A waitress, 2 men, and about a billion shrimp

Ironman Al is noted for 2 things; his dogged dedication in pursuit of his first Ironman, which he completed, and his ability to consume prodigious quantities of food. I am noted for my excess in just about everything...

Well, he has been in town for the last week or so and tonight we had to choose between catching a movie or going to dinner. Between the sad state of current available flicks and the current special at Red Lobster, namely All You Can Eat Shrimp...well, it was a no brainer.

Both of us being big Simpsons fans, it was natural to reference the classic Season 4 Simpson's Episode "All You Can Eat" where Homer pounds so many shrimp he is thrown out and the Seas Captain refers to him by saying, "'Tis no man. 'Tis a remorseless eatin' machine!"

Well, then it was time for us to become a pair of remorseless eating machines. We started slow. He had a double order of Shrimp Scampi while I mixed it up with one order of fried shrimp and one of coconut. As we were handed our food, we both placed our next order. She looked at us a bit strangely, but acquiesced.

Well, we were waiting before our matching orders of popcorn shrimp arrived. So we each got a double order of fried shrimp. That is 5 bowls apiece for those who are counting.

He ordered a scampi which takes a bit longer. Since my last 2 orders had copied his, I went with the fried shrimp. So she brought 2. Since those were quicker, he got a couple while he was waiting. Then they brought his scampi...but there were 2, so I stole one and ordered another scampi. He grabbed a cajun.

I think you see where this is going.

We DESTROYED that place. The carnage was awful. He had about 5 glasses of coke, 1 glass of water, a salad, a baked potato, 4 orders of shrimp scampi, 2 orders of Cajun, and 9 orders of fried shrimp (2 of which he stole from me...but since I am pretty sure they were not rung up since we were getting bowls even between orders...I am okay with that).

I was a bit slower. I had about 8 glasses of coke, a couple biscuits, a baked potato, 1 order of coconut, 3 orders of scampi(one of which I stole from him), 1 of popcorn shrimp, and 7 of the fried shrimp.

We had so much shrimp that a couple of times I am pretty sure they dropped off shrimp at our table that were A) destined for other tables and B) not on our final ticket tally. We ate for so long that people who arrived at the adjacent tables after us left well before us...we ate for over 2 hours.

At one point, we were talking about how many calories we had consumed. Al pointed out the cokes were about 200 calories which I laughed off. "I have had about 10,000 calories of shrimp. I don't think 200 more is going to hurt."

"We should tell the waitress we want diet coke because we are worried about the calories."

It would have been hysterical but we wimped out.

I wimped out before Al. The worm has turned, he can consume more food than me. But hey...I am older than he is, so it is all good.

Well, not all good...let's just say nobody envies the local porcelain....

Edit/update:Tis a small amount of remorse this morning felt by my heartburn, belly, and the porcelain...in no particular order...