The other day one of my co-workers said to me "wow, that shirt shrunk or you got bigger." The next day as soon as I got in she said, "that shirt shrunk too."

The day after that I announced to the clinic, "I don't know what happened, but it seems as if all my shirts suddenly shrunk." I then decided that I should watch what I was eating and cut down on all the bad stuff that tastes so good.


Knowing that I was trying to eat better, by that I mean more healthy, by that I mean not so much pizza, Doritos and Dr. Pepper - my mom called me and asked if I wanted to go out to lunch with her. I agreed. "We can go to Sweet Tomatoes" She said.

"Sweet Tomatoes" I asked, "I've never heard of that. What kind of food do they have there."

"It's like a big salad buffet."

Ok, now since I've lived in Vegas for so many years I have had my share of buffets, some good and some not so good, but I've never heard of a salad buffet. I wondered if they had tubs of Romaine Lettuce, Watercress, and any other lettuce you can think of. Something about salad buffet just did not seem right to me. I arrived at the restaurant expecting to see a lot of skinny people eating weeds, seeds, and other stuff that sprouts up between the cracks in the sidewalk that runs along the front of my house, but I was surprised. When I arrived there were all sorts of people, (meaning not just skinny people) walking through the buffet piling their plates with other stuff rather than just lettuce, so that was a good sign. They had pea salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, three bean salad, etc. It wasn’t the buffets I've grown accustomed to eating but I thought I could survive this. I mean, it's not going to kill me to eat a salad every once in a while.

I watched as a little boy who looked to be about ten years old and his mom walked ahead of us. Something about the little boy reminded me of myself at that age. He didn't look too happy to be there either. As I said, something about a salad buffet just doesn't seem right especially when there's a Tony Roma's that shares the parking lot with the salad building. Now, Tony Romas is the place to eat. I almost hate to admit this but I eat there so often that they know me by name and they know what I'm going to order even before I order it - it's always the baby rack ribs with a baked potato and a corn on the cob - now that's a meal. I looked, but didn't see any baby back ribs anywhere in the Sweet Tomato buffet line.

As we were walking putting semi-healthy stuff on our plates a lady who was about six to seven people ahead of started coughing. It wasn't a normal cough. It was one of those, "I think I'm dying because I'm choking on salad" cough. The man who was with her started to panic. He started to hit her on the back and yelled for someone to call an ambulance. The employees just stood there, not able to move. They just watched as the lady choked. I've always said that I'm best when I'm under pressure but by that I mean deadlines and chaos around me while I do my thing. I'd like to write that I saved the lady and everything was good in the world, but the truth is that I'm not good with being the hero and saving people when they're in need. My mom on the other hand is good with helping people and she always seems to be at the right place at the right time. She rushed over to the lady and with incredible strength grabbed the lady from behind and squeezed the lady forcing some sort of healthy food to came flying out of her mouth. I think it was probably a piece of baked tofu or chunk of macaroni - I didn't really look too closely at it because it was pretty gross, and just like that, the lady was okay. My mom then came back to where I was and put a spoonful of some sort of pasta salad on her plate and continued down the line as if saving choking people was something she did everyday.

The manager brought the choking lady a glass of water and helped her to a booth where she sat as her breathing slowly returned to normal. Everyone else in the line continued to walk through the line as if nothing had happened, the only thing that was out of the ordinary was that people were stepping over the piece of baked tofu or whatever it was that had flown out of the lady's throat. As we continued through the line I overhead the little boy look up at his mom and say something along the lines of, "You see, I told you salads were bad for you."

I couldn't agree more.