Live Blogging My Detox Diet a.k.a Bataan Death March

The Bataan Death March (also known as The Death March of Bataan) took place in the Philippines in 1942 and was later accounted as a Japanese war crime. The 60-mile (97 km) march occurred after the three-month Battle of Bataan, part of the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), during World War II. In Japanese, it is known as Batān Shi no Kōshin (バターン死の行進?), with the same meaning.

The march, involving the forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Philippines from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps, was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. Beheadings, cutting of throats and casual shootings were the more common actions—compared to instances of bayonet stabbing, rape, disembowelment, rifle butt beating and a deliberate refusal to allow the prisoners food or water while keeping them continually marching for nearly a week in tropical heat. Falling down or inability to continue moving was tantamount to a death sentence, as was any degree of protest.

Those guys had it easy! For true hell come join me on my detox diet as once again I'm at the mercy of heretical lunatics forcing their religion down my throat - literally. But I say piss on you bastards who say 7-11 doesn't provide the five major food groups, to wit:

Corn Dog


Fritos


Apple Fruit Pie


Oreos


Cherry Slurpee

If those pictures don't scream out "Nutrition!" to you then you must be some sort of fanatic. As if the goddam capitalists aren't bad enough, I'm also forced to live with the maniacal Spanish Health Inquisition. That way, after my long hard day of forced menial labor I can have nothing to look forward to but a celery stalk and baby carrots. Not to mention daily doses of powered vomit alleged to help clean me out.

You know the difference between a smoothie and a turd? Neither do I - I just know I don't want either one in my mouth.

To a health store I was taken, a place not even holding out the hope of a quick, merciful death:

Your local health
care professional

In the darkest pits of Mordor I lay abandoned, lightless and forgotten. Scanning the landscape, my hole just another black crevice in cragged ground untended by neither Man nor smelly Orc. I could think of escape but there's no place to escape to, the sun hiding for all eternity.

What curse of nature is this? Only by happenstance does any creature pass this way. And when chance does come, the creature is both murderous and foul, free to roam unmasked in this most unrepentant of lands. Oh, hell! I hear footsteps of agony approach! The Orc sees me and hisses in delight at my victimhood. Reaching a hairy hand into its soiled, oily sack, it brings out an aged pill of fuzzy mold and dread rot. "Take this!" it fairly giggles, "It will help you live longer!" Then I hear its over-large feet stomping away, gleeful at having extended my torment of living.


I'm even denied the most basic of human needs and rights: bread! Upon hearing this I quite rightly pointed out for centuries all of Europe used bread as a staple and even had revolutions over it! To which she pointed out compensatory items in their diet and other inconvenient facts I refused to accede. I stood my ground: "I'll deny all truth and turn Republican before I give up my bread!"

Now I have something in common with an
18th century French peasant: no fricking bread

Like a condemned man forced to make his own rope, I too was made to fabricate and fund my own demise, purchasing all sorts of left-wing, touchy-feely fruits and vegetables no beer-drinking, BBQ-loving Texan would be caught dead with on his plate. Watching the girl pass each embarrassing item over the scanner ("Oh jeesh, don't stop to look up the bar code for the fruit!"), I imagined all sorts of smart remarks she would pose to me afterwards: "Would you like a Barry Manilow CD with this or are you just going to chant?"

Luckily, she remained quiet and I avoided a manslaughter charge.

But when I started noticing hot flashes and cold sweats the next day, I returned with a vengeance! "This gay diet you put me on has given me PMS!"

"Oh, you already had PMS!"

"If I turn gay I'm coming back and fucking your boyfriend!"

That actually annoyed her. "Oh, shut up!"

"No, you shut down!"

At that point, I high-fived myself, waiting weeks for someone to tell me to shut up so I could tell them to "shut down". But like all glory, it was fleeting - especially when I realized I could celebrate my victory with nothing but grape juice and organic walnuts.


...Three days in and the end is nowhere in sight. Staring at the top of my cardboard abode, I ponder the meaning of life: there is none. It's shit and more shit until you die. The universe spins around me in quiet discontent.