“What do want for lunch today?” Thad asked, perched upon the entrance to my Study.
“Oh, it’s okay,” I said, looking up from my laptop. I had not gone to work yet and was enjoying the lazy morning. “There are just some leftover noodles and cantaloupe I was going to have.”
“Eugh,” he said making a face. “That whole wheat pasta stuff you made? It’s awful.”
“No, it’s healthy.”
“Lookit, it’s awful,” he said. “It tastes like cardboard.”
“Uh huh,” I smirked: It was awful, and did taste like cardboard, but was healthy.
After my recent pre-Gaga doctor’s appointment, I had put myself back on Oprah’s Program, and had been rather successful at it. I was now walking to work and eating better- “affecting diet, exercise, and life style changes together to lose weight and keep it off”-and had already lost fifteen pounds. Now, granted, on a big man, that was not a lot, but it was something. And no matter what, I was very impressed with myself, or I should say more impressed than normal.
“How about I make you breakfast for lunch? You love that!” Thad asked with the tone of a clown at a child’s birthday.
“Yes, yes I do.” I eyed him suspiciously, hungrily.
“Good! Then that’s what I’ll make.” He said with a twirl and a bounce toward the Kitchen.
I looked back to my laptop and wondered if I was allowed to accusing him of trying to fatten me up, like I was Hansel and he was that awful gingerbread house witch.
Thad had initially been very supportive of my reinvigorated Program, offering dietary suggestions and useful exercise asides. I appreciated his opinions on eating more fruits and less carbs and hints about painless but effective cardio. But that all ended once I actually started to lose weight; he apparently my loss as an attack to his own snacking kingdom. And then he suddenly began asking to have cake around all the time, wanted to go get ice cream more often, and the meals he fixed quickly became much more elaborately fatty. And I know this was not purposefully vindictive, rather subliminal on his part, but still, it was becoming obvious.
The problem was that Thad wanted me fat so he could eat as much as he wanted and could still, always, be the thin one. This made sense to me, but I was dieting to fight off the diabetes, not to make him look bad. But through his lavender colored Thadworld glasses, though, I don’t think Thad saw it that way at all; he saw my weight loss as an attack on his exact worldly being.
A few minutes later I walked by the Kitchen, and smelled a symphony of aromas: bread and grease, butter and flour, sharp cheddar cheese and crisp green onions. I loved breakfast for lunch; there was no way I could resist it to eat crap wheat pasta and flaccid week-old cantaloupe.
“What you making?” I said, sticking my head in. I knew to stand on the other side of the kitchen door threshold when he was cooking: I was not allowed to enter his domicile while he ‘worked.’
“Eggs and sausage and biscuits and gravy,” he sang.
Those four words were never more eagerly heard by a fatman.
“Oh,” I sighed. “Even gravy?”
“From scratch!” he smiled, flipping the massive sputtering sausage patties over in the wrought iron skillet.
“It smells so good…” I salivated.
“Sure enough!” he smiled, brandishing his spatula like Paula Deen.
As I wondered off, the aroma of sausage and eggs dispelled Oprah and her stupid Program clear from my head and conscious.
Back in my Study, away from the smells, I frowned, knowing I was about to fail. The OCD had really latched onto this Program, and was pleased with the results. I had already gone down one shirt size and two pants sizes, so now I was only huge, not terrifying ginormous. The three miles or so of walking I was doing a day didn’t even seem that extreme anymore either, even in the summer heat, as it had become so de rigueur. But those rewards only came with constant perseverance, and perseverance was not served with a side of gravy.
Thad’s problem was in the snacking. On any given night when we would sit and watch a movie he would start off with a simple Freezie Pop, then make some microwave popcorn, then move on to a tin of black olives, then have another Freezie Pop, then an tiny wedge of cheese cut from the block, then a handful of salty crackers to accompany a larger wedge of cheese, then another Freezie Pop, and then finish off the evening with a hunk of cake and a tall glass of whole milk. And that was all after we consumed a rather large dinner. Thank God he was predisposed to thinness, as on anyone else that level of snacking would lead to obesity and quite soon, vestigial legs.
But he did not see this level of constant eating as a problem, rather as Competitive Snacking, which was the term he had come up with to describe his munching mania. He would joke that he was “In training,” and “These snacks aren’t going to eat themselves,” and “Who but me should represent America in Competitive Snacking in the 2012 Summer games?” The joke further included my mother as his second, a joke we never shared with her, but he giggled about often over handfuls of Gummy Bears or a plate of Oreos.
But I could not let Thad’s lack of control mire my supreme OCD constraint in a vat of, oh so delicious homemade gravy. I had to act.
“Hey,” I said, waking back into the Kitchen.
“Out!” he snapped
Realizing that I had trespassed, I stepped back to the threshold and said, “I think I’ll just have the wheat pasta and cantaloupe for lunch.”
His head turned toward me, but not his body, à la The Exorcist. “Why?” he said, the voice deep and from far and deep away.
“Um, it’s just my diet and all…” I said, afraid of him.
“Program,” He corrected, looking at me with hate.
“Yes, Program. My Program. I just need to stick with it, you know…” I could not meet his eyes; there was too much wrath therein.
“You know you are not fat. You’ve never been fat. I like you just the way you are.” But he did not say it like he exactly meant it. He said it more, like, ‘don’t you dare make me eat all of this sausage and eggs and biscuits and gravy by myself you selfish, selfish monster!’
“Thanks. That’s sweet,” I faked. “I’m just tired of being so big. Well, I will always be big; I just want to be less big. I mean, right now if they made a movie out of my life, Zach Galifianakis would have to play me in a fat suit.”
“That’s not true,” Thad said softly, looking back down to stir the eggs. “I’d say Bruce Vilanch.”
“Oh, ho ho,” I chuckled smarmily. “Well then guess who would play you?”
“Who?” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
“Andy Dick,” I smiled, hoping he realized it was not exactly a complementary comparison, what with the alcoholism and all.
“Oh, that’s terrible!” Thad snapped. “I can’t believe you said that. Take that back!”
“Okay, okay,” I laughed. “Maybe a 1980’s Robert Downy Jr. in a friz wig.” As Thad’s hair, albeit now without the raspberry streak, still looked rather silly and kinda Asian Pomeranian.
“You’re just being mean!” he snapped, waving his spatula so egg goo flew everywhere.
“Fine! I’ll stop. But I’m just tired of looking less like Jesus and more like Buddha each and every day.”
“But you’re my Buddha,” Thad said with a wink. I loved that he could wink. I couldn’t; when I tried it made me look like I was having a neural spasm.
“Well, thank you,” I smiled, “But I don’t think I’ll be having breakfast for lunch today.”
“You sure?” He said sidling up to me with the plate of steaming sausage patties, each one begging to be eaten in bite after bite of joyous mouthwatering pleasure.
“Well…”
So to say the least I had breakfast for lunch. Hell with it. Buddha is probably a lot more fun to have around than skinny ol’ Jesus anyway.
