Before heading out to Los Alamitos for Mother’s Day, I took out the trash—literal and existential—and ran into my neighbor Joe, who was shirtless, glistening, and fully immersed in the sacred rite of garage cleansing. A former state wrestler, well over six feet and built like a retired Marvel stuntman, he stood there in gym shorts holding his yelping Dachshund like a small, furry accordion.
“Tell your wife happy Mother’s Day,” he barked, like a man who’s yelled instructions through chain-link fences and Little League dugouts.
He asked what we were doing. Smash burgers, cake, and ice cream at my sister-in-law’s in Los Alamitos, I told him.
I floated a question that had been gnawing at me like a rat in the attic: “Should I eat the burger without the brioche bun?”
Joe turned slowly. Scoffed. “Eat the bun, Jeff. You’re going to die soon.”
This wasn’t nihilism. This was wisdom from the pulpit of heatstroke and middle-aged clarity.
“In the last four months, I’ve lost three friends your age,” he said. “One of them was a ripped surfer. Sat down on the couch, died of an aneurysm. Didn’t even spill his smoothie.”
He paused, letting that land like a kettlebell on my soul.
“You need twenty-five pounds of emergency fat. A cushion. In case you get sick. You can’t cheat Mother Nature. Eat the bun. Eat the cake. Enjoy your life. Don’t micromanage your macros while white-knuckling your way into an extra ten years of prune juice and self-loathing.”
It was the most persuasive argument for gluttony I’d ever heard.
So I went to Los Alamitos. And I didn’t just “cheat”—I defected. I committed dietary treason. I licked frosting off my fingers like it was the Eucharist. I let French vanilla ice cream puddle across my plate without apology.
The penance would come Monday. That’s the deal.
But I vowed not to wallow in the usual puddle of self-loathing and Calvinist regret. I would take it like a man. Chin up. Macros reset. Guilt-free. Mostly.
Cinemorphosis 
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