Too Far

You Know You Have Gone Too Far When Your Face Is on the Lobster Bib

The madness is contagious

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

We went to visit my friend Mary in Maine during the lobster season. When we lived in Connecticut, this was a yearly outing. Since I moved to Florida, we had not seen each other in ten years. As we exited the plane, a small commuter aircraft, I saw my friend and was happy she was nowhere near me. I gasped.

She looked wonderful. The girl is a bombshell. Her blond hair was perfect, nails a beautiful red color, as attractive as she ever was. There was one difference from before. My extremely thin friend had become a big, beautiful woman. Next to her was her newish husband of one year. Everyone was grinning from ear to ear.

This was my friend who struggled with eating. On girls’ night out, the rest of us would be chomping on steak and guzzling drinks like crazy. She would eat one leaf of a green salad, take a sip of ice water, and declare she was stuffed. She did not bother the rest of us as we vacuumed 3,000 plus calories into our bodies. She always came along because she was fun to be with, other than when we were eating.

We let the men sit in the front so we could talk. What happened, I asked her? She laughed, “Food,” she said, “I’m making up for lost time.” At lunch, I learned what she meant. We stopped at a sandwich shop for a quick bite before beginning our adventures. I, my spouse, and her husband ordered a sandwich.

Mary ordered three fully-loaded sandwiches, chips, and a drink that she gobbled down before we could finish our one. The thing that amazed me was I did not see her eat the sandwiches. One minute they were there; the next, they were gone. Mary was daintily wiping her mouth and reapplying lipstick while I was taking my third bite. Wow!

When we arrived at her home, the nanny left us homemade cookies as a welcome visitor present. Somehow, most of the cookies ended up with Mary, eaten before I even finished one cookie. I was tripping; what was going on? The cookies were gone and there was not a crumb on her.

We went to an all-you-can-eat lobster and shrimp fest for dinner that evening. When we got to the fest, we opted for the all-you-can-eat option. Of course we did. When the waiter brought the lobster bibs, Mary’s face was on them. Wait a damn minute here. Why was Mary’s face on a lobster bib?

Her face was on the bib because she was the all-time undefeated lobster tail eater. Mary ate 41 lobster tails in 60 minutes. 41 in 60 minutes! All her lobster dinners at this lobster shack were free. While she did not eat 41 that evening, she sure tried.

Later that evening, I asked Mary what her end game was with eating. She told me that one day while eating her standard rabbit food fare, she tried banana pudding. Since that day, she never looked back. She became a raving food addict. Thus began her campaign to sample the delicious foods she missed in her 20s, 30s, and 40s.

She met her new husband at a restaurant after she had gained weight. He loved her as she was. I told her she looked terrific, but I was concerned about her health if she kept eating this way.

Mary reached over and took both my hands in hers. She looked me in my eyes and said, “I will not stop eating whatever I want whenever I want it and as much as I want.” I realized nothing I could say would affect her eating behavior.

If I did not lecture her when she was rail-thin, who was I to preach to her now that she had a bit more meat on her bones? Our society praised Mary when she restricted her food intake and was starving herself. Who wants to criticize her because she is happy and eating? Nope, not me.

We had a wonderful time with Mary and her spouse. We ate our way across the state, enjoying every minute we sat at a dinner table with our friends — intelligent conversation and delicious food. They knew where the tastiest food was everywhere we went, and we ate it all and loved it. We ate until we fell away from the table like bloated ticks off a dog's butt. The madness was contagious.

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Toni Crowe retired as the Vice President of Operations to pursue her dream of being a writer. Toni has written six books, two of which won the 2019 Reader’s Choice Gold Awards. Her bestselling business book, “Bullets and Bosses Don’t Have Friends: How Do You Manage A Man Sitting With His Dick in His Hand?” was one of the winners. Her first book, “Never a $7 Whore” was the other.