Apple Fritters

While watching the news the other day, I was shocked at a story on how scientists discovered that 30% of Americans have a virus that causes obesity. And it is contagious! Now I knew the loss of my teenage body had nothing to do with no longer working out for two hours a day like I did when I was 18, or nothing to do with eating only tiny amounts for days like I did when I was 18, or nothing to do with maybe eating too much pizza.

It was a virus! I could give up walking every morning, give up counting calories, and just acknowledge I had a virus. How wonderful! I wonder who gave it to me? It was definitely someone that I really don’t like. Maybe I would give it to someone else. That got me to thinking who I would choose to breathe on over the next several months.

So last night I had to go to the store for bread and milk right around suppertime. I was very hungry. Upon entering Wal-Mart I headed for the apple fritters. I told my daughter that I was starving, and would eat an apple fritter to hold me until supper.

She grabbed my arm and reminded me that this week I had wanted to lose three pounds. That I could not lose three pounds if I ate the apple fritter. I explained that it was not the apple fritter that would keep the three pounds, it was because I had a virus. She shoved me away from the bakery and back into the store.

Now everyone knows you are not supposed to shop hungry. People buy all kinds of crazy stuff they don’t need when they shop hungry. I explained this to my daughter, but she still stood between me and the fritters.

Now we had just been shopping a few days before and our cupboards at home were full. I really just needed bread and milk. But as I went through aisle after aisle, wondering what I should cook for supper, my cart began to fill up with all sorts of things that would never fit in my freezer. A quick trip to the store lengthened as I pondered which Hamburger Helper would be best, and if anyone really did eat pigs feet or tripe.

An hour and a half later we exited the store with my stomach still growling and even my daughter now complaining I had taken so long that she was near fainting with starvation. I told her to quit fussing, that she should have more sympathy for a woman with a virus.

She then told me that I had taken far too long studying how many Lean Cuisine dinners constituted one serving for a woman who was now famished, and she could not wait for me to cook all that Hamburger Helper. We would drive through Taco Bell or she would die.

Happy to run through Taco Bell and grab some supper now that my virus was really acting up, I pulled into the line that was about 35 cars long. I knew immediately that these must also be virus ridden people that had been forced away from apple fritters and were now desperate for a beef-bean-burrito. I must be patient. We sick people needed to stick together.

Three hours later we made it through the line and returned home happily finishing our Mexican feast. Since it was now very late at night and it was taking me hours to fit all those groceries in a freezer already stuffed, my daughter left to take her bath and get ready for bed. While cramming the last Lean Cuisine on the bottom freezer shelf I heard a screech from the bathroom and ran to see what was wrong.

My daughter was shaking her head with frustration while standing on the scale. She kept repeating that she had barely eaten a thing for three days and had jogged nearly 6 miles, and, yet, she still had gained 3 pounds. How could that have possibly have happened?

Being the exemplary and self-restrained mother that I am, I refrained from telling her that my grandmother would have said it was because you "don’t spit up in the air," and I mentioned nothing about "poetic justice." I knew repeating my grandmother’s wisdom would only have made her madder, and I realize that young peoples’ idealistic views on how life should work take age and time before they settle down to reality. And I also realized that I should have just gone ahead and eaten the apple fritter.