The Contest - Concordia style

Hopefully most of "my readers" (whatever that means) are familiar with the show, Seinfeld, as I have already often used that, along with Curb Your Enthusiasm.

This post is a spin on the Seinfeld episode, "The Contest" with the cast of characters involving Concordia staff. The "Seinfeld" in this scheme is our soccer coach, Joe Alianiello, who came up with the genius idea. The rest of the cast involves conference & events specialist Julie Neidt (pronounced "Night" not "Neat"), assistant AD Valerie Olson, myself (the SID, writer of the DIS), my wife Stephanie and her mother, Jolene and brother, Chris. Also contributing was Melissa Wolf, assistant SID (no affiliation with DIS).

So here's the premise: Joe came up with this brilliant (another word for genius at the sake of avoiding redundancy) idea to do the Master Cleanse diet. He enters my office and asks, "Julie and I are doing the Master Cleanse, are you in or out?"

Not know what he was talking about, I asked for more info. He proceeded to explain the MC, calling it a lemonade flushing system that rids the body of all toxins. Anyone who knows me well knows that I drink coffee in the morning, diet coke in the afternoon and if I'm lucky, beer in the evening. I could use this flush, I'm thinking.

I ask what it entails. Joe proceeds to explain the plan, and as he does and I realize I have to go 10 full days with just drinking "lemonade" I insist there is an 80% chance that I will fail on the first full day of lemonade (which is the fourth day of the MC).

However, I decide to tell him that if he convinces Steph then I'm in. So he emails me a link, I forward to Steph and as a health fanatic that loves trying crazy things, Steph is gung-ho about it.

So, we are both in. Steph then proceeds to get her mom and brother involved, saying they are both "in" as well.

While Julie and I are in Joe's office, we get Valerie on the phone and she's "in" - now this is a good crew, seven in all. With that kind of system in place, I think this will be a "lock" for success!

Still in Joe's office, Julie and I get more info on what this lemonade drink really consists of: freshly squeezed lemons, grade B maple syrup (not Mrs. Butterworths which is the "good stuff") and cayenne pepper.

GROSS. But whatever, I like lemonade, syrup and spicy stuff so it has to be good, right? Or at least consumable.

So, I'm still reluctantly in, despite my hesitations about only consuming liquid for 10 days - yikes.

This all occurred on a Thursday, and we were to start on Monday. So we had four days to gorge ourselves with any food imaginable. When it hit midnight on Sunday, no more good stuff.

On Sunday evening, after bowling where I consumed nearly a pitcher of beer, I hit up the grocery store while Steph studied, bought up our fruits and veggies for day 1, and possibly day 2 since I went a little overboard. Apples, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, red/green/yellow/orange peppers, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower. We were all set.

After the grocery store, since Steph was cramming for a Tuesday test, I stopped at Applebees and ordered a tall Miller Lite for my last beer for two weeks. It was funny because I assumed on a Sunday at 9:00 p.m. that there would be no one at the bar. But with President's Day on deck and Valentine's Day nearing an end, there were like six dudes of varying ages between early 20's and mid 60's all drinking away their single sorrows.

So I pounded my beer to avoid further conversation with the weird early 20's dude to my left and got out of dodge, happy to have put the beer and the people in the bar behind me.

I should also mention that at "Sunday Dinner" with Chris and Jolene they both confirmed that they were in fact NOT "in" for the MC. Since they probably never actually confirmed being "in" in the first place, they were not the first ones officially "out."

Monday morning strikes. I eat an apple and a handful of strawberries for breakfast, feeling confident.

No coffee, though. It's going to be a rough morning.

9:30 a.m. rolls around and I'm absolutely starved for some reason, even though over half the time I don't eat breakfast anyways. But since I'm armed with four apples and four sliced up peppers, I dominate a sparkling red apple.

That tides me over until about 11:00 a.m. when I start eating some peppers. The mix of peppers saved me, and I was able to eat a lunch that filled me up.

We called Val from Joe's office where I was eating my third apple of the day, Julie was eating blueberries and Joe was eating tuna (that was his way of easing into the MC). Val said, "Oh man guys I had toast for breakfast, I guess I'm out! Shoot!" She didn't actually sound disappointed, though, and wasn't really the first "out" either since she never really started and apparently didn't even intend on being "in" without getting groceries for day 1!

We had baseball that afternoon at Metrodome, so I made sure to bring my fourth apple, my peppers and a big bottle of Aquafina with me. On the way to the Dome, I check in with Steph.

She had recently checked in with her doctor to make sure she could attempt this crazy venture without doing harm to her health since she requires potassium pills and high blood pressure medication - a combo that works together with her food intake.

Doctor says "no-go" as I find out via a text in the middle of the first of two baseball games. Now I'm at the dome, eating freaking peppers and drinking boring water, the guy at the dome press box just offered me the rights to dominate his fridge full of pop and I'm on this stupid-ass diet and my wife is now "out"?!?!

What gives!

With Steph now "out" (she's the Kramer of our Seinfeld scenario as first-out) I have to go home and see her and Chris eating her awesome meals in front of me while I drink this shit-concoction of lemonade-grade B maple syrup and cayenne pepper?

Fuck that, I'm "out"! That makes me the "Elaine" of the story as the second one out.

I did make it a full day, though, as I resisted the free soda at the dome all night. When I got home, when the clock struck midnight I gorged on a "Funfetti Valentine's Day Brownie" and it was glorious.

That day was awful. I had a headache all day, I was crabby and hungry and the apple/pepper combo really got old, and that was the EASY day?! That made my decision all the easier.

I woke up the next morning feeling awful and wondered if I felt this bad after one day of strictly fruits and veggies, how would I have felt five days into the lemonade bullshit?

I got to the office early and napped on my couch until 10:00 a.m., still feeling tired from the long day of work and baseball (14-plus hour Mondays are not Fundays).

Went to Holiday, grabbed a huge 24 ounce coffee and a bag of Cheeseburger Doritos.

On the way back to the office, I stopped by Conference & Events and knocked on the door to show off my Holiday purchases to Julie and she was not impressed.

Nor was Joe in the morning when I got to work with my TV dinner to put in the fridge for lunch.

I was immediately shunned by the only two left who were officially "in." They even had made predictions on how long I'd last. Joe said I'd crack on Friday (the second day of lemonade, a very good prediction since I said an 80% chance of failure on the FIRST day of lemonade!) while Julie gave me a little more (undeserved) credit by saying I'd make it through the weekend and crack on Monday.

But Melissa had my back. She was proud of me for getting back on the coffee bandwagon and off the MC and even suggested my Cheeseburger Doritos selection (and they are really good, ps). You see, last year, she gave up coffee for lent and we shared an office at the time and I continued our ritual of drinking coffee. So on Monday, she had a pot of coffee brewed that smelled wonderful that I couldn't help her finish. The last half of that pot is still currently resting in the coffee pot two days later, by the by...

After a completely normal day of eating and being shunned yesterday, I receive a Facebook post from Julie in the evening saying she broke down and ate food and was officially "out" as well.

So Julie made it to Tuesday night, presumably just drinking soup broth and juice all day yesterday. She would be the Jerry in our story, as the show would reveal in the series finale the true winner...George...

...That brings us to Joe Costanza - the Master of His Domain.

He was happy because he'll continue his Tuna Trend (I like alliterations...) through the weekend and officially start the MC on Monday meaning his recruiting trip to St. Cloud will not be interrupted by crazy spicy-tangy lemonade.

So Joe is the winner, sort of. I think he'll actually make it through a good chunk of the MC. I can't wait to get a taste sample of the lemonade next week.

So, Mr. Joe Alianiello, you are officially the Master of Your Domain - Congratulations!

What a Friday...

What an eventful Friday yesterday, it was so eventful, in fact, that I didn't even have a chance to blog about it last night!

Why didn't I have a chance to blog about it? Well, when Steph and I took Mollie and Ryder out for their evening walk to the park, Ryder had a tough time squeezing out his grumpy. Seriously, the poor guy was squatting for around five minutes, and that's like 35 minutes in puppy time (x7, right?!). Well, he had some of the stinky stuff stuck in his hair and he was not happy about that.

When we got them back to the house, we walked Ryd up to the tub for some scrub-a-dub.

Usually, this is a painless five minute process - he doesn't particularly enjoy it, but he knows we are providing him with a valuable service, so he usually just sucks it up.

Not last night. Last night, Ryder-boy was squirming around in the water, splashing and trying like hell to get out. This would be manageable if the water was just soapy.

But no, it was filled with poop-scraps.

After this 20 minute ordeal, I was covered in water, Steph was covered in water, it was gross.

And, one thing I failed to mention is my inability to stomach the foul smells of a strong deuce.

I was in a foul mood after this. I gotta hand it to Steph, though, she was a trooper - she always is!

After that, we watched My Best Friend's Girl, and as usual, Steph fell asleep maybe 30 minutes into the flick, while I watched the entire show.

Weird.

The highlights of the day were three real-life Seinfeld/Curb moments, so I'll leave this posting with them, in sequence:

Scenario 1 - awkward moment in public
In the morning, I'm heading to Caribou, didn't look for the best parking spot in the lot, just found one quickly and conveniently and parked. Wasn't in a hurry, so wasn't rushing into the building.

As I'm walking through the lot, an SUV races to a front row spot, driving literally right in front of me. The guy definitely saw that I was walking towards the "Bou" before him, but his spot allowed him to get out of his vehicle and make his way towards the entrance before me.

He gets to the door a few steps ahead of me, opens it, and in an anti-Seinfeld/Curb fashion, he allows me to go first. Pretty "Minnesota-Nice" if you ask me.

When we get into the store, the barista offers to help the next in line, the only two waiting were the two of us.

Here's the awkward part. What do I do? Do I let him go first since he was courteous by opening the door for me? Or did he open the door for me because he saw me walking through the lot and though I should go first?

So, trying to repeat a "Minnesota Nice" gesture to him, I looked at him and waved him ahead. But, he did the same thing at the same time. Hmmm. So, I tried to Alpha-Male my gesture and force him to go first. He did the same. So, after the two simultaneous gestures, I just went for it and ordered my drink in a very awkward way.

If I had a touch of Larry David to me, this situation could've blown up with me melting down in public. I should've just tried it in real life to see what happened. But oh well.

Scenario 2 - tip coordination
After work, Steph and I met up with Linsdey Palmer at Chili's for happy hour. The three of us split the "3 for $20 for 2 people meal" which is supposed to be for two people, but it's an asinine amount of food for two. Even the three of us struggled to finish it. Although my friends Bill, Trevor and Sam would've been able to down it solo I'm sure. They would be ashamed of my eating ability in this situation.

But I digress. That's not the point here.

So the three of us split this meal for two and each had a pair of two-for-ones. Kind of a sticky bill.

No worries, the server decides to be kind and splits it 1/3 to Palmer and 2/3 to us.

Sweet.

While waiting for the bill, Palmer has the line of the night. We were talking about my horrible drinking habits, which include coffee all day, a soda on the way home to transition back to reality, and a beer or two at night.

So the ladies were giving me a hard time, and in the midst, Palmer begins educating me on water, "So I got one of those plastic refillable water bottles, that, well, I drink water out of ...." She wasn't done, but Steph and I burst out laughing. After we settled down from our outburst, Palmer says, I was going to finish, but now I won't, in a sort of funny/embarrassed way. We pressed her to finish, she kind of chuckled and said, "Well, I was just going to say that I drink water out of it..."

After the line of the night from Palmer, server comes back, Steph and Lindsey look at each other and without flinching, coordinate the tip together.

Clearly, tip coordination is not wrong, and should not be frowned upon. Larry David wins. In a recent episode of Curb, he tried to coordinate his tip with Jason Alexander (George) to no avail. The episode obviously used this as the main issue. Everyone on the episode agreed with Jason Alexander that tip coordination is wrong and no one's business but the individual tipper. Larry said if there are two bills, the tip should be coordinated for the same service - DUH!

Scenario 3 - plastic packaging
After Chili's, Steph and I went to Best Buy, so I could get the cables to hook my laptop up to our TV so I can watch the Golden Bears battle the Mustangs tonight on the gridiron. The cable came in one of those impossible to open plastic packages. I was trying to open this AFTER the poop incident ruined my night.

Frustration clearly ensued.

I pulled out a scissors, cut open a slice, tried to rip the slice. Nada.

Had to cut that package for like five minutes to get my stupid cable out.

After that, I opened the other cable (easier to open package, thankfully) - and the dork at Best Buy sold me the wrong F-ing cable. What a dick. Now I have to go back and get a new cable today.

Hey kid, the jerk store called, they're out of YOU!

To bring it all back to the first posting from Thursday night - I remembered to waste a buck on a new Powerball ticket. Wish me luck tonight at 9:59 p.m.