August 1997 Sincerely Sire Newsletter
My Summer Vacation
There are 4 grams of fat in one serving of reduced-fat Wheat Thins (18 crackers) and 9 servings per box. I’m on a diet, so as an in-between meal snack, I just ate the whole box. Looks like I just ate 36 grams of fat, doesn’t it? But not really. Let’s take a closer look.
Consider this, if I had eaten a whole box of Original Wheat Thins, I would have packed in 51 grams of fat. So, I actually did not eat 15 grams of fat by eating the box of reduced-fat Wheat Thins.
You have to stay focused when you are dieting. That’s why I always stay focused on what I just didn’t eat even when I’m eating. This is the reason I eat all the reduced-fat food I can, because of all the fat I don’t eat when I’m eating it. I call it—The Zone. I must admit though, I’m having a heck of a time losing weight. My stomach feels like a snare drum.
In order to help me loose the 20-25 pounds I’d like to, Rosemarie, (my wife, pictured above, AKA Roe) decided to take me on a mini summer vacation, where you eat healthy, float effortlessly in warm mineral pools, and get massages. I ate plenty of healthy, low-fat food during our little getaway, (staying focused at all times on what I wasn’t eating, staying in—The Zone) and I floated in the mineral pools no problem. I also got a Swedish massage, a deep tissue massage, and a scalp massage. I should have stopped there, but Roe, determined that I would get the full massage experience, insisted that I have just one more rubdown. She wouldn’t tell me anything about it. She just said I would love it. It was called the Salt Glo and Herbal Steam Massage.
My final kneading started like this. I was told to disrobe, put a towel around my waist, and lay facedown on a table with a hole in it for my head. Through the hole I could see a drain in the middle of the floor. The damp, dimly lit, green-tiled room, was 8 feet long by 6 feet wide with a very low ceiling. By turning my head slightly to the left I could see a very old steel faucet on the wall with two long narrow handles, one marked hot and the other marked cold. Attached to the faucet was a long black hose.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Norman Bates entered the room and commenced to hose me down. The water was ice cold. “Ahccck!” I said.
“Oops,” she said.
“Is that cold?” She fumbled with
the hot and cold handles until she had me so I didn’t know whether I was coming
or going. “Ouch, ooch! Ooch ouch!
That’s hot, no cold, too hot, stop stop STOP!”
“Well,” she said, annoyed at both the faucet and me,
“I guess we can skip the water treatment.”
I paused and took a deep breath. Now the good part must be coming I thought. Next thing I know it feels like she’s mashing cold wet sand into the backside of my tender white legs. “What is that?” I screeched through the hole in the table, my back arching like a harpooned tuna fish.
“Epsom salt,” she said. “What’s the matter? Why are you arching your back like that? Am I rubbing too hard?”
“Just a little,” I said. “Is that drain in middle of the floor for
blood by any chance?”
I suffered the entire salt scrubbing, from head to toe, figuring there must be some payoff, since Roe had said I would love it. But there was no payoff, just skinoff.
Next she put me into one of those old style steam baths, where just your head sticks out, which burned off my remaining skin. And for the grand finale she rubbed me down with flowery smelling oil that made me sneeze.
Battered and torn, I nimbly tiptoed back to our room, where I found Roe and told her I felt like I had just been skinned alive. “Well,” she said cheerily, “you wanted to lose 25 pounds—Now let me tell you about this new Roman Celtic-Brush Combo Shiatsu . . .”