What the f***?

It's one of those days. The kind of day everyone hates. I feel like what the f***? I mean, really, WHAT THE F***? Someone cuts me off in traffic, nearly causing a four car pile up, because she's using the cell phone in earnest, and I can say, what the f***? Disregarding my 3 year old daughter in the back seat and the fact that she's now repeating lots and lots of words that adults use. Usually she'll hear me cuss out a driver and go, "Shh, mommy." I think she knows I'm pissed off. So what I really want to say is, "What the f***?"

Then, at the store some Starbucks stimulated hippo in a muu-muu using her shopping car like a battering ram tries to run my daughter down like she was an errant growth of grass and the shopping cart was a lawn mower on crack. If I hadn't grabbed the kid, she would have been the first shopping cart fatality at Wal-Mart for the month. (God knows how many shopping cart fatalities they have there, but I'm quite sure that it's happened before. "Gee, Don, how did your wife die?" "It was a shopping cart, I'm suing Wal-Mart. Those rotten bastard shopping carts. Now I can't do any shopping without crying.")

Finally, I just noticed the date, and realized that not only have I NOT lost the 12 freaking pounds I was supposed to lose in three months, but that I have to make an appointment with my doctor and explain to him why I haven't done it. ("LACK of WILL POWER, Doc! Pass me the Twinkies and cover them with melted cheese, too!")

What the f***?

The Diet of Doom

Okay, I knew it was coming. The doctor's office calls and sez, "Your numbers on your blood tests are high." The culprits, cholesterol, blood sugar, and something about a nasty little liver enzymes. The little skinny twit (They only hire skinny twits at the doctor's office to call fat women so they can sound condescending.) sez I have to fast again. The apt's for 11:15 am, so she adds in a condescending manner, "Can you do that?" If I could reach through the phone and slap her little snide face I would have done it without hesitation. Alternate snide answer: "Well, gee, I don't know if I can go a whole 12 hours without food, I might just see a half-eaten Snickers bar on the receptionist's desk and flip out." But I didn't say that. I just muttered, "Yes, I can do that." But on the inside I was saying, "Yeah, you skinny, perky-titted, twinky. Go eat some M&M's."

Therefore, the much maligned apt is on Tuesday. I'm dreading it because because Doctors are diet Nazis who live to tell you that heart disease is going to get you like you were a skinny coed in a Friday the 13th movie. Bad heart disease. I have a mental vision of a gigantic blob pink fat with a machete in one blob like hand and a chainsaw in the other. Oh, well, then out pops a third hand with a drumstick from KFC. My kind of heart disease.

So I'm on yet another diet. The Oh-bummer-I'm-diabetic-would-you-look-at-that diet. If I had a dime for every diet I've been on, I'd probably eat them.

Universal Cosmic Rule for Weight Loss while sick

I believe that if a person gets sick then he or she should lose weight accordingly. For example, if one gets a cold, then one loses two pounds. If one gets the flu, then one loses five to eight pounds, depending on the level of diarrhea involved. If one has a sinus infection that lingers on for two weeks and then turns into freaking pneumonia that lasts another two weeks and life as one knows it grinds to a big, soppy, Kleenex filled, NyQuil swilling, hacking, coughing, choking blur of existence in which one has to visit the doctor three times and take four different prescriptions and one has to listen to her husband whine about non-appreciation while one is running a 102 degree fever, and then one loses all sense of taste and smell for the duration, then one should lose a minimum of TWENTY pounds. (One should also look into the definition of run on sentences, but what the hell?)

Hey, it's an acceptable trade-off. I sacrifice stuff-my fat sacrifices itself.

But did that happen? Of course, the gods of weight loss sneered at my sickness and said, "Four pounds, sucker." That's all. Then they added with a sardonic laugh, "And when you get better you'll gain it back overnight because we're feeling ironic."

That's irony. But I am feeling better.

Some of the things I appreciate about my husband

• He supports me when I’m sick.
• He always says, ‘I love you,’ several times a day.
• He asks how my day was.
• He says I’m not fat even though I am.
• He takes care of the baby even when I don’t ask.
• He knows when to get take out food because I’m tired.
• He’s never mean, or cruel, or vicious to me.
• He goes to get a Frosty when I ask.
• I enjoy his company even after twenty-four years together.

Confessions of a Fat Woman

Yes, I have eaten a whole bag of Lays Sour Cream and Onion chips. I have consumed Ben & Jerry's in quantity. I have not exercised enough. Or any at all. But I'm not a bad person. Back in my Army days I vividly recall being summoned for the formal chastisment about my weight by the battalion's commanding officer, a Lieutenant Colonel. However, the unfortunate soul who preceded me, doubtless due to her rank, was a captain. This was back in the eighties and the Army was kicking chubby people out left and right. Well, I was sitting, not doing jumping jacks, outside the LTC's office when the portly captain yelled these infamous words: "I'm NOT a criminal! I'm just FAT!"

Heck, I wish I'd had the balls to do that. Of course, that would require a sex change and talk about making things complicated in my life. Anyway, I liked what the captain had said so much I took it to heart. And believe me, being fat in the Army was exactly like being a criminal. I might as well have been stealing stuff left and right and robbing drug stores at night to make ends meet. I got lectured more about my weight than a group of drunken sailors back from shore leave. Of course, it was all my fault. I wasn't doing enough. I wasn't trying hard enough. I was a horrible, wretched person for being FAT.

Hah. If that's the worst thing a person can cop to, then they haven't done so badly.

I have a friend who recently lost 60 pounds due to her hiring a trainer, IE, a person who follows you around and torments/guilts you into exercise and weight loss. My friend says to me, I should hire a personal trainer, too.

I've got my own personal trainer. (See picture above. Ain't she cute?) She's three years old and won't let me out of her sight for more than two minutes at a time. Also she doesn't eat that much, although she has a definite dislike for vegetables. (Green things- yucky city, baby.)

So in conclusion, I AM NOT A CROOK! I'm just fat. But I try every day not to be.

The D-Word

The D-Word. Lord, how I hate the d-word. I should just go ahead and explain to the d-illiterate that the d-word is, in fact, diet. I hate a lot of things. Bad customer service, medical doctors, burnt coffee, and stinking, dirt-sucking, scuzbutton literary agents who say they're going to sell your book and you don't hear from them for a year. Mostly I hate the d-word. I wish I could say that I'm not obsessed with my weight. Except there's the little problem that I think about it on a daily basis, maybe an hourly basis while I'm awake. Mostly I'm concerned with my health. Oh, and I'd like to fit into those size fourteen blue jeans. And if I hear one more itty-bitty, perky-titted, twentysomething mommy at the park talk about her need to lose those last, irritating three pounds that are plaguing her like locusts in biblical Egypt, well, I think I'll finally succumb to my need to drop kick her 95 pounds into the sandbox. Then I'll explain it to my daughter after my husband bails me out of jail. I am certain, after all, that drop kicking a soccer mommy in size four jeans is probably illegal. I could hope for a fat judge.