Cruel and Unusual Punishment

By Al Horn

If you are a fan of this website then you no doubt have read other rants of mine. As such, you may already know that I work for an electronics firm to help keep the bills paid. This sometimes entails working a little overtime. Considering this is one of those plants that run twenty-four/seven, that can mean working at any time of the day. I can tell you that at this writing I am on my last break of a night shift I signed up for. I started at midnight. It is now six o?clock. This story really began three hours earlier.

The technician I was working with had just nuked some bacon for a BLT sandwich. It sure smelled good. Considering I have been following a modified Atkins diet for the past two weeks, even the toasted bread was getting to me. Going two weeks without bread should be considered cruel and unusual punishment for anybody. At the very least, they should knock time off if I wind up in purgatory.

Of course, on this diet, it's not just bread you have to avoid but anything with real sugar in it. Like, catsup, for instance. Give me two slices of bread, any kind of meat other than baloney, and a bottle of catsup and I'm in hog heaven. Man, I just felt the overpowering urge to have a hamburger.

I informed my workmate I was leaving the plant on my unpaid lunchtime. He offered the rest of his bacon for my own BLT but that wasn't what my taste buds were screaming for. I politely turned him down then clocked out. I had thirty minutes to get somewhere and back.

After following a pair of slow walking cleaning people up the only hallway to the nearest exit, I jumped into my truck and lit out. My plan was simple, I would slow down as I passed the nearest Hardee's and see if they had any of their burgers on sale and if not I would speed down the road to the Golden Arches. My mouth was watering as I left the plant.

Well, Hardee's was closed and when I pulled up at McDonalds they told me they were only serving breakfast food. That made me angry, I had been at this particular restaurant before and had been served hamburgers at three in the morning. Sometimes, when you're angry, you say things you don't mean. To the young lady who was only doing her job, "Well, if I had known that, I wouldn't have come! See, ya!" Away I speed. Not sure of what to do next.

I suddenly got the idea to jump on the interstate and run a few exits down to a Jack in the Box. By getting an Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger, I would be having it all. I pushed my speed up to ten miles over the limit mindful that I was still working within a narrow time frame.

Imagine my horror as I popped off the highway and discovered they were closed! Now what? Time was running out on me. I decided to try the McDonalds at this exit. (You ever notice how they're at almost every other exit?) Alas, it was not meant to be. There were six cars in the drive thru. No way to order, wait to get my food and make it back to the plant in time. I would have to return empty handed.

I clocked back in with seven minutes to spare. I checked to see if my buddy's offer was still good. He had eaten the rest while I was gone. He suggested hitting one of the break rooms. I had just enough time.

The first one was closed for floor maintenance. That meant walking very quickly to the next one. There was one puny little burger in their machine. I opted to run down to the next one. I knew that the machines would sometimes be stocked with huge, half-pound burgers. That would be the only thing that would ease my pain. A little voice in the back of my head was saying, "If they stock it, you will buy it." I suddenly had a hunger for corn chips, too.

The machine in the last break room was completely empty. My watch told me I had just enough time to stop and pick up the puny burger from the previous break room and get back to the shop before the end of my official lunchtime. It would mean waiting until my next break to eat it.

Again, imagine my horror as I walk in and see somebody pulling my burger out of the machine. If he hadn't been six inches taller and forty pounds heavier (that will teach me to go on a diet), I would have punched him and run off with it. Oh, the inhumanity of it all. I was forced to settle for a Hot Pocket. A jalapeno, steak, and cheese pocket. I am choking the last of it down right now... literally!