the pretzel bread out.

Their Big Al’s Chili was still warm when I opened the container.

I should have just dumped that chili when I dumped the bread.

Words cannot describe how vile and horrible and terrible and unappetizing this container of gruel that tried to masquerade as chili was. I would have rather eaten the current version of Army and Marine Corps field rations that this mess.

Chili is supposed to have beans in it. I think I saw one as I dumped the cup sized container down my garbage disposal drain.

Any really good chili is thick. One good test of chili is if you can stick a spoon in it and the spoon will remain upright.

This mess was mostly water; flavorless water at best. If this chili was ever entered in a chili cook off contest, no judge would even taste it. Any judge could see just from looking at it that is was worthless and obviously very bad.

This chili had what we used to call in the Navy as having a hint of beef in it. The duty cow came by for a dip in the hot water and that made it passable as beef chili.

Not for me.

Luckily, there was very little solid food in what was described as chili so my garbage disposal was not on for very long.

This was a horrible way to end my day.

As with any bad event, one can always learn from it. I learned that former President Reagan was so spot on correct when he said, “Trust but verify.” That will be my watch word when I got to the Corner Bakery again; assuming for the moment I want to go there again anytime soon.


Be well and stay happy.