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PAGE 8, AUGUST 25, 2008, THE ISLANDER
Dam Barry.
Weight until dark
By Dave Barry
I recently had a terrifying experi
ence. It was exactly like a scene from
a horror movie, when the actors find
themselves in a house that is obvi
ously possessed by Evil, with doors
slamming by themselves and blood
dripping from the ceiling, but the
actors are such morons that they stay
in the house anyway.
"With these older homes," they
tell each other, "you're going to have
a certain amount of ceiling blood."
And then of course something hor
rible happens to them, such as being
sucked down to Hell by the Demon
Toilet, and as the last of their body
parts disappears in a counterclock
wise direction, you, the movie viewer,
chew your popcorn and think, "They
deserved it."
That's what I used to think, too,
until I had this terrifying experience.
We were on vacation, staying in a
strange house. Night was falling. I
went down to the kitchen. It looked
like a normal kitchen, with normal,
harmless appliances, until suddenly
FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP
FWEEP the violins (this house had
a string section) were playing music
from the shower scene in "Psycho,"
and we saw the most horrifying sight
you can see in a kitchen:
A digital scale.
I don't know how it got there. No
sane human would put a scale in the
kitchen. Maybe it crawled there from
the bathroom, seeking the company
of other appliances. But whatever the
reason, there it was, and instead of
sprinting out of the house right then,
I foolishly stayed.
Every time I went into the kitchen,
I could feel the scale watching me.
Soon it was sending me messages via
scale telepathy.
"Before you eat a third 'low-fat'
blueberry muffin the size of Arnold
Schwarzenegger's head," it would say,
"Why don't you step on me? What's
the worst that can happen?"
I have not stepped on a scale in
years. We don't have a scale in our
home, because scientific studies have
shown that scales attract gravity, a
leading cause of falling down.
So for a week I ignored the scale.
But finally one afternoon, while enjoy
ing a light pre-meal meal, I decided,
what the heck, I'll just step on this
thing and
FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP
FWEEP
When I saw the number on the
scale, I was forced to face a shocking,
but unmistakable, fact: The scale
was defective. Through some kind
of digital error, it was giving me the
weight of a completely different per
son, apparently Shaquille O'Neal. Or
will not get you into shape. For that,
you need to take real action, which is
why I also purchased an issue of Men's
Fitness magazine. It's full of pictures
of men whose "abs" bulge out like
subcutaneous chipmunk platoons. It
also has articles on weight loss, quot
ing leading medical experts who all
agree that the ONLY proven way to
lose weight, and keep it off, is to eat
sensibly and exercise regularly.
Ha ha! Those wacky medical
experts! Always with their jokes! But
the magazine itself was delicious.
This classic DAVE BARRY col
umn was originally published Oct.
19, 2003. (C) 2008 The Miami Herald.
Dist. by Tribune Media Services. Dave
Barry is a humor columnist for the
Miami Herald. Write to him do Trop
ic Magazine, The Miami Herald, One
Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132) □
his car.
But eventually I came to accept
the truth: I am overweight. This is
not my fault. My body, without con
sulting me, has been converting the
food I eat into fat, as opposed to
something I can actually use, such as
toothpaste.
The problem with human bodies
is that they're based on a design that
is eons old. Our bodies believe that
any day now, we'll have another Ice
Age, and there won't be any more
food, so they need to store up lots of
fat. So while our brains are in the
21st Century, wanting desperately to
lose weight, forcing us to eat salads
and engage in bizarre cult activities
such as "Pilates," our bodies are back
in 12,000 B.C., thinking: "I made 6
more ounces of fat today! Bring on
the glaciers!"
It would be great if we could
explain to our bodies that times have
changed, and they no longer need to
make so much fat. Recently, medical
researchers tried to accomplish this
by having a group of overweight peo
ple eat calendars clearly indicating
that the current year is 2003. Their
bodies turned these into fat.
So I have accepted that, if I want to
lose weight, I'll have to bite the bullet
(the bullet is fat-free) and take action.
I've already begun a rigorous regimen
of watching TV infomercials in which
models with perfect bodies work out
using comically cheeseball exercise
contraptions that Fold for Easy Stor
age and clearly have nothing to do
with how the models look.
But merely watching infomercials
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