Cult of Jef

If I could have fore­seen the dan­ger, I never would have gone into the kitchen.  But I was up late, read­ing, and it was time for my late night bribe.  You see, I had made a deal with myself that I would treat myself to a lit­tle something-something in exchange for mak­ing the trek to the gym each day.  It was how my mother bar­gained with me to take med­i­cine as a child, and how my father once con­vinced me ride shot­gun to Hous­ton with him to repos­sess an El Camino, but that’s another story for another day.

In March I had looked into the bath­room mir­ror and saw a naked Pills­bury Dough­boy stand­ing before me.  I gen­tly poked a fin­ger in my puffy tummy, but it didn’t make me gig­gle.  It had seemed only yes­ter­day that I had lost 20 pounds by cut­ting out processed foods and doing car­dio every day.  But then the hol­i­days came and I cheated here, and cheated there, and then extended the hol­i­days to Saint Patrick’s Day.  I knew things had got­ten out of hand when I sat down and the but­ton popped off my pants, ric­o­cheted off the walls, and knocked the cat cold.  Some­thing had to be done.

I walked up Glen­wood Avenue to Snap Fit­ness because I fig­ured the closer the gym, the greater chance I would make it there.  The trainer per­formed a phys­i­cal eval­u­a­tion on me, and I was sur­prised to learn that my Body Mass Index (BMI) was obscene and I had no flex­i­bil­ity.  I mean who cares whether or not I can touch my toes?  I’m only con­cerned that I can pose for the cover of Men’s Health at any moment’s notice and be the “after” model–not the “before” model.

I stretched and hit the weight machines.  I started light, con­cen­trat­ing on proper form, and added a lit­tle more weight each week.  At the trainer’s sug­ges­tion, I gave up sprint­ing around the park as fast as I could until I threw up, and col­lapsed in a dif­fer­ent neighbor’s yard.  Instead, I shook things up with the tread­mill, recum­bent bicy­cle, and the ellip­ti­cal trainer, which I always mis­pro­nounce as the epilep­tic trainer.

I promised myself I’d go every day.  Some­times, I’d go first thing in the morn­ing, fly­ing through my day with a sense of accom­plish­ment.  Other times I would put it off as long as pos­si­ble.  Finally, the guilt would get to me and I’d end up at the gym around mid­night.  I’d pedal onward while the tele­vi­sion screens above me showed a T.V. show where grown men in ath­letic sup­port­ers com­peted to see how long they could hold a stun gun on their pri­vate parts before pass­ing out.  In a weird way, it inspired me, so I picked up the pace a little.

Besides exer­cise, I needed a nutri­tion plan to lose the extra fat and build mus­cle.  Unfor­tu­nately, most of what I’d like to eat is not included.  I knew I could never stick to any crazy diets, and needed to find healthy solu­tions when­ever I ate out.  I learned about the good fats and their evil twins.  I dis­cov­ered which car­bo­hy­drates are imme­di­ately processed into fat by the body, which carbs are burned slowly through­out the day.  In the end, avoid­ing processed foods worked best for me.  I ate a lot lean pro­tein, veg­eta­bles, fruits, and cer­tain grains.  No mat­ter where I went, I could usu­ally find a salad, and the extra fat began melt off.  I checked my progress con­stantly when­ever I passed a mir­ror.  I became so focused on it that one sunny day I caught myself lift­ing my shirt and check­ing out my abs in the reflec­tion of a Porsche in the Tar­get park­ing lot.

As I flipped on the light and padded into the kitchen, my mouth had already begun to water for what kept me pump­ing iron, tak­ing that next step on the tread­mill, and shov­el­ing more let­tuce into my mouth:  Pop­si­cle No Sugar Added Fudgsi­cle.  At the end of the day, there’s some­thing about the cool, choco­laty creami­ness that makes every­thing seem bet­ter.  I opened the freezer, unwrapped a fudgsi­cle, and popped into my mouth while I loaded dirty glasses into the dish­washer.  When I reached to pull the frozen treat out of my mouth, though, I real­ized it was stuck.  My lower lip was caught on the Fudgsi­cle like that kid’s tongue to the frozen flag­pole in A Christ­mas Story.  I couldn’t believe it.  It was sum­mer for Pete’s sake!  Plus, I’d been eat­ing Fudgsi­cles my entire life with­out an inci­dent.  Why now?

I wasn’t patient enough to wait until the Fudgsi­cle melted, so I finally just gave it a good tug.  Aigh!  It felt like some­one ripped a tat­too off bare flesh, but my lit­tle something-something was free and ready for me to enjoy, so I popped it back in my mouth.  How­ever, this time it tasted funny.  I pulled out the Fudgsi­cle; it was cov­ered in blood.  Not a lit­tle drib­ble of blood, but like Old Faith­ful gush­ing to impress tourists to Yel­low­stone National Park.  I grabbed some nap­kins out of the pantry and pressed them against my lower lip, yet it con­tin­ued to bleed.  I was debat­ing if I could make a tourni­quet with the twist-tie from a loaf of bread when 2F’s stag­gered into the kitchen.

““What are you doing?” he asked, rub­bing his eyes.

““Yi wipped muh wowah wip off wif a Fuchshickle,” I said, as the white nap­kins that were glued to my lips with dried blood flapped in the air like a duck’s bill.

Jeff stud­ied me for a moment.  “I think I still must be dream­ing because this is even too weird for you.”  He wan­dered back to bed as I con­sid­ered how guilty he would feel when he found my body pros­trate in a pool of dried blood the next morning.

In the end, I didn’t bleed to death.  I ripped the top layer of my lower lip off.  It was ten­der for about a week.  I was scared I would need a skin graft from behind to cos­met­i­cally restore my mouth to the sexy and plump lip I had before, but it was unnec­es­sary.  When peo­ple asked what hap­pened to my mouth, I told them I bit a bul­let.  An awk­ward moment would pass, then they would smile, and mean­der off with­out a word.

So the next time you tip­toe into the kitchen for a mid­night snack, be wary of frozen foods.  Whether it’s ice cream on a stick or a raw fish fil­let, be sure to lube that baby up with spit real good before you stick in your mouth.  Should you find that a piece of frozen food has attached itself to your lips, do not panic.  Just hold your head under run­ning water until it slips free.  Oth­er­wise you bet­ter have plenty of nap­kins and a twist tie handy.