“What time will they be here?” I ask.
“Not ’til Monday morning.”
“But today is Friday.” The HVAC guys red-tagged the furnace and water heater and cut the gas to both, so until the chimney is swept, getting warm or washed in our house is not an option.
“Still wearing your days-of-the-week underpants, I see,” he dryly replies.
“No.” Yes. “What’s our game plan, then?” I drop my fork and have to scramble for it before the dogs get there first. Ha! Victory! I wipe it on a napkin and continue eating.
“Our landlord said she’d pay for us to take the dogs and go to a hotel.”
“What about the cats?”
“Two dogs and four cats in a hotel room sounds far worse than no heat or hot water. The cats can stay here. It won’t go below about sixty degrees with the way this place is insulated, so they’ll have to deal with being a little chilly. That’s why they have fur.”
“They’ll mutiny!” I love our cats, but I got them in college, so they’re all between twelve and fourteen years old, and now it’s like living with a group of loud, pushy, cranky senior citizens who take extraordinary pleasure in vomiting in your shoes. The dogs won’t even walk past them in the hallway, they’re so scary. “Sounds like we’re not in any danger with the furnace and hot-water heater turned off, right?”
“Correct.”
I consider our options for a moment. “Let’s just stay here.”
“You wouldn’t rather go to a hotel?”
“Nah. We’ll be all right.”
Fletch narrows his eyes at me. I am never amenable, especially when it comes to being physically uncomfortable. He strictly adheres to my HHT credo, meaning I can’t be held responsible for my actions should I ever get Hot, Hungry, or Tired. (Special dispensation is made for instances that are humid, cold, and boring, too, e.g., any outdoor sporting event.) “What’s your angle?”
“No angle. We survived with our utilities being shut off when we were unemployed and broke; this is no big deal. Also, I don’t want the hassle of packing up and heading to a hotel.”
Okay, that’s kind of a lie. Truth is, we just dumped our satellite service and switched to cable with on-demand. There’s a whole season of Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Duel cached in the player’s memory.41Although neither Miz nor Coral is participating in this challenge, big Beth from The Real World’s second season in Los Angeles is. Beth’s almost as evil as Tonya and her Kidney Stones of Doom from The Real World Chicago cast, which means someone’s getting bitch slapped, and I can’t miss it. Of course, if I had my druthers, I’d cast Puck from San Francisco because he’s always stirring shit up, Cyrus and Montana from Boston for their snarky commentary, Mormon Julie from New Orleans for the hate factor, and the oh-so-oily Veronica because she makes out with everyone and every—
Ahem.
He shrugs. “As long as you’re fine with it, we can stay. I guess we’ll shower at the gym.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I reply. We joined West Loop a couple of years ago specifically so we could bathe after losing gas service. We took advantage of their free trial offer but ended up liking the place so much that we decided to join. After paying our gas bill, we funded our membership by listing a couple of things on Craigslist, including an exercise bike. The bike sold the very first day, largely due to the ad I posted:
TWO FAT PEOPLE ADMIT DEFEAT
Two fat people are looking to dump their Excel 395 Recumbent Magnetic Exercise Bike for $100 OBO.
Although we don’t know from a lot of firsthand experience, this terrific bike comes with:
• Adjustable seat (extralarge to accommodate even the biggest caboose)
• Adjustable tension (which apparently would have been an excellent cardiovascular workout, had we ever gotten past the second level)
• Computerized speed, distance, odometer, timer, and calorie display
• Less than 250 miles on the odometer
• Cup holder (and, really, isn’t everything better with a cup holder?)
Don’t need an exercise bike? No problem!
The Excel 395 also makes a great clothes-drying rack.
Please buy our bike and get it out of our house so it’s no longer a daily reminder of how we failed in our quest for fitness. Also? We’re tired of dusting it. Thanks!
P.S. It will fit in an SUV, but we can also deliver it for an additional fee, although do you really want two sweaty fat people having simultaneous heart attacks in your stairwell?
P.P.S. Naturally, we’ll need cash because we’ll probably use the money for pie.
I continue, “Now there’s no way I’ll skip my workout if I have to go there to wash my hair anyway. Problem solved. Except . . .” I trail off.
“Now what?
“I won’t be home on Monday.”
“I will, so I can let the chimney sweeps in.”
“I kind of wanted to see them.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
Fletch looks puzzled for a minute, and then chokes back a laugh. “You think Dick Van Dyke and a band of sooty Cockneys are going to sing and dance in the basement, don’t you?”
“No.” Maybe.
As Fletch wanders off to the kitchen for more coffee, he calls, “Oh, I forgot to mention it—the HVAC guys said the trapped gas was making us sick. They said once it’s vented, we’ll have a lot fewer headaches and far less lethargy, and we’ll feel much better because of the improved air quality.” He heads into his office at the back of the house, and I can hear him turn on the space heater before closing the door.
I chew on this information for a moment. This is great news! (Except for the us-almost-dying-from-toxic-gas part.) The leak means all the lying around I’ve done lately is technically not my fault. My problem hasn’t been lethargy; it’s been chemistry! Nuts to you, you vicious inner critic! Now you can go back to helping me mock others! No wonder I didn’t pop out of bed, don spandex, and head to the gym for a prebreakfast workout like I’d pledged to do every night this week when I went to sleep. How was I supposed to take the dogs on their power walk when my system was being compromised by noxious fumes? And my body was slowly being poisoned, no wonder it craved Snickers bars and not salads!
But, I wonder, how do I explain all the years of lazy prior to our gas leak?
TO: stacey_at_work
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Next Week?
Sorry to have missed you last night—let’s plan a time to get together when you’re back in town. Except for thinking up reasons I’m allowed to skip the gym, my schedule is almost totally empty. (Today’s reason is because I have a cold. Yesterday’s was the dogs seemed sad. Tomorrow I can probably milk the cold angle again, with the one-two punch of also being mad at my mother.)
See you soon?
Jen
TO: [email protected]
FROM: stacey_at_work
SUBJECT: Re: Next Week?
Some excuses I use to avoid the gym that you are welcome to borrow:
1. Mercury is in retrograde. As is my ass.
2. My pedicure color clashes with my only clean workout outfit.
3. My inner child thinks walking on a treadmill is stupid and boring and only doo-doo heads do it.
4. My iPod needs to charge.
5. There is a marathon of I Love the 80s on VH1, and I miss A-Ha so much.
6. I have a tapeworm on backorder.
7. It’s raining.
8. It’s snowing.
9. It’s sunny.
10. It’s mild with a 42 percent chance of precipitation later in the day.
11. There’s a full moon and I am suspicious that there are at least four guys at my gym who are werewolves. Okay, maybe just in need of a good back waxing, but better not to risk it.
12. That bitch with the perfect bod who always tells me in the locker room how hard it is for her to keep on weight no matter how much she eats is probably going to
be there again, and I might just kill her this time. Going to prison for homicide is so much worse than staying fat.
13. I dreamed about working out; that counts, right?
14. I’m having a good hair day.
15. I’m having a bad hair day.
16. I’m having a pulling-my-hair-out day.
17. Today is surely the day that George Clooney is gonna call to ask me out.
18. In which case when I get laid tomorrow, I don’t want my quads to cramp up in the middle.
I get back Sunday morning. If you don’t have plans in the evening, we could hook up for dinner or postdinner drinks. Otherwise, next week Monday and Thursday night both look good right now.
Have a great weekend!
biglove,
s.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lookin’ Good and Feelin’ Fine? Not So Much
Motivation.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to concentrate.
Motivation.
I clench my jaw and grit my teeth.
Mo-ti-va-tion.
I break down the word, saying it slowly in my head and concentrating on each syllable.
Motivation?
Yeah, I’ve still got nothing.
I stuck to a low-fat, low-calorie diet for a brief period, but then we had the gas leak (and resultant macaroni explosion), and now I can’t seem to find the will to get myself back on task with exercise or nutrition. My motivation is as elusive as Britney’s underpants.
If I’m going to get myself in gear, I need to figure out what drives me. (Fletch promised me rewards, but I’ve already lost interest in them.) I’m aware that I do well when I have a deadline, but anything with a due date is linked to compensation. Checks with my name on them certainly propel me toward achievement, and I’m sure I’d lose weight if I were being paid. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of employers out there needing people to “be less fat.” A pity, really.
Motivated by the thought of all the custom cabinetry and guest bathrooms $250-large could help buy, I tried to get on The Biggest Loser last year, but I acted like myself in the audition and the screeners cut me. I didn’t even get past the initial casting call because obviously they didn’t want strong, confident women who liberally employ the F word. (They’d have so many bleeps during my workouts, it would sound like an episode of Springer.)
Speaking of the Losers, it seems like the contestants stay on track because they hated how they looked and felt when they were heavy. Unfortunately for my waistline, I’m fine with both these things. In the casting process, I said in no uncertain terms that I’d never be the pusillanimous fatty who broke down and cried on the show. I imagine I’d be all, Hey, when you pussies are done with your meltdowns, come and get me at the pool. And bring me a daiquiri! With all the emotional upheaval in the program, I often wondered if participants wouldn’t be better on a therapist’s couch rather than the treadmill. Fletch and I would watch over plates full of pork chops and scalloped potatoes, giggling at everyone’s Scary Problems.
Seriously, how could America not fall in love with me?42
Knowing the ass I’d have kicked on The Biggest Loser does nothing to help me find my motivation today. I really should be driven to change because of my health. Honestly, my doctor said some terrifying stuff, and I prefer not to die anytime soon, whether it’s the result of a faulty furnace or my own gluttony. So you’d think my fear would propel me into the car and on to the gym, but it doesn’t. There’s an O. Henry level of irony here that I can finally afford the occasional pedicure again, yet being borderline diabetic, I might eventually lose my feet.43I’m scared enough to consider these factors . . . but not quite enough to be spurred into really doing something. I’m wrapped up in angst, not action. Sure, everything Dr. Awesome said was real and frightening when I was in her office . . . but now that it’s a few weeks in the past, her dictates feel slightly less relevant.
Too bad I’m fighting with my mom at the moment, because parental involvement has always provided me with motivation to lose weight. After my freshman summer, I was in great shape for a long time. However, my weight started to inch up again during my third junior year.44This time the bloat was beer related, since I’d turned twenty-one. Because I was finally a legal adult, no one was making me stand on a scale against my will. And yet Mom’s will was just as strong. So she—ever the crafty one—employed a different approach.
One day she and I were looking at my sorority composite photos. I began to bitch that my collarbones were almost the only ones you couldn’t see in the off-the-shoulder black drape and pearls my sisters and I wore for the shot. Naturally, I thought I was cuter than everyone else,45but with my insanely competitive nature, I didn’t like them being thinner than me. Sensing an opening, my mom leapt on the opportunity like Maisy on a Milk-Bone. She offered to “help me” before our photos were retaken in the fall. Oh, yes, she promised, my collar bones would be defined. Help consisted of her paying for membership at a fly-by-night diet center.
Without a doubt, the Nutri-Bolic center provided the worst diet food ever. My meals were mostly packets of dried powders claiming to be “soup” and “oatmeal,” although none resembled any soups or oatmeals I’d ever tasted. Had I been in a coma, perhaps I’d have appreciated the thick, starchy liquid texture of my meals. Too bad I was conscious, because I found myself telling random strangers, “I just want to chew something, damn it!”
Interestingly, this “food” gave me a brand-new appreciation for all the staples of my mom’s repertoire. I craved every atrocity to ever originate from our badly wallpapered, low-ceilinged, harvest-gold-appliance-having kitchen. Hot dogs shriveled in the microwave to cocktail-frank size, paired with stale buns? Yum! The three-bean salad that looked exactly like the organic matter we pulled from our pool’s filter? Deelicious! Unseasoned rubber chicken served on a bed of still-crunchy brown rice? Bring. It. On! Even those grotesque onion-and-Worcestershire creations my dad, Dr. Ronald McMengele, grilled just long enough to make the blood run down our arms when we picked them up were suddenly appealing.46
Consuming a thousand calories a day with very little protein, I felt lightheaded and weak every second for three whole months. I wasn’t just hungry. I was famished. Starving. Ravenous. Not only did I want to consume my parents’ cooking in vast quantities; I was in such a state that I’d look at the love of my life, a 140-pound Great Pyrenees mountain dog named George, and I’d fantasize about his tender, meaty flanks, charbroiled over a hickory-wood fire and served with a side of home fries.
I didn’t lose weight that summer because I was eating sensibly—I lost it because I was starving. I dropped more than thirty pounds, but at the cost of a portion of my sanity.
The clothing store where I worked was right across from a drugstore in the Glenbrook Square mall. At the end of the day, I’d sail past the displays of Generra and Guess T-shirts in our front window to buy a Little Debbie brownie. When I got to my car, I’d open the package and spend five minutes smelling it and marveling at the smooth icing and dense, rich, nut-studded cake. No matter how hot it was, I’d keep the windows of my sassy little Toyota Celica rolled up so none of the scent could escape. Overcome with desire, I’d finally stuff the whole thing in my mouth, chew it to a fine paste . . . and then spit it back into the wrapper. Had I not been so concerned with keeping my teeth white and esophagus intact, bulimia would have been a viable choice. Regardless, the simple act of having solid food in my mouth—even if I didn’t digest it—kept me from going all Shannen Doherty on everyone.
One dark day, my coworker Meredith left a cup of ice cream in the break-room freezer, which I discovered when I reached for my container of plain yogurt. I meant to sneak only a tiny spoonful of rocky road to wash away the sour taste of the unsweetened Dannon, but the second it hit my tongue, I lost it. With three deft bites, I swallowed the entire thing and licked the cup dry. The way I panicked and stuffed the empty container back in the freezer, you’d have thought I was holding a smok
ing gun.
Even though twenty different girls worked in that store, and despite my tacit denial, Meredith clearly knew I’d eaten her ice cream because I hardly talked about anything except food. As Meredith and I folded the acid-washed jeans and organized racks of scrunchies, I’d chatter on about the boutique where they sold the giant cookies and the calzones at Sbarro and all of my favorite pies, listed alphabetically. Meredith would smile and nod well into the third hour of my “All Things Arby’s”47soliloquy, in what I assume was an attempt to keep me from losing my mind and biting our customers.
Poor Meredith. We worked together only when I was following that insane diet, so she never knew I wasn’t completely batshit crazy.
Since I can’t find any compelling reason to cart my big ass to the gym, I decide it would be fun to see whether I can locate Meredith online and confess my crime. Maybe I can even find an address where I can send her the seventy-five cents I still owe her. But before I can pull up , I’m hit with stabbing pains up and down my arms and in my chest.
Oh, dear.
The good news is, I’m fine. I took an aspirin and antacid and felt better. The issue was less “heart attack” and more “too many slices of cheesesteak pizza from Philly’s Best.”
The bad news is, Dr. Awesome wanted to see me again anyway. And now I’m here in her office, and her hideous nurse is making me get weighed after I’ve dodged the scale during my past few visits.
After five minutes of what I consider to be a highly unprofessional argument, we compromise and the nurse finally agrees that if I just step up on the damn thing, she won’t say the numbers out loud.
While my weight registers, I position one hand over the digital display and one over my eyes. Somehow the nurse finds this to be a personal offense. Oh, come on; I’m not the first person to do this. Stacey says she turns around when her trainer weighs her, and she’s never once mentioned his agitated foot tapping or disgruntled sighs.
The thing is, I’ve got a pretty good idea of my number already because I have a bizarre talent: within a minute, a pound, a degree, and a dollar, I’m somehow intuitive enough to predict the time, my weight, the temperature, and how much my groceries cost.48Based on the way my pants have bitten into my flesh since I finished the second book, I’m afraid to let the scale confirm the scary digits floating around in my head. I mean, I know, but I don’t really want to know.
Such a pretty fat: one narcissist's quest to discover if her life makes her ass look big Page 5