So I recently settled on my couch for the night to watch an action movie that I had received from Netflix and my nightly snack of an entire box of ho-hos. I had just poured the remainder of a bottle of chocolate syrup into the box when the hero of the movie pulled himself out of a car which had just exploded, shot 3 bad guys, stopped a drug ring with a simple roundhouse kick to the main bad guy’s face AND made out with some babe whom he had met at the beginning of the movie. Funny thing was she seemed to hate him at the time when they first met and was now throwing herself at him. This gives me hope because many females that I meet seem to hate me. One of these days we're going to be making out, postal lady!

Anyway, so I’m marveling at the physical demands that this hero has just gone through (and the way he was able to do so after having been shot many times) and I take notice of my ever growing belly. Seems that my nightly trips to the land of ho-hos has been making me…how do I put this…a fat bastard.

Now, I’m not at the stage where I need assistance from a forklift to make it over to the fridge, but I do have one on call just in case the moment arises. However, I am finding some pants of mine starting to get a little snug around the waist and this time it’s not because I've stuffed a cucumber down the front of them as a way to impress the ladies at the local park. So while I’m not exactly at the extreme end of the spectrum, I am at a part that makes me take notice of needing an exercise and diet plan.

Participating in this new fitness routine has made me realize something; the world does not want us to be healthy. In fact, I say that if anything, it’s much more affordable to be UN-healthy.

Case in point: ever try to shop for the healthier foods at the supermarket? Before you get to anything resembling, “good for you”, you have to walk past all of the items that are on sale that week. These items are all cheap and NOT good for you. You have sugar filled cereals, canned baked beans, macaroni and cheese, bacon grease, etc. etc. and they are all priced at a cost that you’re not going to have to decide between eating and having glamorous things like electricity for the month. However, you go to the healthier foods and suddenly you’re kissing having a working refrigerator to put them in goodbye because you can’t pay the good people at the power company for the month. What the crap?!

Potato chips are cheaper than vegetables, Cap n’ Crunch is cheaper than Total, you can buy a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup for much less than an apple, you can buy beer cheaper than a pack of water…wait a minute, that’s not such a bad thing…THE POINT IS, I can either spend a little over twenty dollars by getting the frozen, canned and packaged things or spend close to sixty bucks on things that end in, “occoli”, “watchers” and “inless chicken breasts”. So who’s our friends, people? Nabisco or something with, “whole”, “natural” or “organic” in the title? I like Oreo’s.

So I’ve had to become a little wiser with the foods I can actually afford to purchase. Some people say to watch portions, but I count much more on being quick handed. See, all shopping bags look alike and all you have to do is create a quick diversion of say, slashing someone’s tires and when they go to inspect you substitute your Hungry Man Meal for their “Natural” granola. It works, I tell you.

The huge cost of staying healthy doesn’t stop there. It seems some rich relative in your family has to kick the bucket so that you can use the inheritance to join up at the local gym. You see these ads for fitness centers in the area that promises that you’ll, “look great”, when you sign up to use their equipment, but you first have to pay the “low” price which is slightly lower than my monthly car payment to belong there.

Who in the hell is working out at these places? People who wipe their sweat with a handful of twenties? Do you have to wait for the treadmill because Mr. Monopoly is taking his own sweet ass time on it? That little piece of crap…I bet he doesn’t even wipe off the machinery when he’s done.

Staying healthy ain’t cheap, my friends. Kind of makes you miss being in high school when you didn’t have to sit behind a desk all day and eat Funyuns. You had the exercise of having to walk everywhere because you didn’t have a car, many activities ended in you needing to run because the po-po was after you, and you had mandatory gym class everyday. Ah…things were simpler then…

Wait a minute, scratch that whole thing about good memories of gym class…

Copyright © 2006 Ray Tice
Please do not remove the copyright from this work.

Send by Email! | Contact Us! | Permanent Link