Bill White Tried to Poison Me!

I've already bragged 47 times about receiving this year's Keystone Press award for Investigative Journalism in the smallest category of newspapers. The Bethlehem Press, at which I freelance, actually received 21 awards this year, and won what is called the sweepstakes in their division for the third year in a row.

My conclusion is that I probably inspire a lot of people.

On Saturday night, we were all in Harrisburg for the awards ceremony.

Each sweepstakes winner played a video about the winning newspaper. The video for The Beaver Times was hilarious, but is probably under lock and key.

I saw The Morning Call's Bill White while I was there. He won an award, too, for his columns.

"They'll let anybody in here," I wisecracked.

He threatened to object to me getting an award for anything, but found a more devilish way to get me.

As only a few of you know, I have developed a severe dairy allergy, as in I go into anaphylactic shock if I eat anything with butter, milk or cheese. This was noted on my meal card. But when I took a bite out of my salad, I immediately noticed it was laced with cheese and spit it out.

The rest of the night, I kept feeling itches, but they were either psychosomatic or fleas. I was OK.

I went back with the salad and the servers told me it was my own damn fault because I should have seen the cheese surprise, and they were sure they had placed a cheese free salad at my table. While I was trying to con them into a free meal (I failed), I swear I saw White laughing at me.