Ellington

Last week, after spying the ever-growing acreage of my cat's butt, I begrudgingly headed to the store to buy her diet food for the first time. I felt badly about it. Mainly because I would think one of the perks of being a cat is the fact you never have to diet. That and naps being two of the things that make up for the daily indignity of crawling into a box of your own crap.

I began to really think about this whole "weight" thing while in the cat food aisle eyeing "Fatty's" new lite dinner at the Giant Retail Plex That Is Spawned Of Satan. It seems particularly scary that in this country, even our animals have diet food. Do you know how hard a population has to work at pushing food to get their animals fat? Don't animals have some internal mechanism that tells them not to be fat?

It seems you can't swing a donut without hitting a new diet plan display in the grocery store. I turned around and that large, scary, blonde woman that looks as vacant as church on the Sunday after Easter was staring at me from a life-sized cardboard cut-out advertising her miracle diet plan. I would have screamed, but there were children underfoot shoving plastic things in their mouths.

I didn't want to scare them, thus inducing choking and forcing me to prove to the entire population of The Plex Of Satan that, yes, I had passed my Red Cross First Aid class, and I can complete the "Hiney Lick" in under 30 seconds with no undue thrusting.

Instead, I simply stared and politely thought "those are so not real" as everyone else was doing. Her shrinking waistline seemed to be screaming amid rows of brightly wrapped Halloween candy.

Please, Mr. Advertising Idea Man, sell me a pill that stops me from eating while I stand in 400 well-lit rows of prepackaged butt wideners. This makes perfect sense. Ever heard the term "self-defeating"? No? Well, I just defined it for you. Please feel free to pay me in bourbon and chocolate later.

Most of the time, the whole situation makes me laugh. Every time I hear someone say "I'm on the new Only Eat Standing On Your Head Every Three Hours While Whistling Diet. It's done wonders," I really wonder if those wonders exist. In spite of Richard Simmons' cuteness, I've managed to stay away from pre-packaged diet plans. After one brief stint if eating meat for two months, I mainly stick to the "everything in moderation" and the "I'm happy with the big ass because it gets the men" plans I have been practicing for a while now.

I could just call these pills today's "snake oil" and be done with it, but maybe there's something in these pills that runs a little deeper. I know these diet plans sell. They wouldn't be everywhere if they didn't. There are thousands of people that buy their magic pills and walk out of the store with a renewed sense of hope. A hope that they might become more of what they believe they truly are … on the inside. Maybe, just maybe, some mad scientist somewhere has stumbled upon the one thing that is going to turn me into the person I want to be.

This is where most folks start to sell you Jesus, Right? Well, I don't stand at pulpits unless there are awards and designer shoes involved. I'm simply trying to understand what idea of me is being displayed for sale here amidst the orange wrapped candy. When did my vigilance drop and my simple created perfection get stolen? At some point, I sold my ego for a meal replacement shake. Do I really want someone else's idea of what I'm supposed to be fed to me in pill form? Hell, I take enough vitamins and anti-psychotics as it is.

After pondering this thought and kicking the small children out of the way, I decided against Fatty's diet food. I left it on the shelf in the 23rd well-lit aisle. I decided that it was time for Fatty to learn how to monitor herself. I decided I wasn't going to let Fatty fall prey to someone's idea of what was perfect for her. I decided that Fatty was going to be a Big Beautiful Woman if it killed me. Fatty was eating full fat food whether she liked it or not. Fatty was going to be herself.

With a new determination concerning my kitty's well-being, I bought a diet soda and walked out of the store.

Hey, at least I'm tryin'.