Requiem for an Appetite

"I reach my peak, I can't speak/ Call my ni**a Chic, tell him that my will is weak..."

I coulda been a contender. Or at least, that's what I think. Now I know how every veteran athlete feels when he realizes he's lost a step, but can't find it in himself to hang up the cleats. I'm speaking, of course, of my athletic prowess at buffet eating.

In my younger days, I used to be the up there with the best of them. I'd hit up the Chinese or pizza buffet in my city, and go to town. Four or five trips, not counting dessert or drink refills would be an average performance for me. I'd leave sickeningly full, disgusted with myself, and about to explode, but also lighter than air with the realization that I'd far out-eaten my five or six buck entrance fee and maybe even amazed a cost-concious manager or two. But those days, my friends, are long gone.

Of course, I still THINK I've got the hunger to make one more run at the title. Lately, I'll roll into some barbecue joint or chinese buffet with more excitement than a fan on opening day, with more useless talk than Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage, with eyes as wide as saucers, and Gotham is agog as I dream of my glory days. But alas........I peter out quicker than Jim in American Pie as I get impotently full midway through my second plate. Then, I give up. What's the use in going up one more time? It used to be my midway point, but now it would just be me publicly showing off my failure.

I look at my eating-self right now, and I see Michael Jordan in a Wizards uniform.

So, you've gotta be asking, "Why don't you just hang it up and move on, R.D.? Why not just give up and stop all-you-can-eating yourself into misery?" Because, it's all I was born and bred to do. It's my calling, and my love. I don't want to wake up one day, open my front door, and utter the immortal last words of Ray Liotta in Goodfellas,

"I'm an average nobody....I get to live the rest of my life as a schnook."

And so, my quest continues for that one more meaningful performance, that last championship performance, that final George Foreman knockout (actually, he's a really good analogy for this post) that will help soften the blow into retirement, and ultimately, obscurity.....

Hey, an athlete can dream, can't he?