When I was playing varsity soccer during my freshman year of college I weighed in a svelte 197 lbs. I woke up every day at 7:00am to practice. Some days, because my team was full of drug addicts, I would be the only one to show up.
It would be me and the coach, running laps, doing sprints, taking shots, jumping over cones. Whatever it took to get in perfect playing shape for a meaningless soccer game.
I worked out everyday so when I took my shirt off, you could see what are the outlines of muscles in my abdomen region.
Those were good times.
Since then I've been in the habit of what an anthropologist would call "eating". I've done it a lot. I'm an incredibly prolific "eater".
In that time, I've put on about twenty-five pounds of pure, animal wisdom. I don't wake up in the morning to exercise--I pass out at night from drinking.
I like my belly. I like rubbing it. I like having it. I like having other people rub it. I like telling, well, girls mostly, that it's full of wisdom and knowledge. I like everything about it.
Actually, these are good times too.
But the fun ended on Christmas Day when I opened up my presents to find a pair of black dress pants I had wanted. As if Santa Clause had my medical chart, he even had them in the right size: 34/34.
I held them up and they looked great, but my sister insisted I trythem on.
"Why? They're my size," I replied.
"Just try them on."
"I'm not a girl. I don't need to try them on. I'm a 34, these are my size."
"Just try them on."
"Men know what clothes fit them, because we know our size."
"Oh...my...god...just try them on."
So I did. Or rather, I tried to. I got them mostly up my legs, but when I tried to close them around my waist, all the sucking it in I had to offer was no match.
If this was the Battle of the Bulge, I was Nazi Germany, getting pummeled by superior allied air power, and I was in a lot of trouble.
But dammit, 34 is my size, and will always be my size, through heaven and hell, 'til death do us part!
So how does a man keep his waist size? Not by going on a diet, since diets are for girls.
Rather, by going on a regimen. I see a lot of regimens advertised on TV, but essentially there is only one formula for successful reduction of waist size.
Step 1: Stuff less food into your face, you fat sack of crap.
Step 2: Get up off your lazy, fat ass once in awhile.
Step 3: Acquire endorsement deal from national sandwich making franchise.
As per Step 1 of my regimen, I'm laying off the sweets. That's why when I was at a family get together and they rolled out the dessert, I only took a single brownie.
Of that brownie, I teared off a piece.
I didn't want to eat the whole thing, so I handed the rest to my cousin, Mia, who is like three years-old and can't form complete sentences, and I told her: "Here, hang onto this for me."
Mia stared back at me blankly, which I interpreted as: "Sure. No problem."
I leave and come back a couple of minutes later and take another piece from the brownie. Mia sees this so she takes a piece herself and abjectly stuffs it in her mouth which is part of the deal.
She's happy. I'm happy. Everyone's happy.
I leave.
A couple of minutes later, I come back, and now Mia isn't holding the brownie, she's put it on a little yellow plate, right next to her cake and her ice cream. I come over and take a piece of the brownie.
Her mom is not happy about this: "What the hell are you doing?"
"What?" I have no idea what she's talking about.
"Don't take food off of my daughter's plate."
"But that's my brownie."
"No, it's on my daughter's plate. That's her brownie."
"We're sharing it."
My cousin has repeated 'my daughter's plate' twice now, so I've gone from full owndership of the brownie to a fifty percent stake. Technically, since I've eaten most of the brownie so far, I probably only have a thirty percent share left.
"Get your own," she yells at me.
"I don't want to get my own. I want to have a little bit left of that one. What's the problem, we're sharing. Right Mia?"
I ask this as Mia stares at me blankly. She doesn't even smile.
"Not anymore. It's on my daughter's plate."
This is the third time I've heard that phrase which didn't make sense the first time. Are you saying that a plate has magical properties? Once you put something on your plate you assume ownership of it, regardless of who it originally belonged to.
Could my cousin walk into a bank, put money on her daughter's plate, and walk out with it?
If security tried to stop her, would she say: "But it's on my daughter's plate."
We were sharing a brownie. Why, once she puts it on her plate, does it become her brownie?
Moreover, shouldn't her mother be teaching her to share?
I don't get it, I'm not, after all, a mother. And I share this here in part, because I'd like someone to explain it to me. So if you have any insight of what magical properties 'my daughter's plate' possesses, please let me know. |
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