Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.Atkins diet no match for the flying shrimp of winter by J. G. Fabiano We finally gave in. My wife and I were about to join the ranks of the low carbohydrate army of people who have been told they have to lose weight in order to be successful Americans. Or at least this is what successful Americans say. Gone are the bags of Cape Cod potato chips, gone are the cases of draft beer, gone are the bushels of hard- crusted bread that cut your gums to shreds, but you still feel are worth it as long as the bleeding stops. This time my wife promised me this particular low-carb diet had my name plastered all over it. I wouldn't be forced to eat things that I couldn't taste and I wouldn't have to break through the kind of packaging that should be used to protect time capsules. This was the diet of steak, butter, bacon, eggs and everything else I was never allowed to eat in fear that my heart would self-destruct because of the astronomical amounts of cholesterol being injected into it. All of a sudden the kitchen started to brighten as though an angel of enlightenment had just appeared. I thought I heard music being played by cherubs circling around my head. I had finally found the Promised Land, which had the name of a real man's diet. I gave my wife a big kiss on the lips and hugged her, thinking that after all the years of trying every diet known to mankind I had finally hit the mother lode and its name was: `Everything you ever wanted to eat.' Then the room darkened a bit when my wife told me there was only one minor problem with this new dietary delight. The problem was I had to cook most of the food on the barbecue grill. Obviously this wouldn't be a problem in July, but this wasn't July - it was February. Just for a moment I thought maybe we could put off the diet until the warmer weather but I quickly pushed that idea out of my head when I realized if I did not agree to man the barbecue then I would be eating cottage cheese and flavored cardboard for the next 90 days. So, off to the garage I went to take the barbecue out of hibernation. There it stood, all comfortable and warm under a thick coat of black plastic. It looked so peaceful, as though it knew the winter was only half over and it could sit quietly next to my lawnmower and other garden tools for at least another couple of months. I pulled it out of its parking spot, only to hear a squeak of protest as though it knew it was being put back to work prematurely. I had already moved my truck out of the garage thinking I could cook under cover as long as I kept the garage door open. At the time it seemed quite logical. I turned on the gas and pushed down the igniter button, hoping to see flames blossom under the grill. Nothing happened! I pushed the button over and over again with the same response. I then went back into the house to retrieve my faithful grill lighter. I tried it out and it worked fine. I went back out to the garage, which was now filled with propane gas because I forgot to turn it off before I went into the house. I immediately threw the grill lighter out of the garage before I ignited it accidentally and launched myself in the direction of Mars. I shut the gas off and pushed the grill outside. I then opened all the windows in the garage, at which time my wife looked out, smelled the gas, ducked back inside and locked the door. It took half an hour to clear the garage of the propane fumes and for my wife to let me back in the house to get the shrimp for the barbecue. She told me to cook it for only five minutes and to make sure I use one of those aluminum foil sheets so the shrimp wouldn't fall through the grill grates. I told her no problem and eagerly grabbed the shrimp and the foil because I knew I was on my way to weight loss by eating all the food I ever wanted to eat. To my surprise the grill lit on the first try outside. I assumed it must have woken up. The flames were fighting zero-degree weather and wind gusts that drove the temperature to 30 below. My hands began to grow numb and my nose started to exude things that should have stayed inside my head but I was on my way to a dining delight and no winter weather was going to stand in my way. I then placed the foil on the top of the grill where it stayed for approximately one milli-second before the winds of February snatched it up and hurled it down the street in the direction of an SUV driving down our road. I watched open mouthed as the vehicle veered away from the silver projectile heading towards it like a heat-seeking missile. The tinfoil slapped itself across the driver's side of the windshield and stuck there, forcing the driver to swerve into a shallow ditch at the side of the road. I gave my neighbor a friendly wave as he got out of his truck, plucked the tinfoil from his windshield, crumpled it into a tight ball and threw it aside. Then he glared in my direction and waved back in a manner that did not include all his fingers and which I did not think was at all friendly. As I turned back to my grill I saw that out of the two-dozen shrimp my wife had given me there were only five left. At first I had no clue as to what could have happened to our dinner until I realized that shrimp, apparently, have aerodynamic qualities I never knew about. I looked on in amazement as the shrimp fluttered around the garden like little pink butterflies borne by the stiff winter winds till, one by one, they tumbled to the ground. In my mind's eye I imagined shrimp trees growing out of my lawn in the spring. At that precise moment my wife again opened the door leading into our garage and asked if the shrimp were done. I told her they were and, in reality, they were. I then called back and asked if we still had any Healthy Choice Shrimp Creole left in the freezer from last year. The End
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