The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Don’t ask me why … but this last week I decided to do something radical. A late life crisis maybe or a mild case of heat stroke, but I decided to lose a few pounds, try to regain my girlish figure. Or if nothing else, lose my Milwaukee Tumor, that midriff bulge that threatens my pants wardrobe by expanding another inch. I know what you’re thinking — what’s radical about this?

What’s radical about this is that I’m not running to my doctor for GLP-1’s like half this country. I’m just eating less, drinking less and exercising more. Okay, so it’s only been two weeks, not really enough to earn me a sponsorship from Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, if they even still exist in this era of weight loss pills, but I’ve dropped ten pounds already and my trousers aren’t so tight.

In America we all think we’re overweight. Me too. Course … a lot of us are overweight, one of the reasons why we have an increase in diabetes and heart attacks. Our self-image suffers, probably a major cause of depression or at the very least a reduction in happiness. Our movie stars and models give us inferiority complexes and our doctors tell us these excess pounds will kill us but they don’t say when.

These new wonder drugs that decrease our appetites, for food, for drugs, for alcohol, even for joy, turns out they’re great for addictions and depressions too, quite a happy surprise for Big Pharma and anyone who bought their stocks. Not to mention all the millions who lost weight. And who knows, maybe we’ll all be happy anorexics before long, the fast fat foods will go bankrupt and the price of groceries will plummet once the demand drops in half. Probably then our role models on stage and screen will be voluptuous and rotund, content to eat and drink heartily.

Meanwhile I got a few more pounds to shed. Me and the rest of this selfie nation….

Thank God for medical science and the pharmacological industry. Finally, finally, they’ve discovered a weight loss drug. Turns out the medication for managing sugar levels in diabetes also kills the user’s appetite. Just what our narcissistic society needs in these turbulent times, an easy way to shed those pounds. No muss, no fuss, no exercise necessary. If you haven’t bought stock in the companies manufacturing this cure, sell your crypto right now and get a few shares. The very thing that makes you thin will make you rich….

We all think we’re overweight. We’re all a little anorexic. How could it be otherwise when we’re bombarded by fashion models and professional athletes, slim, fit, svelte, buffed, beautiful people. By comparison, hell yeah, we all ought to lose a few pounds, skip dessert, stop eating crap, get off the couch and head to the gym. But c’mon, this national pathology of poor self-esteem, all this fat shaming, the proliferation of diet fads and weightwatcher memberships, the obsession of all things weighed in pounds, it’s time to throw away the bathroom scales, stop checking the mirror and grow up, learn to live in your own skin and quit judging others.

So yeah, thanks Oprah, thanks for plastering your svelte new figure on your magazine and half the rags in America, telling your listeners and your readers how finally, finally, you can move beyond your shame at being the ideal weight you have in your fantasy. Just get that new drug, skip the exercise and the latest diet, shed your fat and hey, you too can be Oprah or whatever other role model you pick from People magazine, your shame will dissolve like an icicle in the sun. Happy days are finally here. And Oprah, thanks again for Dr. Phil and that other nutcase, Oz. Happy now?