Revenge of the Grinch

           ‘Tis the season to be jolly …and fat.  The Christmas season and the New Years celebrations are normally a time for joy, food and drinks, and a variety of festivities. It’s all great fun and it’s also a time when we can justify letting our guard down to do some “over-indulging.”  That’s what we do at this time of the year. We have no choice.  It’s in our DNA. And it’s not just at Christmas.

            Gayle and I like to take cruises.  We actually took a cruise at Christmas once. Here again, unless you have the will power of Mahatma Gandhi you are going to eat yourself silly on a cruise.  Let’s face it. That’s what you are forced to do as a captive on a ship at sea. Statistics indicate that a person on a cruise ship will average an increase of one pound for every day of the cruise. 

If you took a picture of a cruise ship leaving port for Europe and another photo of the same ship returning after a two week cruise, the ship’s displacement would increase and you would notice it riding lower in the water. After all…the increase in the tonnage of chubby passengers could sink the sucker if it stayed at sea much longer.  That’s why ships disappear in the “Devil’s Triangle.”  

            So everyone makes a New Year’s resolution to lose weight on January 2^nd.  And everyone jumps “on the wagon” when the thought of a drink causes a migraine the day after. How do we combat this?  And do we even want to combat it?

            Most senior citizens have probably learned to go easy on the booze, but how do you bypass the food?  Gayle and I live at 4500 feet elevation. Since the air is thinner here, the pressure inside our bodies pressing outward causes us to look fat. That’s why they pressurize airline cabins. Passengers could explode otherwise. And that’s why skiers seem bigger when they get off the chair lift than when they got on at the bottom of the hill.  Ever notice that?

Although we haven’t been able to confirm this theory and our scale belies our claim that it’s the fault of the altitude, we continue to hold to our belief.  It’s similar to those who hold to the belief that human beings are causing the sea levels to rise and the glaciers to melt, as though global climate didn’t fluctuate prior to the industrial revolution.

            I had a friend who put on so much weight one Christmas that he was harpooned by a crazed Eskimo in the country club swimming pool.  I had another friend who tried to lose weight by covering his body in Preparation H.  It actually shrunk him, but to this day he still looks like a hemorrhoid. People shortcut their intestines, wire their mouths shut, go through aversion therapy and even graze on grass. But why?

What man would want a woman who looked like those bony fashion models strutting down the “runway?”  Well, maybe that’s the wrong question to ask, but those emaciated women need to spend two weeks on a cruise ship. Look at their faces.  They all look angry.  They walk angry. They are angry. They’re angry because they’re hungry.

            I think the problem is not how much we weigh. The problem is gravity. On the moon, my weight would be right where the insurance tables say I should be. Instead of worrying about global warming, we should be working on adjusting gravity.

            So forget the “New Year’s” guilt. The extra weight will keep you warm in February.