MY View

Tall, Thin Dude

Have you people noticed nothing in the last two years?

Granted, we were locked down for some of the time. Maybe we were all too preoccupied with what we were being told about the pandemic. That can account for some of it. But we’ve been mostly mobile again for at least the last year.

In that time, did it occur to none of you to tell me I’m getting too fat?

I know it’s not the simple fact that you were just being courteous. Courtesy, in this day and age, is dead. I can prove it be the tone of my emails and phone messages. People don’t seem to have qualms about being critical anymore. The old saying “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all” has been put to rest.

My schedule changed dramatically over the last two years. As part of that, whatever exercise regimen that was in place at that time has been tossed aside. And let’s just say I’m not making excellent nutritional choices.

Well folks, that has come to an end. Last week was the final straw. In one instant, it became crystal clear that a change had to be made.

I was in a meeting with coworkers. Now, I’ve had a lot of embarrassing things happen in my life, dating back to my elementary school years when I had a perfect triangle chipped out of two front teeth when a buddy and I were playing catch with a rock. This event ranked right up there. In the act of making an extremely important point in this meeting, I leaned forward in my chair. In that instance, the universe screamed out to me that change needs to come. As I shifted my increasing mass, the chair I was perched upon gave up, literally and figuratively. Both front wheels snapped off, with each jettisoning into walls on opposite sides of the room.

Now I’ll grant you that it was a cheap chair, but that did nothing to massage my ego, which obviously is much smaller than my waistline.

When we made sure no one was hurt by any flying objects and after the laughter died down, my first words were this: “My diet starts now.”

Now I’ve been on plenty of diets in my life. I’d venture to guess that I’ve lost hundreds of pounds. Unfortunately, I’ve gained hundreds of pounds plus about 50. My first big weight loss challenge came when I was in college. My father told me I couldn’t lose 25 pounds by Thanksgiving. I lost 40. I ate at the same place every evening in college. There was a diner on the university campus where they’d yell out a nickname they gave you when your order was ready, like “Guy with Glasses, order up!” For me, they yelled, “Big Guy!” Within a couple months, they renamed me “Tall, Thin Dude.”

That’s mentally where I’m at. I’m now the Tall, Thin Dude again, if only in my mind. In body, hopefully he returns. I’m officially trying.

BY JOHN McLOONE