The Wagon and The Back-Story

So… I'm on the diet wagon, but I cling to it with the precariousness of a hung-over garbage man on his Monday morning route. All it would take is one decent sized pot hole and I'm likely to fly off back, mouth first into a pile of bacon double cheeseburgers. 

I have used the expression “On the wagon” though now when I think of it, a weight loss wagon seems to be an ineffectual metaphor.  If there was a wagon, it would be pretty rickety from years of hauling porkers and let’s be honest, everyone that’s riding it should probably get off and speed walk. 

I find dieters to be universally insufferable.  Diets make people feel like martyrs and martyrs are notoriously chatty (they always have to have their last words).  These days I hear myself spewing diet-related word vomit with the frequency of a bulimic teen before prom.  I just want people to understand that I get it and I’m sorry that they have to endure me during this transitional phase.

When I diet I tend to talk about myself as if I am a victim of some circumstance outside of my control and definitely not my own gluttony.  So to explain my pudginess away I’ve crafted a back-story:

After high school I was kidnapped by a food-fetish felon that forced me to ingest a standard Taco Bell order of two crunch wrap supremes, a nachos bell grande, three soft tacos and an order of cinnamon twists with a diet coke (the diet coke was just for psychological torment).  After that he always made me swing by McDonalds for a Big Mac and Oreo McFlurry desert.  After about a year of this, I managed to escape from my junk food prison by stacking Big Mac cartons and slushy cups high enough to climb to a window and wedge myself little by little out.  I then ran (waddled breathlessly) to the next house to call for help.  I suffered from extreme Stockholm syndrome and continued to tearfully eat the same way for the next three years before I got on the path to recovery…  With all of this in mind, it’s understandable that when I talk about my experience I stoically say “Each day is a struggle but I’m working through the physical and emotional aftermath.” and everyone nods and admires my courage and resilience.  There’s a pending book deal with Random House and an Oprah special coming out in June, Weapons Of Mass Destruction: A Tale of Fast Food Torture.

 
This is how wish it had happened.  Part of it is true… the standard Taco Bell order part.  Oprah has yet to return my calls.

Bon Appetite.