BYOBB

Right before I left for Atlanta yesterday morning, I stood in the pantry, holding my Balance Bar box and debating whether or not I should bring two (one for Monday and one for Tuesday). In my mind I thought: Eh, I can always buy one on the road for Tuesday.

So, on the way back from Atlanta this afternoon, the Balance Bar craving set in. I had planned to go to the gym when I reached Nashville and I needed some fuel (good excuse!).

So I stopped at an interesting looking gas station / restaurant and to my delight, they had my favorite kind of Balance Bar. I glanced at the expiration date - Oct. Great! Done! I payed and headed back to my car.

Once in the car, I tore the wrapper off the bar and took a big bite. Ugh!!! Hard as a rock and nasty. I looked at the wrapper again: Oct 10, 2006. Ugh again!!! Spit out! Whaaaahhhh - now what? So I returned to the store (threw the bar in the trash on the way) and went to see if there was any other inferior kind of Balance Bar that actually had a decent expiration date. Nope. Disappointed, I reached for a Power Bar and went to the cash register.

"You should remove your Balance bars from the shelf", I said. "They are really old."

The manager went off to look at the situation while the very new cashier actually rang up my Power Bar! They didn't even offer to give it to me for free. "Sorry about that", was all I got from the manager. Fine.

I headed back to the car and started munching on the Power Bar (now those are really inferior). All is well. Or so I think... Until I'm 3 miles or so into my run and my stomach starts cramping up. Great. Now I remember the reason why I don't eat Power Bars... and you don't really want to hear the rest.

So, to wrap it up, the moral of the story is this:

BYOBB (or Bring Your Own Balance Bar)