My Wife Can’t Take Me Anywhere

By John Addyman  |  john.addyman@yahoo.com

 

I’m standing in the hallway of the doctor’s office. The nurse is behind me, her hand gently pushing me in the back. I’m here for a yearly check-up and this is the first step: my weight.

The thing that I’m to step onto to record my poundage looks like a platform, with a railing waist-high. It always reminds me of the structure on old sailing ships where the harpooners stood, watching for whales.

On my right is the little TV screen that records my weight.

“That’s good,” I think to myself, because I could never see it if that screen was on the floor. My tummy is in the way.

Alas, when the exam is complete, I’m sure the doctor will confirm my diagnosis.

I have furniture disease: my chest has fallen into my drawers.

My dear old dad warned me about this 50 years ago, when I came home during my senior year in college after gaining 40 pounds.

“You look puss-ee,” he said. “Full of puss. You’re filled with stuff you shouldn’t have been eating. We’ll have to get a scale from the barn to figure out your weight.”

My dad always did have that light touch.

That was years ago. Things haven’t changed a lot. Now, it’s my wife that makes the assessment.

“I can’t take you anywhere,” she says.

And I sit there nodding: I agree.

The problem isn’t that I’m terribly overweight, although I have way too many pounds hanging onto me. The problem is, I can’t get through a meal without leaving my shirt speckled with remnants of whatever I ate. I am a cascader of food stains.

If a forensics doctor needed to know what I had for lunch and dinner on an average day, he wouldn’t have to open up my stomach. All the evidence is preserved for posterity on the front of my shirt.

When I eat, I drop stuff. Food items sometimes get caught in my short beard on the way to the floor, while others make it past there and find the front of my T-shirt or hoodie or sweatshirt. When my wife and I eat together, the floor at my end of the table is usually dotted with bits of the meal after I’m done.

Some things are worse than others as evidence of my inability to keep things under control: spaghetti, for instance. Fried rice. Ice cream. Mustard. Italian wedding soup. Scrambled eggs. And the worst — corn on the cob.

After I’ve had a good piece of corn on the cob, the floor under my end of the table looks like Johnny Appleseed paid a visit and was trying to seed corn plants.

When we go out to eat, no matter how many napkins come with the meal, I ask for more.

At a place we like to have breakfast in my hometown of Newark, one waitress sees me walk in the door and puts a small pile of napkins on the table before we sit down.

You might ask yourself, “Why doesn’t this bozo tuck a big napkin under his chin when he eats to avoid getting food all over the place?”

I do that, but I also find that in the course of the meal, the napkin inevitably comes loose and voila! A spill ensues. If I add more napkins or, heaven forbid, show up with an adult bib, people in the restaurant are going to mutter, “What’s wrong with that poor schlep?”

My tummy, of course, is the issue. Years ago, I had a dad bod. Now I have a granddad bod. There’s so much more of me to love.

I do diet carefully — for about three days. Several times a year.

My dear wife coerces me to go to the gym with her…a couple of times a month.

I have a snack shelf upstairs in our house, where my office is. I have a snack drawer right under it. I have a dorm fridge that is stuffed with stuff right this minute. When I work from home, I eat from home, too. I eat a lot.

Then I ask my lovely spouse what’s at the root of my corpulent tummy.

“Duh….” She says, gesturing to the shelf, the drawer, the little fridge and the Little Debbie’s crème-filled oatmeal cookie in my hand. (She doesn’t know about the secret shelf in my office where I hide my Oreos.)

I know there’s a direct connection between the size of my tummy and the food festooned upon my shirts. I’ve decided if I can lower my weight by diet and exercise, there will be less tummy sticking out waiting to grab falling food items as I eat.

So, I’m dieting. My snacks are high-protein and high-fiber. I eat smaller portions. I eat salads. I walk. I do exercises. I think thin.

And I’ve been doing this for 10 days. When I got on the bathroom scale this morning, I had lost exactly no pounds. Zip. Zilch.

Yes, I know that sometimes when you start changing your diet and activity, nothing happens for a while and then, one day you get on the bathroom scale and it sings lightweight songs to you. I’m looking forward to that. I think I’m close.

My wife is not so sure.

“Where did you hide those Oreos?” she asks.