Because I liked it so much the first time

Aug. 24, 2007 - 1:30 p.m.: 1-1/2 big-ass Boddington's (beer) and four slices of pepperoni pizza drenched in what must have been axle grease that tasted a lot like mozarella cheese.

Aug. 24, 2007 - 4:20 p.m.: Finish second Tecate in the pool under a 110-degree asphalt melting, ball sweating Arizona sun. Drinking alcohol in the sun is the best way to combat the heat I hear.

Aug. 24, 2007 - 7:10 p.m.: Rather than using a fork, tilt a pasta bowl drenched in red sauce down my gullet. I was really hungry. Oh, toss in a couple of meatball as well.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 12:30 p.m.: Crack open first beer of the day.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 12:33 p.m.: Crack open second beer of the day (I nursed the first).

Aug. 25, 2007 - 1:15 p.m.: Sit down with fourth beer and first jalapeno-spicy guacamole-onion burger.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 2:00 p.m.: Decide one burger isn't enough so dive into the remaining hunks of burnt cow that have sat in the sweltering body heat of our kitchen for a second burger and load it up with everything spicy I can find in the house. My ass can tell you how a jalapeno-Chinese red pepper-chilli powder-spicy horseradish mustard-burger tastes. Just don't get too close. Wash it all down with a beer. Losing track by this point of what number brewsky I'm on.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 5:00 p.m.: Head to game after many beers, half-a-bag of chips and hot salsa and enough burgers to form a cow inside my intestines.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 5:45 p.m.: Beer up inside beautiful University of Phoenix Stadium.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 8:30 p.m.: Halftime meal of super chilli dog and beer. It was yummy and my gut thanked me a few days later for this gift.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 12:45 p.m.: Nightcap the evening with a scotch and Cherry Coke - it's good trust me - and then proceed to talk politics and religion with the crowd until 2 a.m.

Aug. 30, 2007 - 10:45 a.m.: Head to hospital with chest and gut pains.

You do the math as to how I reached that final result. Rest assured, however, I am fine and only spent a few hours in the hospital. They understood my urgency to leave when I told them I had 10 dudes coming over for a fantasy football draft that night. (Long story short, Wife pinch hit and drafted my first seven rounds, quite well I might add).

Thursday, sitting in the emergency room for the second time in 12 days, I realized I wasn't 25 anymore. That was a brutal fact when the ER doc said the most exciting thing I could toss down my pie hole for the next few weeks was cherry-flavored Mylanta. The list of no's for food lapped the yeah's by a couple miles, and after hearing everything that would potentially kill me over the next few weeks I finally had to ask her if tofu and plain rice cakes were my only options.

"No, you can wash it down with a tofu shake."

"Oh man, doc," I say, as I flash my hairy, bloated gut (because the hospital gown accentuated my hobbitish body) "party at the compound baby. Rice cakes for everyone!"

Let's play a little game now. Here's the list of no-no's as handed down by the supreme health inquisitor and food nazi, Doctor Dolly Madison: Chocolate (no problem, I need less sweets anyway), foods high in acid (perfect, those citrus fruits get in the way of good foods like beer and jalapenos), caffeinated drinks (fine, I've been trying to curb soada drinking anyway since anything coming out of an aluminum can should contain barley and hopps), spicy foods (whoa, doc ... does that include chili rellenos? those aren't spicy, just packed with cheese. That should be hunky dorry), red sauces (um, doc, you saw my name, you see my nose, no red sauce for an Sicilian? You might as well rip out my tongue and slap me across the face with it), and finally, the coup degrace, she said I had to limit myalcohol content (rubbing alcohol, I ask hoping that's what Doc No Fun really meant. Unfortunately, kiddies, she meant the kind you drink, especially the kind that comes from barley and hopps).

I cried for an hour straight.

And what's worse, the hospital wrecked my stomach to begin with. When I was in 12 days before they prescribed a steroid that didn't bulk me up, help me hit 760-some odd home runs (believe me I tried, I had Wife out back firing fastballs at me and I couldn't catch up with none of them - she has wicked movement on the pitch) or lift VW buses over my head. The steroid did, however, make my heart race faster than Tony Stewart's No. 20 Chevy at Texas Motor Speedway, and chew up my innards like they were doggie chew toys.

So my gift for making it out of the hosipital in one piece? A room full of work mates guzzling beers - MY beers- and waving them at me as if they were little green-legged rockettes full of tasty liquid. All I wanted to do was take said bottles, shove them up someone's nose and ask, "How does that taste, funny boy?"

But then I realized, I don't need the beer that bad. Why return to the ER with someone else's injury when all I had to do was kick their rear ends three ways from Wendesday's in fantasy football. So, believe you me, folks, I took note of who drank my beers and I will have my revenge. Oh yes, I will have my revenge.

And in another few weeks I could have a beer. Or two. Maybe less than 20 days, really, but who's counting?