Escaped Hippopotamus Alert

 Maybe you've seen me running down the side of the road. I use the word 'running' loosely. It's more like slowly falling forward and catching myself with each footstep. And if you did witness such a spectacle, you might have thought to yourself, "Wow. There's an escaped hippopotamus lumbering down the street! I wonder if I should give the zoo a call."

Don't call. It's just me trying to shed a couple of tons of flopping blubber. It probably looks as if I sit home every day eating bon bons and watching soaps, which isn't true. Actually I run at least three times a week and do probably 15 or so hours per week of service--often free house cleaning help, among other things.

I also think about doing massive amounts of sit-ups and leg lifts and other exercises. Apparently thinking about it isn't quite enough. Which is wretched. I think when I do mental calisthenics and when I turn down chunk-inducing food I should get points which, when totaled, take off a pound or two. If that were the case, I'd be another 25 lbs. lighter.

I never thought of myself as being one of "those" people who had so much time on their hands that they could sit around counting calories and obsessing over their tonnage. I was always too busy doing things.

Besides running, I like to dance, swim, and occasionally hike, fight, and climb a little. I work for the Boy Scouts and Church and I'm the Attendance Clerk for my international writing club. I ride herd on a family of eight with three teens still at home. I sing in three choirs, play several instruments, and do art gigs. I also read and write. Lots. So that means the scales of injustice are tipping unforgivably towards a widening posterior and stomach.

The funny thing is, the 'me' inside my head looks nothing like this horrid mirror apparition. (Who let that hag in? She needs to go back to being the doorkeeper at Hogwarts.) Inside Me is twenty five, slender, gorgeous, gifted, and successful. For her, the running and dancing and swimming and climbing, and sword-fighting has paid off quite well. Outer Me is always flummoxed (it even sounds like a FAT word) at the viscous nature of fat. Man, that gunk sticks to everything! Maybe glue companies should research fat as a new kind of glue.

Someone said I should carry weights when I'm running. To them I say, I already am. I carry a tube of it around my middle and two fanny packs worth on my behind. Hasn't helped.

The other thing that annoys the heck out of me is the recalcitrance of that torture implement squirreled away under my bathroom sink called a scales. Whoever invented that contraption should be put to the rack. It taunts me when I go in to brush my teeth. This is the gist of the conversation:

Scales: If you climb on, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Me: Right.
Scales: No really. You look like you've lost a little around the chest area.
Me: Yeah thanks. No.
Scales: Don't you feel a little lighter? And you didn't have that extra helping at dinner. You probably dropped a whole pound.
Me: Not likely.
Scales: Oh come on. You have to know how much you weigh. They ask you in all kinds of places.
Me: It's none of their business, really.
Scales: But you should know the number so you can know if you're healthy or not.
Me: Your weight isn't the be-all and end-all of the health index.
Scales: That's an excuse.
Me: *sigh* All right. All right. Shut up. I know I should at least check it out. But it's night time and I still have clothes on. It'll throw things off if I'm still wearing my watch and clothes. And they all say you should weigh yourself at the same time of day.
Scales: I'll be lying in wait. Hah! Pun intended.
The next morning.
Scales: Okay, Chubby. Put up or shut up.
Me: Don't let me weigh more than ***. It's GOT to be under ***.
I step on, quivering. The dang thing bursts into horrid little snickers. I step off and back on several times, hoping it was asleep or lying or I can trick it into reading less. No dice. The tonnage glows at me maleficently. 
Me: I HATE YOU!
Scales: I'll be waiting. Again, pun intended.

Someday I'm going to loft that thing into a running creek. Or a landfill right before the dozer shoves dirt over it. Or the desert along with a half ton of other garbage. (Just kidding. I'm not a litterer. Just plump.)

No. Wait. I hear hippos can be pretty vicious. I'm going to bite that thing in half and then stomp on it until the stinkin' springs pop out. Yeah. We hippopotami can be sneaky.