Today, my Mr. SCV column is about weight. I may have too much of it, which may be OK because Halloween is right around the corner and I could tell those interested I’m a Sasquatch with alopecia.
When I was 0.00000001% of my current 220 pounds, I don’t think I was worried about gaining weight. My memory isn’t what it used to be, but, when I was a zygote, traveling about in the most primitive and undignified fashion of sloshing around in someone’s womb, I doubt I fixated on, “… cripes. I simply HAVE TO get up to 1 pound …”
Back then, I wasn’t so hard on myself.
I would have killed to weigh 220 back in high school, instead of being my then POW 125. This was before there were all those magazine ads showing me as a starving and shoeless East European orphan whose lips preceded him by a quarter of an hour. Forever underneath my tattered doily of a Taliban unisuit was the sign:
Won’t You Do
Something To Help?
If I were me today, looking at myself in that ad, I’d quip: “Sure. I’ll help by not sending my hard-earned money to some Democratic Party/Commie/NGO scam. Get a job. Buy a cheeseburger.”
Cheeseburgers. Damn them.
Heartless sirens. Cheeseburgers make us buy them. In my case, it’s a black Labrador retriever, whom I guessing is actually Satan, whispering, “John … John … John … buy cheeseburgers and eat them, and don’t forget the fries, the 512-ounce Coke, 64 packets of hot honey mustard nacho cheese sauce, and a malted, all washed down with cheesecake.”
Yum, Satan.
I’m due for new Levis. I’m not, thank you, going up a size, although, it’s embarrassing making the daily 911 call asking the next ranch over if they can send over the boys with that barbed wire stretching tool so the bunch of us can button the top button on my cowboy Wranglers.
“John. I don’t think we can stretch those pants together any tighter. Your eyes are crossing, it looks like you’re about to pass out and your face turns magenta. Besides. If that top rivet goes, we run the risk of taking out a cargo plane filled with U.N. nurses over Central Africa.”
Despite the feed lot hats, I give my neighbors some slack. They’re newcomers to the Life Agrarian and use the word, “magenta” when “red” would simply do.
I weigh 220, which would be just ducky on life insurance height/weight longevity charts if I were 18-foot-6. I should weigh 180. I’m 40 pounds overweight. That’s, like, three cheeseburgers at Fatburger.
Two, if they’re soy.
If I weighed 220 in high school, with my then washboard stomach and 27-inch waist, I’d be a terrible demigod. I’d have a 70-inch chest and 30-inch arms and look like a Marvel Comics villain. Like Iran, I could’ve charged all the male students and faculty a toll just to walk the hallowed halls of Hart High, forever home of The Mighty Indians and not The Fruit Bats or whatever their current woke mascot is today. I could charge the football team two tolls just to use the rest rooms.
Dear Mr. SCV:
Have you considered just having your fat head surgically removed? You could lose 218 pounds.
Sincerely,
Santa Clarita City Council
Thanks for the tip, guys. I did the math. At 220 pounds, if I lost 40 pounds, that’s 18.18% of my entire being. That’s nearly 20%. That’s like Earth losing Europe and Australia.
Mate.
If I lost almost 20% of my volume, would that effect my IQ and I’d stumble about with a drool cup and mixing metaphors like a village idiot? Or, even more like a village idiot?
Losing mass, would I be 20% less fetching. If less fetching, would I be confused as a generic bureaucrat currently seeking election to our many noble and local school boards?
Would I still be jolly? In the spirit of honest self-inventory, I’m not what you call jolly right now at 220. I’m more — what would you call it — menacing. I think I’d have to hit 350 to be jolly. Maybe grow a white beard, wear a red suit and red toque with a little white ball atop. Be nice to kids. Eat cookies left for me by the fireplace. Somehow, know stuff about reindeer.
I wouldn’t want to weigh 660 pounds, or, thrice my current tonnage. You’re starting to sneak up on Morbidly Obese/Fattest Guy To Ever Live South Of Pecos territory. I googled, “pants for a 660-pound guy.” Google kindly replied:
“John. For a 660-pound man, styles like relaxed fit or wide-leg slacks are recommended as they provide more room and comfort. It’s important to choose pants made from stretchy or breathable non-diabetic fabrics to ensure ease of movement and comfort. Fatty.”
Down side? At 660, I’d probably do serious damage on the elliptical bike at the gym, if, in fact, I could fit through the door to get to the elliptical bike at the gym. Bright side? I could eat while I worked out.
With both hands.
Alas, 75 years hence, I’ll be approaching retirement age. I gotta start thinking of not so much MY health, but the health of others. What if I were to fall on somebody?
On the pudgy other hand, falling on somebody is a great way to meet people, especially hubba-hubba recently divorced Swedish stewardesses with low self-esteem who giggle and say, “Yaw, shure,” to all manner of suggestions, or, country heartthrob singer, Ella Langley, were Miss Ella nearsighted and/or a chubby chaser.
And so, in conclusion, that’s my Mr. SCV column for today.
Do pick up “Naked Came the Novelist,” John Boston’s sequel to the international bestseller, “Naked Came the Sasquatch,” at JohnBoston-Books.com. A lifelong SCV resident with 119 major writing awards and nearly 12,000 columns, Boston is Earth history’s most prolific humorist and satirist.
