Get hooked up.

I was going to talk about free food today, but I'd rather talk about the larger issue of which free food is only a part, and that's getting hooked up locally.

This is sortof an amorphous concept, but it's way key. Here's one aspect of it: I get free shrimp and free oysters and occasionally free all sorts of other sea creatures because I signed on to be an oyster taster over to the aquatic foods lab.

Every few months they'll do another experiment where they, for instance, compare oysters from all over the continent to determine whether there are any qualities specific to oysters from a certain area.

Or the industry will come up with some revolutionary (and always revolting) method of processing oysters for shipping or storing and we oyster tasters will be required to eat the proceeds and report the patently obvious: "freezing oysters and then hurling them at a wall to bust them out of their shells and then sweeping up them and a few bits of their pulverized shells and throwing the whole mess in a big ol' plastic bucket, refreezing it, and trucking it halfway across the country may save you $0.03 per oyster in shelling/shipping costs, but it loses you money in the long run because unless they're a stressed out middlemanagement demon tasked with stocking the buffet table for a cocktail party in the ninth circle of hell, there is no one on earth or below who will buy that nasty 'product.'"

By declaring myself willing to eat swill occasionally, I make myself eligible for the occasional supertreat. For instance, sometimes the oysters are good. If you like oysters, good oysters is a reason to eat bad oysters, and that's really saying something, because there is nothing worse than a bad oyster. Nothing. I don't mean "bad" as in "spoiled"--a spoiled oyster isn't the worst thing in the world; eating it would bring on merciful death. I mean bad as in gravely mistreated. But good oysters make it worth it.

Sometimes? They have extras? And they send us home with bagsful. Bags full of live, fresh, salty, happy, icey, bivalved darlings. Two, three, four dozen.

It is worth it.

So that is one of a few ways I'm hooked up. Get hooked up. Find out what's around locally. Nose around. Take all offers.

It's STILL not over.

Well, first of all, I don't think I will ever become a jockey.

I'm scared of horses, I'm too tall, and I am no good at spitting or hotbox. I didn't try flipping--there was nothing to flip--but I'd bet I'm pretty bad at that, too. Another career avenue closed.

I spent the weekend not eating and trying to give myself renal failure. WHY? Because they moved the weigh-in date up to Monday. Today. Another two days of bending abruptly from the waist to get my head below my knees so as to avoid passing out cold in the grocery store (where I was buying not groceries of course but "Smart Water." It has calorie-free electrolytes!!!). Another two days of not being able to do more than one flight of stairs without a rest or lift heavy things like my car keys.

This morning I awoke at 4:30 and prepared my weigh-in outfit by cutting off all labels and any unnecessary decorative elements. (There weren't any.) Then, since the weather is deliciously cool, today, and thus I can't do poorman's hotbox by sitting in my rubber raincoat in my car with all the windows rolled up in the noonday sun,
I put on my winter silk underwear under some flannel pajamas and layered several blankets on the bed and tied a thick babushka sort of thing over my head and climbed in to roast for a few hours before it was time to go to work. I raised my heart rate by listening to a little NPR about the Mother of All Bailouts. At eight I arose and threw away all the bedding, pausing several times to bend at the waist to avoid unconsciousness. I prepared a simple breakfast of: nothing and drove to work, practicing "spitting" on the way.

Spitting is disgusting, so I won't describe it, but it traditionally involves Jolly Ranchers. They didn't have any normal Jolly Ranchers at the grocery store, just the hot cinnamon kind, and I'm pretty sure you need citric acid to do it right, so I used some "country time lemonade" lozenges I got at the Big Lots. Worked fine, but I had trouble keeping it up longterm. Because it's nauseating.

In fact, this is the most disgusting thing I have ever done.

As a rule I don't like to tell people what to do*, but I'm just going to come out and say this: Don't ever do this crap. Never never never no matter what. Trying to get into a wedding dress by June? Get a bigger wedding dress. Want to be a jockey? Be a really short guy. Do not do this thing that I have done.

Finally, champ, if you're here trying to find out how to give yourself renal failure, forget about it--that's not the sort of coveted information you can get online for free.

*That's a huge lie.