Snack Time

As an avid APBA baseball game replay player, I spend a lot of time sitting at a table and rolling dice. And, despite the limited activity, other than tossin' the die about 100 times per game, a fellow often gets hungry.

Snacks are big in replay land.

But you've got to pick the correct ones. Eating those cheese-flavored chips, while good, leave your fingers coated with a yellow dust that could mark up the APBA cards. Pizza and chip and dip aren't good either. It would be annoying not being able to read a number on Joe DiMaggio's card because a glob of Rotel or a dried chunk of pepperoni is adhered to it.

So, the player has to be discriminant and think these things out. Pretzels are good, although by the 7^th inning of a game I've got to sweep the table clean of salt like a Zamboni machine clearing the ice after each period of a hockey game. Cookies are decent as well, as long as they don't contain those huge chunks of chocolate that melt on the cards.

Cleanliness may not be next to Godliness in APBA, but there are not many things worse than a food-stained player card in my book.

Getting these specific snacks, though, creates somewhat of a problem for me. I have to go to the grocery store, and I really hate shopping. I do it each week, stocking up on food for me and my cat, but it's a chore that I really dread. I grab a cart and hit the routine, picking up the same thing each week: Chips, water, some meat for when I pretend to actually cook, frozen pizza and other microwave stuff, some fish or burger thing I can broil when I think I can be healthy and cans upon cans of cat food. I probably follow the exact same motions each week in the store when I shop, following my same pattern much as a beginning dancer follows those Arthur Murray feet-movement maps.

Before my wife passed away, she did the shopping. Although I live in Arkansas, I'm not that much of a redneck and I never felt it was her “job” to do the grocery gettin's. Instead, she always knew how to find the really exotic foods in the store. You know, like vegetables.

But she's been gone for seven years now, and you'd think I could figure out a better shopping pattern.

I can't.

But I do find the snacks and there's plenty to nibble on during the games.

And therein lies yet another problem. Doing replays is not strenuous; I play a lot of games each day, and, hence, devour a lot of junk food. If I keep up this pace, I'm sure after knocking out my 1942 season I'm doing now and then perhaps 1991 or 1919 next, I'll end up like one of those guys you see on Discovery Channel who paramedics have to remove a wall of his house to get him out and transport him to the hospital.

At least I'll leave a clean, non-stained table when they take me away.