I'll have a meatball sub with a side of meatball sub.

Ok, now that the cat is out of the bag about our wee bun in the oven, I can start making lots of fun of myself and this entire weird and amazing experience in which a miniature alien aka the WILD BEAST in the Goble House takes over your body and in proper little person complex fashion usurps all authority you THOUGHT you had over your body, your emotions, your lifestyle, your eating habits, the way you speak to people, your dreams and anything and everything it can get it's grubby, er, nubby little hands on. And it all starts with food. Doesn't everything?

So, you've heard that you are what you eat, yes? Well, if that's the case, this baby is going to come out with dark hair, a tiny mustache and and singing Mama Mia with an Italian accent because all I have eaten for the past five days is meatball subs. In fact, it's probably more likely this baby will come out an ACTUAL MEATBALL as much as I'm craving them these days. And according to fans of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, meatball babies can be pretty cute.

Ok. So don't get me wrong I love a good meatball sub but it's not my uzh.

(SIDEBAR-how do you spell the abbreviation to the word 'usual'?! I have seriously spent way more time than is necessary pondering the answer to this. And what do you know, a little research and voila!, there is an entire website DEVOTED to people who have questions such as this! "English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required." Have a ball fellow English language snobbies aka Laura Soto. http://english.stackexchange.com/ . And just so you know the answer, according to popular opinion; popular being the three people who answer questions like this, is one of the following: youzhe, youzh, yuzh, uzh, uzhe. I'd love your opinion!)

It just came over me one day. This unquenchable, burning desire for a meatball sub. Thankfully I was standing in line at Subway where they HAPPEN to have great meatball subs otherwise it might have gotten ugly. So, I ordered a meatball sub, no problem. Normal people; pregnant and non, order meatball subs all the time. It's perfectly fine that I ordered a meatball sub. Really. Why are we even making a big deal out of this? We're making a big deal out of it because a) the crazed behavior that this meatball sub obsession put into action wasn't perfectly fine and b) this was just the beginning. It's ALWAYS seemingly normal at the beginning. So, as I'm progressing in line, Andis texts me that he's running late and what he wants. I ask the Subway employee if it's ok to add his sandwich halfway through the line to which she replies, 'Sure'. I thought it was also fine (those employess can bust out a sammich in like 5 sec flat) but it was not fine to the tiny, 80 year old woman behind me who 'politely' asked if I would like for her to get in front of me so that my two sandwiches could 'be together'; like they're dating or something. The normal Whitney would have been perfectly ok with this and even followed up with a 'You are SO right! I'm sorry I didn't think of that! Go right ahead!', but the hormone driven, hangry, meatball crazed Whitney responded, "No thank you." and turned back around. Awesome. I'm now an senior hater. This is great. That lady probably needed to take her life saving meds and I was the one holding her up. In fact, it's likely that she has already sent a telepathic message to Santa AS WE SPEAK, but the truth is, she could have died in Subway and I wouldn't have known or cared because my face was shoved, literally BURIED in meatballs. I seriously did not even breathe until the last crumb was gone. My husband was shocked and amazed at the fervor with which I put that meatball sub away. What was probably even more shocking to him was my resemblence to a wild animal afterwards; hair unkempt, eyes bloodshot, crumbs on my shirt, sauce on my face...that meatball sub didn't stand a chance. Which is why he should not have been surprised when the words 'I think I need another one' rebelliously escaped my lips instead of staying safe and silent inside my HEAD where they should have. Now visions of their wives swelling and turning INTO a meatball much like Blueberry girl from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory might have been going through most normal husbands heads at this point, followed by wondering how they can gently encourage said wifey to resist the temptation for a second meatball sub, all the while reminding her that she's beautiful and powerful and wonderful. But fortunately for me, Andis is much more afraid of crazy Whitney than he is of chubby Whitney so the only thing that came out of his mouth was, 'Well what are you waiting for? Get in line.' Music. To. My. Hormones. Day 1 of my 5 day love affair with meatball subs was off to a grand start.

Other than day dreaming about meatball subs, looking up recipes for meatball subs and achingly counting down the minutes until my lunch break when I can GET a meatball sub, days 2-4 were pretty uneventful. Aside from the fact that the employees started calling me by name and starting my sandwich when they saw me pull in the parking lot, nothing out of the ordinary. You know, just a normal customer, placing a normal order for a very normal sandwich; business as usual.

Day five however, could have ended up very differently than it did. Subway is only 3 miles from my work so over the course of the last week I have calculated that I can be there in about 4 minutes and 37 seconds if both lights are green and if there are no slow drivers or big trucks. And if I get there in 4 minutes and 37 seconds, I can typically be one of the first in line and avoid the lunch bunch. If not though, it gets ugly quick; a line out the door, people with multiple kids who can never make efficient sandwich decisions, a million and one contractors who ALWAYS get footlongs which take at least two minutes more....seriously, so crazy I don't even think about it I just try to GET THERE in under 5 minutes. But today, things were not working in my favor. On top of my lunch replacement being late, the phone ringing as I was dashing out and rude drivers not moving over one lane to let me out of the driveway, add 8, 18 wheelers crawling by at a snails pace and two red lights and you have a near meatball sub mission DISASTER. So naturally, as I'm crawling along behind the 8, 18 wheelers who actually were so long they seemed more like 36 wheelers, my patience is starting to wane and my hunger is starting to wax, BIG TIME. By the time I got to the SECOND red light I had bitten off all of my nails, changed the station a zillion times and had started sweating profusely at the stress of it all. Well, that and having no A/C probably helped. So this conversation begins in my head. You know the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Yeah, just like that. Of course it's always the devil that's the loudest, naturally. It starts in. 'Could this light be ANY longer? Could there be ANY more trucks? Could you have possibly gotten a later start?! The line is gonna be sooooo long. There will be a million contractors and a million kids and probably the day care bus that you saw earlier has already gotten there and they will probably be down two employees and probably the meatball shipment didn't come in so they are probably already out of meatball subs and probably by the time you get there, the apocolypse will have started and Subway will be the first building to be swallowed up in The Abyss and you will be standing over the crater in the ground considering throwing yourself in after it because there will be no more meatballs subs in ALL OF AMERICA, nay, the ENTIRE world. The angel me interrupting and valiantly fighting back, 'Whit. Get a freaking grip. You are less than a half mile away. You are only 4 minutes past the usual time. They won't run out of meatball subs. Maybe it will be a slow day. All is well. You will be fine. You won't start ripping people's throats out, I promise. Deep breath.' And for ONCE in my life in a moment of high stress I actually listen to the latter. I take a deep breath. I know that light will turn green any second and I'll be at Subway soon enough and I will not die from watiting in line and I will get my meatball sub because it's seriously probably against the LAW for a Subway to run out of meatball subs. As I start to call upon my more mature self, take a deep breath and start inching my way forward, just a little into the intersection because I'm SO SURE the light is about to turn green.....I see it. IT is an army van with 12-15 men army men inside and it's passing by on the opposite highway, faster than it should be because it's afraid the light is about to turn red and the world all of a sudden goes into slow motion mode and as I see them laughing and cutting up in that army van as they speed through the intersection, my stomach begins to mutiny and my face begins to contort because deep down in my spirit I KNOW! Call it intuition, call it wild beast sixth sense, call it what you will, but I KNOW that those army guys are on their way to Subway. And for maybe the second time in my life, I am actually RIGHT. And it's go time. Light turns green and I whip my gold kia through that intersection and I have all of a sudden downloaded a race car driver program (like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix) and the Eye of the Tiger is playing in the background and I am catching up and it's only a 1/2 mile MAYBE but I am weaving in and out of traffic and inspiring a slew of angry words and ugly gestures and....there's the turn! Good thing there's no curb and good thing no one knows who's tire tracks through the soccer field next door those are and good thing the army van isn't small enough to fit in one of the economy parking spots in the front because I have BEAT THEM! I! HAVE! BEAT! THEM! And like a spent Olympic athlete about to recieve their first gold medal, I take a deep breath, smooth my hair and blouse and step up to the stage to hear the most lovely words; words that confirm what I have spent all this time working towards......'6 inch or footlong ma'am?'

NOTE: The author wants you to know that for her own health, sanity and so that legal action not be taken against her, she has fought tooth and nail to remedy her meatball addiction and has sadly, not been to Subway at all this week. She's taking it one day at a time by admitting her powerlessness over meatballs and her need for accountability.