Mondays are the New Torquemada

Even though I don't need to and I am in such an enlightened and positive position regarding my body image, every Monday morning I get on my bathroom scale for a weekly "weigh-in". Having reasoned that any daily fluctuations in weight that might occur as a result of unusual digestion or egestion would be "ironed out" over the course of the week, I long ago gave up dancing on the Devil-made scale and opted to only count the reading that I saw each Monday morning. Further attempting accuracy, I became ritualistic in my method: Get out of bed, relieve self of excess overnight "water", skip teeth brushing to avoid retaining extra moisture in dry mouth, strip naked, step on scale, exhale until nearly unconscious from lack of oxygen, look at new weight, cry/cheer depending on results.

Again, I do this out of a sense of duty to others, not because I am one pink snout away from being hunted for bacon and served with scrambled eggs and a side of hashed browns.

Just a moment, that last sentence made my mouth water and I need a tissue.

Okay, where was I?

Ah yes, the rituals associated with being fat. That's where I was going.

I was musing on this subject yesterday while I negotiated with my mother over when to see a movie we had planned the prior weekend. We had one choice of time, the 2:25 showing, but two choices of when to eat, before or after the movie. This is where the ritual came in: we both decided that eating before the film would exclude the possibility of taking home leftovers and limit our ability to eat a large tub of popcorn. And since we all know it is REQUIRED that any trip to the theater include salty, yummy, buttered popcorn, we just HAD to eat after.

You see, food dictated the course of our lives, and our lives had become habitual with regards to food. We HAD to have popcorn with a movie; we had to therefor eat after.

My mother tried a weak protest and claimed that this time we would eat first, eat light without need for taking home leftovers, and happily get a small popcorn if we simply could not enjoy the movie without. "Mother," I snapped in response with a roll of my eyes, "If you think we can overcome a collective 80 years of behavior in one afternoon, let me know so I can alert the media that the First Sign of the Apocalypse has appeared."

Luckily for me my mother has the patience of a saint and didn't slap me stupid. But I digress.

Skinny people don't plan activities around food. They eat when they they are hungry, which must be all the damn time, and then they don't think about it until they get hungry again (which has to be minutes later given what small portion sizes they eat). Why do fat people like the rest of you plot your whole lives around food?

Well I don't know, but since Fat Cat is into that "reading" stuff and seems to know some fancy science equations like Ass=Fat*Cheeks(squared) then perhaps she can enlighten us... figuratively speaking of course.

Pigassus

P.S. I should note that all men of any shape or size take any occasion to strip naked so I can't really blame that part on the "rituals of fat people". Sometimes when people ask me the time on the street I remove my pants before answering just on the off chance they really meant to say, "Remove your pants and the time, sir?"

P.S. 2 When did movie popcorn containers become the size of water towers? I swear today at the concession stand we had to ask for a wheel to be attached to the bottom of our popcorn so we could get it into the theater. Also, for anyone wondering where our energy shortage is coming from, please see the three gallons of crude they dumped on our otherwise fluffy snack. I was so upset at all the grease I almost didn't eat the last few kernels. Almost.