Freedman’s Waffle House Challenge

I thought about giving this article a more SEO-friendly title. Something like, “5 Key Takeaways from My Waffle House Challenge.”

But the word “postmortem” feels too appropriate not to include in the title.

As I type this sentence, at 10 a.m. CT, the morning after my 15-hour, 10-waffle Waffle House challenge, I have these five thoughts.

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No. 1: You can still donate to Cook Children’s Medical Center

I completed the Waffle House Challenge to raise money for Cook Children’s Medical Center, a not-for-profit pediatric hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.

While the challenge is over — although my body would argue that the challenge is still very much in process — you can still donate to Cook Children’s, and I encourage you to do so.

I grew up in the Fort Worth area, so I know exactly what Cook Children’s means to the local community.

When I was young, kids would always be taken to Cook if they had a serious medical situation. In fact, that’s how all of us kids (and also our parents) could instantly judge the severity of the situation: If they went to a regular hospital, it probably wasn’t that big of a deal — but if they went to Cook Children’s, you knew whatever they were dealing with wasn’t a typical kind of calamity.

To put it bluntly: If you were a kid and you heard that a friend was taken to Cook Children’s, you knew right away you might not see your friend again.

But you also knew something else: Your friend would probably end up alright and return home none the worse for the wear — because the people at Cook Children’s are miracle workers.

As a kid, whenever I heard that a friend had been taken to Cook Children’s, there was always fear, but there was also hope — and the hope would prevail.

That’s what Cook Children’s means to the Fort Worth area: It’s the sign of hope for children and families in extreme circumstances.

If you can, please donate.

No. 2: My body wasn’t built to handle 10 waffles in 15 hours

I don’t want to go into too much detail about what I’ve experienced over the past 12 hours …

… but you get the idea.

I’ve been better.

I imagine that at some point in the next week I’ll be able to consume solid food.

A few years ago, shortly after Jonathan Bales did the 6-12-18-24 challenge, which entailed him eating a lot of donuts and drinking a lot of beer (on top of other feats), he gave me an all-too-graphic description of the challenge’s bodily aftermath.

And what he described to me … is not unlike what I experienced last night.

Ugh.

My original plan called for seven waffles in 17 hours.

I believe the strategy of the plan was sound:

Plan to be at Waffle House for a long, long time.
Put myself in an enjoyment-fulfilling mindset.
Prepare my body by fasting the day before and getting plenty of sleep.

I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted, and I don’t know if fasting the day before made a difference one way or the other. In retrospect, maybe it would have been good to go into Waffle House with at least a little bit of something in my stomach. Not sure.

But even with all I’ve experienced since leaving Waffle House last night, I still believe my strategy was sound — because I know how I felt after eating Waffle No. 7.

After finishing that waffle, I was well ahead of the pace that I’d set for myself, and if I had simply stopped eating and decided to run out the clock, I think I would have had a much different experience last night.

I really believe it was Waffles Nos. 8-10 that did me in, especially since I consumed them all within an hour and a half. Waffle No. 10 I really didn’t need to eat, as I was 30 minutes away from finishing the challenge with nine waffles.

Why did I have these extra waffles, especially Waffle No. 10? People wanted to see me eat waffles, some people had pledged donations based on the amount of waffles consumed, and perhaps the numbers-chasing, vanity-indulging part of my brain wanted to hit double digits — because “10 waffles” sounds so much better than “nine waffles,” right?

Anyway, I’ve learned the hard way that my body wasn’t built to handle 10 waffles in 15 hours (more on that next) — but I do believe my initial strategy of seven waffles in 17 hours would have been optimal for me.

For people who need to do the Waffle House challenge, I’d suggest a similar approach.

No. 3: I want to get in better shape

If I had been in better shape, maybe my body would have been able to handle 10 waffles in 15 hours.

When the pandemic hit last March, I thought to myself, “OK, just assume that at some point you’re going to get this virus, and when that happens you want to be as physically fit as possible so you can hopefully fight it off.”

So I stopped drinking alcohol, I ate less, and I exercised way more. I spent more time outdoors breathing in the air and getting sun on long walks, and I got more sleep.

Over the course of about a year, I gradually lost 35 pounds.

But this spring and summer, I started relaxing — drinking more, eating more, and exercising way, way less.

And then Tuesday I ate 10 waffles.

Of the 35 pounds I lost, I’ve gained 20 back.

Clearly, no matter how much I weigh or what my body looks like, I’ve assured my wife that I will always remain attractive in her eyes — but right now I’m not thrilled with what I see in the mirror, and the fault is entirely mine.

So starting today — yes, today — I’m going back to my early-pandemic ways.

No alcohol
Less food
More exercise
More sleep

Pandemic or not — and, sadly, it seems like the coronavirus is not through with us — I want to be as healthy as possible so that I can impose my terrible sports takes on my fellow humans as long as possible.

I’m not a father, but today I’m going to start to get back the best possible version of my dad bod.

No. 4: People are remarkable

The phrase “people watching” has always sat not quite right with me.

I don’t think it’s horribly offensive, but it just feels a little off, as if you’re looking at people as if they’re objects instead of humans with thoughts and feelings.

So I won’t say that there was great “people watching” at Waffle House. But there was ample “people appreciating.” And I mean that sincerely.

I grew up in Burleson. I know what the people in this town are like. They way they talk, what they think, and how they act.

The Waffle House where I just spent 15 hours — that was the first Waffle House I ever went to when I was just a boy of 10 or 11 years.

Entering the challenge, I had a very good sense of the kind of people I would see in that building.

And they did not disappoint — in the best of ways.

They were remarkable. In that Waffle House, I saw people dressed in the colors of life. People Mark Twain would have been happy to weave into his stories. People who had lived hard and earnestly. People who had won and lost and kept on going.

Patrons and employees alike, they were people simply trying to make their way through the world to the best of their abilities with integrity and kindness. They were people of the everyday.

One guy sitting at the counter — a guy who might’ve been as old as 80 — said this to the other guys at the counter and everyone else within earshot (and this is an actual quotation): “I’ve been married six times. Six! Can you believe it?! I’ve had about 13 or 14 kids: Three of them have died. And I don’t even know how many grandkids I have.” Imagine that life and all the stories that must accompany it.

If that guy wrote a book, I would read it multiple times.

One of the servers who brought me waffles has been a lifelong waitress. Her daughters are in the restaurant business. So are many of her grandkids. She has three great-grandchildren.

There was something about her face that just struck me. It was the face of a woman from another generation. The kind of face that makes you say, “They don’t make people like that anymore.”

The Waffle House jukebox takes only cash, and I didn’t have any cash on me — so she gave me two dollars to use. I told her I would reimburse her on the tip with my credit card (and I did), but she told me several times that it wasn’t necessary.

I’m not really sure if I believe in God and heaven and hell and all that, but if there is a heaven and that woman doesn’t eventually find her way there, then heaven won’t be the place for me: They wouldn’t have me, and I wouldn’t want to be there.

Wherever that woman spends the afterlife is where I want to be.

Perhaps I’m a cynic, but I imagine it would be all too easy for a lot of people to look at the assortment of humanity I saw yesterday and think, “I would never want to spend an entire day around these people.”

But I think if most people in the world spent a day in the Burleson Waffle House, they would exit it with a slightly different — and hopefully fuller and more optimistic — view of humanity than the one they held entering it.

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No. 5: I miss the days when people could talk to each other and treat each other like people

At Waffle House, I was particularly struck by some of the conversation I overheard from the guys at the counter.

Yes, some of the time the guys were talking about Johnny Cash and Bugs Bunny and motorcycles and women — though usually not all at once — but at one point the conversation took a political turn, and I was impressed with how well that discussion was navigated.

Most of the guys were veterans of the armed services, but they represented a variety of backgrounds as far as age and race go, and they weren’t all politically aligned. Some leaned left, some leaned right, and some were downright agnostic.

In this political conversation, they didn’t interrupt each other, they didn’t shout at each other, they didn’t question each other’s patriotism, and they didn’t antagonize each other. They just sat there drinking their coffee and voicing their opinions in their slowly winding Southern drawls.

And when they each had said what they had to say on the topic, they went back to talking about Johnny Cash and Bugs Bunny and motorcycles and women. And then eventually they left one by one, shaking hands as they parted.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like it. I certainly haven’t seen anything like it over the past 10 years or so.

Witnessing that conversation inspired but also saddened me. It brought home to me how much I miss the days when acquaintances could converse with each other amicably while disagreeing respectfully.

That’s something our country has sorely missed and desperately needs.

I miss the days when people talked to and treated each other like people.

Maybe those days are coming back.