thank heaven for 7-11

First some background: my wife and kids are out of town for a couple of weeks. I normally do most of the cooking in the house, but since they've been gone, I haven't been inspired to do much kitchen wizardry for my sole benefit. So as a result, I've been eating out a lot more, and when I do eat at home, it's nothing special (read: crap). Another side effect of my psuedo-bachelorhood has been more late nights out, going to see bands, hanging out at the neighborhood bar, etc.

I posted this on a messageboard last night:

"So I have this thing....

When I go out drinking (which I did tonight), I usually end up with the drunk hungries by the time that I get home. If I'm in my neighborhood, and unsupervised, I get this great idea to walk over to 7-11 and get nachos. Packaged chips, machine spewed cheesefood and pseudo-chili topped with room temp jalapenos, and I'm alright.

I just made that mistake, like I've done so many times before. Why do I do this? I know that tomorrow will be hell on earth (or at least, hell in the can).

Why does everything wrong seem so right?"

Well, I didn't need any precognition skills to know that I would wake up today, having my innards feel like a 5 year old can of cuitlacoche. What surprised me, however, were the responses that I got to my post (including some from our host from the Great White North, darell). Praise upon praise was given to that inner city oasis, that neon beacon of hope in the midst of urban blight. Yes, my friends, regular people like to eat at 7-11. All sorts of advice was given, from the proper way to make nachos (chips - cheese - chips - cheese - other toppings of choice), to the other gastronomical delights housed within the fluorescent escape from reality.

I've always been an advocate of hair of the dog, but seeing as I couldn't knock back a shot or two during work hours, I decided to return to the scene of last night's food crime.

Lunch consisted of:
- nachos (done "lasagne-style" per the recommendation of the Canucks)
- a Monterey Jack taquito
- an orange creme Slurpee

I ate the taquito on the way home, and it was indeed quite tasty and not nearly as vile as I was expecting. The fact that they had about ten different varieties (including Buffalo chicken!!!) means nothing but good things for me. My nachos were good. The layered preparation gave the maximum cheese to chip ratio. So much, in fact, that I had cheese to spare when the chips were gone. Unfortunately, I consumed so much cheesefood that my body started rebelling against it. Where I normally would have been scraping cheese remnants out with my fingers, I had to quickly toss the container, as the smell was beginning to unnerve me. My saving grace was the Slurpee. It provided the perfect counterpart to the nachos. The cool to it's hot. The sweet to it's spicy. The ice to it's...... corn?

I'm just glad that I was alone for the experience. Eating nachos alone is like eating bbq ribs alone. You can throw all propriety out the window and have at it, no holds barred. By the time I was done, I had cheese all over my face, and nearly up to my wrist. Later, I did find a spot of cheese on my earlobe. I'm not quite sure how it got there, but I did black out for a little while during my meal, so anything's possible.

I'm going out again tonight.... wish me luck.