Read You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl Online

Authors: Celia Rivenbark

You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl (10 page)

BOOK: You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl

13.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

Bad Economy Waste-es My Time and Disgust-es Me

N
ow comes the sad(ish) news that
Reader’s Digest
has declared bankruptcy, a phrase that never fails to crack me up ever since I saw Michael Scott, the wrenchingly dim boss on
The Office
walk around solemnly and loudly announcing “I declare bankruptcy!” thinking that was all there was to it.

Oh, if only.

Many teams of lawyers will be working to prop up the world’s most reliable magazine-slash-coaster to make it profitable again.

I hope it works because it’s powerfully depressing to think that, one day in the near future, toilet tanks across this great land will sit unadorned.

Ah,
Reader’s Digest.
A magazine that earned a solid following for many decades for leaving stuff
out
.

It’s puzzling in the same way that decaf often costs more than regular and sugar-free muffins are always more expensive. But when it comes to the information age, we can’t get enough and maybe that’s why we should’ve realized
Reader’s Digest
’s days were numbered.

(Although, it must be said that its retelling of the moldy classics in condensed book form are awesome. Here’s a synopsis of
Romeo and Juliet
RD-style: “Couple contends with bickering parents who oppose their romance; both die.”)

With its comforting penchant for articles like “Seven Ways to Keep Your Bird Safer!” you have to wonder if the original article contained three other really important ways that you’ll never know about.

Condensation may not be the best thing in all cases but I’ve got a soft spot for
Reader’s Digest
ever since they paid me $100 for a joke I submitted many years ago.

I don’t remember what the joke was but I remember being giddy when the check came and I could officially add “magazine contributor” to a resume that, at the time, had “fry cook” as its most impressive entry.

And I loved the way humor was such a large part of the magazine. Humor doesn’t get a lot of love in the magazine world. At least not the intentional kind. I still can’t stop laughing at Levi Johnston’s photo spread in
Playgirl
, but I don’t think that was supposed to be funny.

And anytime I read a recipe in
Bon Appetit
that contains more than thirty-five ingredients, I downright guffaw. And
then there are the unintentionally hilarious headlines in all those women’s magazines that are forever trying to balance naughty and nice and failing on both counts. That’s how you end up with headlines like “Ten Erotic Uses For Your Crock Pot (Think Long and Slow!)”

Reader’s Digest
can’t get enough of the kidding around with its faithful little ditties found in “Humor in Uniform,” “Life in These United States,” and so many other blurbs and funnies sprinkled throughout like fake cheese on popcorn.

I read recently that it’s virtually impossible these days to get a humor piece accepted by the
New Yorker
because the head of the editorial department, Snobby McPruneface, doesn’t value humor as a genre. I got news for the
New Yorker
: I don’t even
get
half those black-and-white cartoons you’re so damn proud of.

Reader’s Digest
, on the other hand, was always the voice of the common man, the first place one could go for a quick quip that would be suitable for retelling at Rotary Club without even making the waitress blush. The headquarters is in Pleasantville, for God’s sake. How can you get any more American than that?

Reader’s Digest
thinks it may be able to revamp its loser image by going digital, but I’m not sure that’ll work since most people don’t want to take their laptops into the bathroom. You can’t really read
RD
anywhere else. It just wouldn’t be right.

For now, bless God, the little magazine is safe thanks to declaring bankruptcy (laughing again) but if all the legal
team’s grand plans fail, this coffee-ringed staple of so many homes will disappear like Jell-O 1-2-3 mix and we’ll have to find somewhere else to read those somewhat hysterical articles like “Eight Medical Myths!” and “Hero Pet of the Year!”

Call me thickheaded, but even with all the signs the economy was failing—double-digit unemployment, frozen credit, housing foreclosures in the thousands, a stock market in free-fall, I never really understood the depths of the recession until I read about
Reader’s Digest
and, perhaps more importantly, when
Days of Our Lives
fired founding couple, John Black and Dr. Marlena Evans.

Paul Krugman’s thoughtful op-ed pieces on the economy never even fazed me. Ditto my nightly hit of
Marketplace
, a thoughty economy-based show on NPR. It never hit home until Salem’s wise and loving and occasionally-during-sweeps-months demon-possessed psychiatrist and her studly husband got the ax.

As everyone knows (except, possibly, readers of the
New Yorker
), John and Marlena were the unrivaled first couple of soap opera land for decades.

In a horrible injustice, the actors who portray Marlena and John were let go because they were at the top of the pay scale.

Ever since their absence, we fans have been subjected to an exceedingly icksome parade of truly bad young actors who probably just work for weed.

Why do I care so much about two TV stars that I don’t even know? After all, assuming they haven’t gone all crazy
Fantasia and squandered their money on white sofas and no-account cousins, John and Marlena should live out their lives in financial security that the rest of us can only dream about.

So it’s not that I’m worried that they’ll have to resort to putting on pizza-slice costumes and dance about by the side of the road to lure business. They won’t be like my poor laid-off friend, Lanny Ray, who swears he’s so poor he can’t even afford to go to the Rug Doctor.

But to me, the loss of John and Marlena (as well as the potential loss of
Reader’s Digest
) are two of our most important economic indicators. When networks treat soap opera royalty like Marlena and John this way, there can be no hope whatsoever for the rest of us. We are all mere weeks away from wearing our barrel-and-suspenders recessionista look on public transportation.

So, yes, I get it now. Thanks to these two longtime staples of my admittedly incredibly mediocre life.

John and Marlena have demonstrated what months of NPR, CNBC, and egghead op-ed articles by Pulitzer Prizewinning economists could not. We. Are. Doomed. As Lanny Ray would say, “The whole sitchy-ation waste-es my time and disgust-es me.”

I should’ve seen this coming. Didn’t I see all the obvious product placement tricks on
DOOL
over the past year? I specifically remember Sami Brady commenting rather clumsily to her current lover about the awesome dirt-busting ability of her new Swiffer and I immediately drove to the store and
bought the regular
and
the Swiffer WetJet. Sami said they worked. And if you can’t trust a former death row inmate who posed as a man in Desert Storm and later gave birth to twins with two different fathers like a damn Labrador retriever, who can you trust?

I thought that by now Marlena and John would be back, that the sponsors would realize that they must do what they could to retain Marlena (the divine Deirdre Hall) even if it meant that she would have to occasionally stare into the camera and say things like, “You know, ladies, when I need a smart pantsuit that won’t break the bank, I like to shop at Kohl’s. You’ll find it at the intersection of value and style.” She could wink, even. And then go right back into the waiting arms of John Black.

Oh, cruel economy. How can there ever be
DOOL
without them? Even as their too-long bedroom scenes began to feel about as sexy as watching your parents make out, we still adored them through all their myriad kidnappings, lost-at-seas, brainwashings, buried alives, exorcisms, and divorces. Sometimes all within the space of a few minutes.

The sour U.S. economy has managed to do what
Days
bad guy Stefano DiMeara has tried to do for more than thirty years: eliminate the Wonder Couple.

In a world that can so casually toss aside
Reader’s Digest
and John and Marlena, apparently nothing is sacred.

May God have mercy on us all.

Menopause Spurs Thoughts of Death and Turkey

R
ight now, since you ask, I’m what is known as perimenopausal. “Peri,” some of you may know, is a Latin prefix meaning “SHUT YOUR FLIPPIN’ PIE HOLE.”

There’s a huge difference between perimenopause and menopause; chiefly, during perimenopause you only think about killing your husband three to four times a day. Kidding! I meant three to four times an
hour
.

Of course, many women in my situation try to learn as much as they can about this stage of life. Some even embrace and try to celebrate this phase, which can include insomnia, memory loss, night sweats, fatigue, and memory loss (ha!). I like to call these women
crazy people
.

Others, like me, occasionally try to find comfort by discussing these very personal issues with trusted women
friends. Who, if you must know, leave a lot to be desired lately.

The biggest problem is that we women are competitive creatures. If you want to talk about your menopausal symptoms, your women-friends will just try to out-symptom you.

Me: “I feel like I’m losing my mind! I have these little electric currentlike hot flashes all over my body and it happens about a dozen times a day!”

BFF: “Oh, yeah? At least that’s better than forgetting everything like I do. The other day, I left my kid at the dry cleaners and took my husband’s shirts to see
Up
.

Me: CAN’T I JUST COMPLAIN ONE TIME WITHOUT YOU TRYING TO ONE-UP ME?”

BFF: “Shut up!”

Me: “YOU shut up! (Cue wild mood swing out of no damn where.) I’m sorry. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!”

BFF: “OK, so that’s not needy at all.”

I can’t believe I was ever friends with Angie Romano. OK, sure I can. She’s the one who taught me how to look years younger in pictures. You know how when a bunch of women friends get together and get just a little sloppy drunk? A few of you even flirt inappropriately with the kinda cute Marine who has just asked you if you’re a veterinarian and when you say, “No, why?” he flexes his biceps and says, “Cuz my pythons are
sick!
”

In the heat of the moment, feeling younger and friskier,
one of the posse whips out a camera and tells the waiter to, “Take our picture!” Well, Angie taught all of us how to put our arms around each other, right at the neck, and smile. So what? So this! See, each one of us reaches just under the hairline on the back of the neck and pulls like hell on the neck skin so we
all look twenty-eight years old again
!

Try it next time you’re having that ditzy, drunken photo taken. The one you’ll have to beg your teenager to e-mail your old high school classmates so they can marvel at how good your neck looks. You have to ask your teen to email it because you have no idea how to do it
because you are old
.

So, really, it’s hard to hate anyone who is wise enough to figure out how to make my horrendous pelican neck fat disappear for picture time.

Everyone my age likes to yak about menopause whenever we get together but I have a hard time talking or even thinking about my “females” because, let’s face it: That shit is gross. When my doctor told me one time that I had a uterine polyp, I threw up on his shoes.

Maybe because he’s a lot like a nerdy nine-year-old boy, TV’s famous Dr. Oz thrives on the gross woman stuff. Remember the time he made Oprah hold up a big lacy-looking piece of intestinal fat for all of us to admire?

“It’s called the O-mentum,” he said. And while I thought that was so like the wizard that’s Oz to try to kiss Oprah’s ass by naming an organ after her right there on the spot, turns out that’s the real name for it.

I looked up “omentum,” saw a close-up picture of one, and threw up on my own shoes.

A while back, I had a little trouble with the ol’ babymaker that led to a pretty significant case of anemia. And, no, you don’t lose weight when you’re severely anemic, which just pissed me off even more. Doesn’t blood weigh anything? It seemed that at least I’d drop a few pounds from not having any.

Duh-hubby responded to my illness appropriately. For about two days. And then, on Day Three, I heard him trudge, very slowly upstairs to our bedroom, where I was lying, surrounded by empty bottles of Lipton Diet Green Tea and Nilla Wafers boxes.

“I’m … sooooo … tired … ,” he managed before flopping onto my bedspace.

Although I looked and felt as if the entire Cullen family had been over for dinner and I was the main course, I was expected to show sympathy for
him?

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked with way more concern than I actually felt.

“I gave blood today and almost passed out,” he grumbled.

Now I am not proud of how poorly I reacted to this information. While it’s unspeakably noble to donate blood, I selfishly wanted at least one of us to be running around with normal amounts of the stuff in our veins.

“Sooooo … . tired,” he said again, pulling off his socks
and pants, tossing his tie and shirt onto the floor, and crawling under the covers. My covers. My anemia-wracked covers.

“Can you hand me the remote?”

Christ.

A few hours later, the NBA playoffs had worked their curative magic and Duh was feeling normal.

Me? I was still feeling as crappy as ever. If you’ve ever had anemia, you know exactly what I mean. Of course, because I come from a long line of hypochondriacs, I’d decided that I was dying. I’d written my last smart-ass words. This was it for me.

I told Duh that it was time to discuss my funeral, which I want to be huge and splashy, just like that one in that wonderful old movie classic,
Imitation of Life
, because that was the best funeral ever. Remember how there was a lavish funeral at the biggest church in New York featuring a gospel solo by Mahalia Jackson (who is, unfortunately, too dead to sing at my funeral but we could substitute Queen Latifah because after I saw her in
Hairspray
I knew she was up to the task). OK, so also in
Imitation of Life
, after the big, splashy funeral (at which you
will
wear a hat, assholes, this is my funeral we’re talking about, show a little respect) there is a
parade
in the streets with drummers drumming and pipers piping and the body rides along in a horse-drawn hearse and it proceeds through the entire city!

And everyone cries! Just buckets and barrels of tears and the best part is when the dead woman’s daughter flings herself onto the casket. I just love it when people do that at real funerals. It’s so raw and real, and if at least one person doesn’t fling herself or himself onto my casket and scream, “Noooo! Nooooo! Take me instead! Here! Here’s my omentum! I don’t need it anymore in this dark world without you!” I’m going to be completely pissed as I look down on all y’all losers. That’s right. I said “down.”

Maybe you don’t think about your funeral, but that’s how you end up with really crappy funerals where the whole thing lasts ten minutes and then somebody goes out for a bucket of Bojangles’ chicken.

You will never get the anemia-induced
Imitation of Life
funeral unless you plan it. I plan to call the (snicker) “pre-planning” experts at my local funeral home and tell them I want the
Imitation of Life
special and, if they don’t know what I’m talking about, they don’t get my bidness.

I come from a long line of worriers, so it’s not that bizarre that all this talk of anemia and menopause and omentums and such would lead to funeral planning.

The women in my family have always been chronic worriers. True story: My maternal grandmother once called the Atlanta airport to ask the pilot not to fly in a light rain because I was going to be a passenger on his plane that day. Oh yes she did.

She pleaded with the airline to spare the lives of her daughter
and granddaughters, although, as memory serves, she didn’t mention anything about my daddy, which was probably because he was a Democrat.

We worry about things in our control (did I unplug the coffeemaker before work?) and completely out of our control (will we get brain cancer?).

A few years ago, I realized that my favorite childhood book had been
The Three Sillies
, which is a fabulous book about how outlandish fears and worries can get in the way of living a happy, authentic life. In the book, the three sillies are a husband, wife, and daughter, who weep when they imagine that one day the daughter will have a son, and he will go into the basement to fetch some ale, and an ax might fall from a beam and kill him. None of these things has happened, mind you; it’s the thought of all the awful things that could happen that makes them weep so long and hard.

I bought copies of
The Three Sillies
for Christmas presents for my sister and mother. I would’ve bought one for my grandmother but she had already passed by then, in her sleep, which was not how she envisioned her death, at the hands of an ax-wielding psychopath who would break into her house just after Johnny Carson went off the air.

We read selected portions of
The Three Sillies
in the same attentive, reverent manner that other families might read the Bible or Koran. After reminiscing for a few minutes, we realized all this talk of worry and death had worked up a real appetite. It was time to carve the turkey, which is Duh’s
responsibility every year, after he’s bagged an extra five-hour midmorning nap.

As he sliced into the turkey breast, we leaned forward and our faces fell.

“It’s pink,” I whined.

“So?” asked Duh. “What’s the big deal? We can just put it back in the oven for a few minutes if you’re worried.”

“Great idea. That way the bacteria can really enjoy a growth spurt in that moist heat for a few more minutes. We’ll all be dead within the hour!”

The turkey was obviously riddled with botulism. What was Duh’s damn problem anyway?

So we did the only responsible thing: Tossed out the turkey and ate the side dishes. Better safe than hospitalized, where, we were fairly certain, we’d never get out without contracting a horrible staph infection. Possibly in our omentums.

Maybe that all sounds silly to you, but we didn’t want to take any chances. Go ahead and eat questionable turkey.

It’s your funeral.

But it won’t be nearly as awesome as mine. Bitches.

BOOK: You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl

13.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads