A Grand Return to the Writing Community

Ah...and so I return.
How pleasant it is to sniff the familiar air that surrounds the journalist community. I understand that my most recent disappearance has been rather lengthy, and I apologize. Not only did I miss my post last week, but it seems I committed the same crime this week, and that is simply unforgivable. What have I to say for myself? Well, quite a bit actually. I understand that you, the Onions, are all probably more furious than words can describe but I ask that you hear me out! Lend me your ears, and I will tell a tale of great courage and gained knowledge. I expect this will be the longest post on the food blog to date, and I only hope that you all accept it as sufficient to account for both last weeks blog and this weeks blog.

Well it all started about two weeks ago. Naturally, since I base my sense of time and everything I do around the food blog, the most significant event around that time was my last post. For those of you who remember correctly, I was prepared to take my eating strike to the next level by turning it into a full fledged scientific investigation. And since I NEVER procrastinate EVER, I got right on that. I got all my materials and hypothesis together and set out into the unknown world of breakfast. The investigation was going according to plan, and I was on my way home from an interview with a potential subject, when I was suddenly and unexpectedly approached by a man.

He was middle aged, although he looked as if he were as old as the world itself. He wore a torn up black tailcoat, fingerless gloves, a dirty old sweater, and a deformed hat atop his head. He had a light gray beard, and his eyes were as colorless as his face. The man stared at me for a good five minutes, and not one to back down from a staring contest, I stared right back at him. His eyes were almost hypnotizing...not in a gay way, in a strange unexplainable Twilight-Zone way! I'm not a woman damnit! It was almost as if by looking into his eyes, I could see the truth of the world. The entire universe was clear to me.

I never lose a staring contest. Not once in over 5 years have I lost. But I could clearly see the man standing in front of me was no amateur. After a brutal 10 minutes of staring, my eyelids finally gave in and my body collapsed in defeat. I looked up at the only person who was ever able to defeat me, and he was still staring at me. In what was the most incredible display of skill I had ever seen, he was still staring at me! It was abnormal! He spoke.
"Be careful," he told me...and then he handed me one of those really big tan official-looking envelopes with the strings that you twirl around the little knobby thing a hundred times to make sure its closed, except this one was only wound around a few times.

I quickly stumbled to my feet and took the envelope from the strange man. I asked what it was. He simply smiled and extended his arm, touching me on the forehead. And in that moment, the truth was made clear to me. I understood the meaning of life. Where we came from. What our purpose is. Whether or not there is an afterlife. What time it was. Everything!
...Unfortunately, I seemed to have forgotten all that bullshit during my journeys, but there's no use crying over spilt milk, so lets get back to the story!
After filling me with all the knowledge of the Universe, his incredible staring powers must have knocked me out.

I regained consciousness in a pile of leaves a few feet away from the path I was on. I guess some college student was generous enough to move me off the sidewalk so nobody stepped on me while I was knocked out. I looked around. It was pitch black. I took out my accursed cell phone to check the time. I looked at it, but it showed no signs of life. A blessing?! Was it finally dead?! No. It suddenly started beeping in 2 minute increments. The only thing displayed on the screen was "Low Battery".

What the fuck?! God damn cell phones! For God's sake! How does that make ANY sense?! Oh okay, in order to save batteries, I'll turn the screen part of your cell phone off...but I'll keep beeping annoyingly! Just to let you know that you should waste more precious energy by recharging me so that I can annoy you some more! Goddamnit! That makes almost as much sense as text messaging...but that seems to be catching on well enough among the brain-dead, media-hungry, impressionable, teenage larva in this country, so I guess the cell phone companies know what they're doing. The only thing worse than cable television is a cell phone!

Well after a good 20 minutes of ranting to myself in the dark, I decided to get back to my dorm. I grabbed the enveloped, which miraculously had not been stolen or eaten by an animal, and headed back to my room. I stumbled in unnoticed by anyone and took a look around the room. My roommate was asleep to the horrid sound of reality television. I love New York I believe the show was called. Actually, it was I Love New York 2. That's saying something, when you have to have a second reality television show to find a boyfriend because the first one didn't work. I swear I get stupider every time that show is on. How anyone can enjoy it is beyond me. I guess I'll ask my roommate.

Anywho, I turned off that cursed box and stumbled over to my desk. Looking at my 19th century mechanical alarm clock, which will never fail me regardless of how many power outages occur, I noted the time was 5 am. Ah! Just in time for breakfast! Beautiful! I reached for a small little box of cereal I bought a day ago and took out a small bottle of milk. I opened up my box of cereal, but as soon as the seal on the box was broken, my telephone rang. Confused and dazed, I picked it up and answered. There was a mysterious voice on the other line...and it gave me a warning.

"I'd think twice if I were you. About eating that breakfast. If you know what's good for you, you'll drop this investigation and just go along with your life Mr. Gillies. You're getting too involved with this. Just let it go. Think twice."

They abruptly hung up. I thought it was a strange call to get, especially since I just started my investigation earlier that afternoon. I guess they work fast in the breakfast industry. Suddenly I remembered that weird shit had been going on all day! I turned my attention to the envelope that was given to me earlier, and tore it open. Inside of it there was a strange key. I looked it over. It seemed to have some strange ancient markings on it. As an official certified scribe of Dolism, I quickly recognized the markings as old symbols from the great country of Dolanzia. This surprised me to no end. How had the man come upon such an artifact? I had never seen anything like it! But I was hungry, and I never think on an empty stomach.
Without a second thought, I ate my breakfast!

About an hour after breakfast, I felt a strange feeling come over me. It felt almost as if there were something in my stomach. As an avid vegetarian/anorexic, I'm not used to such a feeling, but I blew it off just like I do with everything. However I soon began to feel dizzy and started bleed from the nose. What was going on? Was this cancer? Shit.
Guess I should have looked up the definition of cancer before I started my investigation. I quickly googled it and found out that cancer can kill you?! Goddamnit! If I knew it was dangerous I wouldn't have done it! I thought cancer was fancy-talk for a badge or something!
My vision began to blur, and felt my life slipping away into the void of darkness.

I'll never forget the cold fingers of death reaching out for me. Yes, I experienced death, and its grip was more frightening than staring down Bill's Dad knowing damn well that he was about to tear you limb from limb because you're dressed like a gay knight in his living room while he was trying to watch TV. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say it WAS Bill's Dad who came to get me and drag me off into the afterlife! But since I am still able to write this blog entry, you all know as well as I that Bill's Dad hasn't gotten to me yet.

Instead I woke up. I opened my eyes to see my lifeless body laying on the desk in front of me. I was dead alright...I just hadn't gone anywhere. How disappointing. Oh well! As much as I wanted to stick around to see what my roommate would do when he woke up and saw me dead, just for shits and giggles, I didn't. I headed outside to see one of the most frightening sights to date. The sun was red. Everything else was a strange and eerie glowing blue color. Every color I had ever known seemed to be inverted. Blacks were whites and whites were blacks! It was just like...in fact, it was just like Pain Gock! I imagine that's what the world looks like in Nick's eyes all the time.

There were hundreds of other spirits. Dead souls...most of them Amish. What possibly could have happened to them all? I didn't understand. What dreaded fate could they all have fallen to? And had they all committed a sin so unforgivable that they did not make it into the kingdom of heaven which they spent their whole electricity-free lives trying to get into? Cause that just sucks! Then it hit me. What if each and every one of them died of cancer? What if the spirits which lined the skies where those who had indulged in breakfast every morning? I had to get to the bottom of this.

BUT FIRST!

It was time to do something I've always wanted to do!
I quickly ran up to the nearest Amish ghost, and tried to sell him my cell phone! He seemed very offended by this as his eyes turned red and he started howling at me, so I just moved on and asked him if he died because he ate breakfast and got cancer. He wasn't particularly pleased with that either, and before I knew it, his howling at attracted the rest of the Amish. Damnit.

So there I was, surrounded by bloodthirsty Amish ghosts, each one ready to kill and eat me by slowly tearing me apart...one electronic device at a time...when suddenly, a gas canister flew from behind me, emitting a thick white smoke. The Amish started screaming and flailing around in pain. Then another gas canister...and then another! It was like in Jurassic Park 3 when that little kid saved Dr. Grant from the Velociraptors by throwing gas canisters at them! And just like Velociraptors, they all scattered. I felt a hand grab my arm and lead me to safety.

It took me awhile to catch my breath, but when I did, I looked around my new location. I seemed to be in an army tank of some sort. I would later find out it was just a Hummer. Then I remembered that there was someone else with me. I turned to see who it was. And staring back at me was none other than Kurt Russel! Awesome! I always used to tell people that if ever I was to be rescued from crazy Amish psychos, I would want an 80's action movie actor to do it! And here we was. Kurt Russel in all his glory!

"God...those Amish are just like Velociraptors!" Kurt Russel exclaimed as he tended to a claw wound on his arm. I told him that I was thinking the exact same thing. I figured that if anyone had the answers to the questions I had, it would be Kurt Russel. And so, I asked him if I died of cancer. He looked at me like I was an idiot before answering that question. He informed me that it wasn't cancer, but an infectious virus that was implanted in my cereal by the powers that be in order to stop my investigation of the breakfast phenomenon. Apparently my brain melted. Go figure.

I was ready to rule breakfast out of the equation, when he informed me of why the rest of the people were here. Turns out my ridiculously far-fetched suspicion that all the Amish got cancer from breakfast was right. He also told me that he was there for the same reason. Damn! There goes my whole argument!

But wait! Before all you Onions start celebrating...Kurt Russel also told me something else. He told me not to give up. There was something else out there. Some unknown fact. Apparently there was a mass coverup going on. Someone was protecting something, and I had to get to the bottom of it. Sure he died of cancer after eating breakfast...but it wasn't the breakfast that caused it! The cancer was put there to throw everyone off! Of course! It all made sense now! I mean...aside from the fact that I was sitting in the passenger seat of Kurt Russel's hummer after narrowly escaping the jaws of man-eating Amish ghosts! I still had a job to do!

There was one more thing Kurt Russel said to me. He said that in just moments I was going to be brought back to life by a Rogue. He didn't know what she wanted with me, but he did knew that I had to take this chance to return to the world of the living and expose whatever truth lay behind the breakfast scandal. Just then I felt a strange feeling come over me. Imagine that...feeling a feeling? How's that for good writing? Well in any case, I felt my heart beating in my chest again. I felt a tear roll down my cheek, as my last moments with Kurt Russel faded away.

I awoke with a middle-aged woman staring down at me. She was wearing a straw hat and was dressed in a yellow dress with flower-prints on it. In her hand, she held an umbrella, and she had muddy rain boots on. When she saw me breathing again, she smiled and spoke to me.

"Well golly! Its about time you woke up! I've been tryin to get you back in the world of the living for nearly a half hour now!"

Judging by the pink lipstick on my mouth, the fractured ribs, and the fact that she told me, she had successfully performed CPR on my dead body for about a half hour until I finally came to. I'm still not exactly sure how CPR fixes a melted brain, but I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I sat up and had a look around my new location.

...
Goddamnit.
I was in the chemistry lab. What I was doing there, or how, or why, I had no idea, but I was there already. My own personal hell. I asked her who she was and what the hell was going on and she just smiled back at me, as cheerful as ever. She seemed like a nice enough woman, and she told me that her name was Sunshine. Fitting.
She helped me to my feet, and I naturally asked me what the hell I was doing in the Chemistry laboratory.

"Oh-ho!" she exclaimed, "My my, how demanding you are! Well since you wanna jump right to it, I guess I needn't hide it from you! You see darlin, word has it that you're quite the chemist! And seein as I brought you back from the dead and all, I was just hopin you'd help me out with a little...experiment...so to speak!"

Give a little get a little. Or I guess it was the other way around for me. I don't know what idiot told her I was good at chemistry, because I'm not...but since she DID bring me back to life I figured I ought to give it a try for her. Apparently, she wanted me to make her some sort of elixir. Layed upon the table where many bottles...each filled with a different chemical or element. Hydrogen. Carbon. Calcium. Florine. Potassium. Later I was informed that they were all the chemicals which make up a human body.

I don't know what she wanted me to do...she just kinda told me to go for it...and I didn't get very far. I managed to create the only chemical I ever remember from countless hours of chemistry...Hydrochloric Acid...and that's just because its easy! After about 5 minutes, I gave up and turned to her. To my surprise, she was holding a small revolver and now had it aimed at my head.

"Failure isn't an option da'ling. I'm afraid I can't let you give up."
Apparently Sunshine wanted me to make her some sort of eternal-life potion...I never thought I'd write a sentence like that, but that wasn't even close to the craziest thing that had happened to me that day, so I'm not gonna spend too much time thinking about it. I turned back to the table and tried to think about what to do. There was a crazy middle aged woman in a flower dress behind me with a revolver pointed at my head, and I thought about what Kurt Russel would have done. And just in case nobody saw it coming...which is highly unlikely...I grabbed the flask of Hydrochloric Acid and threw it at her face!

Now if you find a flaw in that part of the story, then you know too much about chemistry, and I don't know enough about it to care about fixing it! So deal with it!

With acid eating away at Sunshine's face, I went the hell home! Jesus Christ! I've been trying to go to bed for God only knows how long now, and I keep getting stopped by crazy people! I walked in to see my roommate was watching football. Goddamnit! Isn't he dead yet?! He seemed to be under the impression that if he screamed loud enough, the Redskins would be able to hear him through the television and then maybe they'd stop sucking so much. I can't wait till everyone in America decides that "Redskins" is a derogatory term and throws a big fit about how its wrong and what not. Another reason to move to England! In any case, I hit him over the head with a hammer and put him out of his misery. He probably would have committed suicide when he found out they lost anyway.


So anyway, things kinda settled down after that! I went home for a few well deserved days off...and of course had Thanksgiving. That's always a treat, and this year was especially amusing.


Nothing of any real significance happened for a few days, but then on Friday night, things started getting messed up again. You see, I was sitting on my computer playing Phantasy Star at around 1 in the morning. Suddenly, I heard a knock on my window. I looked over to see that there was an Italian midget knocking on my window! Now...at first I was reluctant to let him in...one, cause he was Italian and two, cause the last time I talked to strange people, my brain ended up melting. But since he was getting my window all greasy, I let the Italian bastard in.

Needless to say, the first thing he told me was the fact that he was Italian. I informed him that I hated Italians, so he promised to make it quick. Most of what he said was bullshit, but I did manage to understand a small portion of what he had to say:

The woman named Sunshine was the Rogue that Kurt Russel spoke of. As Mr. Russel had predicted, she had an agenda of her own, which was probably the only reason she brought me back to life. But here's where it gets really weird. It turns out that Sunshine was actually my real mother who dropped me off at the Gillies residence when I was a child. I guess my mother...-ahem- Mrs. Gillies...was right all along. Furthermore, Sunshine's official birthdate was over a thousand years ago. She's been using a magical elixir that she discovered to transfer her soul from body to body over the centuries. Unfortunately for her, she is unable to create the elixir by herself, because she sucks at chemistry. So she's been using her illegitimate children to make the potion for her.

Shortly after informing me of all this, the Italian midget had a seizure and died. Great. Now there's a dead Italian on my floor, my mother is a thousand year old psychopath who wants me to make her a magical potion even though I threw acid in her face, and worst of all, my room is gonna smell like the Olive Garden for weeks. I stuffed the dead body in my closet underneath all the Devil and God costumes, and headed out to the diner.

I figured if there was one place on this God forsaken planet that wouldn't screw me over, its the BFD! Oh boy was I wrong. It started off like a normal diner trip. I sat down, ordered a cup of coffee and some french toast, and was trying to forget the fact that I now had a dead body in both my room and my dorm room. As I was enjoying my meal, one of the waitresses came over to me and told me that my presence was requested in the back room! Hmm! What a surprise! I've never been called to the back room before!

She lead me into the back room...and locked me in. Ack! A trap!
I banged on the door as hard as I could, but I had no luck. And then I heard a familiar laugh. I looked behind me to see a 6 foot figure in a yellow dress with a burnt off face.
Sunshine!

Here she explained her plan. It was not only true that she was my mother, but she had also been switching bodies over countless centuries. It seems the little Italian did his homework. I demanded that she tell me what all this had to do with breakfast! The answer was more disturbing than I could ever have imagined. And I quote:

"You see dear...tha's how I get my subjects! I always hated breakfast. The joy it brought to waking up. Waking up in the mornin is not a blessing da'ling! Oh no! It's a curse! I hated it so. I hated how people woke up every morning to have coffee and eggs! And so I started spreading the rumor that breakfast causes cancer. It's quite genius really. Most people just accept the rumor for what it is. They all just stop eating breakfast! But then...every once in awhile someone questions it. Someone wonders why. And those are the people I am interested in! Whoever searches for the truth eventually crosses my path...and then I can get them to do whatever I need!"

I was horrified at what she told me. It couldn't possibly be true. I was preparing for my inevitable extermination...when she said something I did not expect.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna kill you da'ling. But that still doesn't mean you're ever leaving this room. Yes...I think I'm gonna let you die on your own! And as for me...well I'm off to go switch bodies with one of those waitresses out there. I'll see you around!"

And without the slightest warning, she exited the room, and locked me inside. I fought with that door for hours, trying to escape...but it seemed that it was hopeless. Just when I was about to give up all hope, I noticed something strange on the back wall. Strange...markings...could they be? Yes! Symbols from Dolanzia!! And just as expected...a keyhole! I reached into my pocket and pulled out they key of Dolanzia which the completely irrelevant strange man gave me at the beginning of this ridiculous story! I stuck the key in the keyhole, and surely enough the power of Dole opened up a secret back door to the BFD and I made my escape!

But my survival can hardly be considered a victory. Whether or not breakfast causes cancer is still uncertain, and until my investigation is finished, I cannot take a stance on the subject. Kurt Russel is still trapped in the world of the dead swarming with Amish. Sunshine is still alive and is currently a waitress at the Blue Fountain Diner...only we don't know which one. And worst of all, all this bullshit accomplished absolutely nothing. Goddamnit.

But there is one idea that is recurring through my mind. I still have the key of Dolism. A fine artifact it is, and I was trying to think of what to do with it, when it hit me. Who gave this key to me? That man seemed almost too familiar...in fact that was my coat he was wearing! And he was the only person who has ever been able to beat me in a staring contest! What if he...is actually my future self?! Going back in time to make sure that I get the key I need to escape Sunshine's prison room?! It makes enough sense to tak onto the end of this entry, so there ya go! Now all I have to do is get better than my current self at staring, live till I'm middle aged, grow a beard, and then go back in time and give myself the key just as my future self did for me!

Oh well. I'm back at college now, and apparently my roommate survived that hammer to the face. He seems to be heartbroken by the fact that that football player on the Redskins died earlier today...and its difficult to hold concentration while writing over his sobbing! But since I received an angry letter from my editor about my lack of posts, I must continue writing. I've been writing for at least four hours now, and I can't believe I'm still at it. Especially since this whole story is complete bullshit and none of it makes any sense at all. But I accomplished my mission of writing the longest post the food blog will ever see. I doubt any of you will read it all the way through, but if you do, my hat goes off to you!

And THAT is why I missed two weeks worth of food blogs!


Breakfast: For breakfast, I wasn't really feeling the second box of cereal I had in my desk drawer, so I decided to head to the dining hall to see what they had to offer me. To me delight, they seemed to have vegetarian sausage again...a rare delicacy. I grabbed a few pieces of that, and made a Belgian waffle. A nice cup of coffee and glass of orange juice, and I'm set for breakfast!

Lunch: For lunch, I didn't have much time. I had to make it to my Wellness class, and check for Kurt Russel on the way. So I headed off to the Galley for some real food! A piece of pizza, some macaroni and cheese, and a coke. Yum yum.

Dinner: I wasn't all that hungry, so I actually skipped dinner today. That's not what I told everyone else who all wanted to go eat with me. So if anyone asks, I went to dinner early and by myself.