Wishful thinking?

Been thinking about how to finish up the “On the set” series and about New Year’s resolutions. So that means I’m thinking about how fat I am and how I should get off my lazy butt and lose some weight. I turned 44 this year, and I’d reckon that at least 32 times, I have made the New Year’s resolution to lose weight. I believe I actually achieved that goal only once.

Truth is that my resolutions haven’t been the least bit resolute in the last decade. I’ve pretty much given up. Diets only work for me so long, and then I stop losing weight for two months and then I quit, for what’s the point of punishing oneself for no reward? Therefor, I’ve basically thrown my fat present and future into the hands of fate.

Perhaps science will respond to my call for a solution, or maybe a more fantastical answer will come my way. Sometimes I like to daydream about the possibilities of who might come to my aid and solve my fat dilemma. I have three favorites.

A team of brilliant scientists in Buffalo, New York, or wherever the hell, develops an array of nanomachines for losing weight. For a couple thousand bucks, you gulp down a glass of liquid infused with these micro-fat-busters then await the results. While you go about your everyday life, the machines zip around your body gobbling fat cells (the whole cell, so you don’t have those critters waiting around to get filled back up with fat again once the machines are gone), and transporting them to your natural waste disposal facility. I figure they ought to manage a loss of at least two pounds a day. Nevermind how much of that day you’re going to be spending on the toilet. No pain, no gain, people.

After four or five days, you drink another batch of nanomachines, these designed to repair your poor stretched-out skin cells, which with such rapid weight loss, would leave you looking like a deflated balloon in short order if the cells aren’t whipped back into shape. In no time at all, you are thin with perfect skin. Pretty good fantasy.

This next one is better. A UFO abducts you, but it turns out that although they have poor people-meeting skills, the aliens are actually friendly. Their species is dying, and they need your help. If you’d give them some of your eggs, they’ll gladly help you lose weight (they only abduct fat women for this reason). You naturally agree immediately. They put you in a sealed tube, go to sleep, and let the aliens do their stuff. An unspecified amount of time later, you emerge from the cocoon an image of physical perfection. While you slept, they got rid of all the fat, they toned all your muscles (you enjoy making your stomach muscles ripple in front of the mirror they give you), and eliminated all the saggy skin with stretch marks. Sleeveless t-shirts, here you come.

You are so pleased with the results, you recommend them to all your fat lady friends. Now all you have to figure out is how to explain to the thin people in your life how you got so damned skinny so fast, because nobody will believe aliens abducted you.

The third and final fantasy may be the craziest, but it’s the most fun. A package arrives in the mail from your crazy old aunt who lives in Cairo. In the package you discover an old lamp. You know what to do. Three rubs and the genie pops out, offering to grant you three wishes. You’re ready for this, so right away you know wish #1 is for money (go for a lottery win so the IRS won’t get suspicious). Wish #2 is for a body makeover (I always make him include Hedon in this wish, too, so it’s like two wishes in one).

Now, here’s the key to this situation. Genies are tricky, and don’t really like to grant the wishes of their lamp-polishing mistresses. This means you can’t just say, “I wish I weighed 125 pounds.” The crafty genie will likely just leave you looking exactly as you do, but now when you step on any set of scales, you weigh 125 pounds, instead of 450. You might make the cover of a tabloid magazine, next to the 150-year-old woman who had given birth to a puppy, but that’s not really what you’re going for with this wish.

But you’re onto his wily ways, so you cleverly tell him that you want a body makeover that you will supervise each step of the way, and will tell him what needs to be done, and that the makeover isn’t over until you say it is, so that in the future you have the right to get unlimited retouches (because this makeover will NEVER be over). Now you have him where you want him, and should he try any of his shifty tactics, you can make him redo it until he gets it right.

So for the next several days, you stand in front of a mirror and tell him get rid of this fat, make this firmer, make this smaller, make this bigger. You have him zap off that mole you hate, and have your neck lengthened a bit, strengthen those fingernails so they aren’t breaking all the time, and designate in what areas hair may never grow again. Didn’t you always wish that your eyes were a little larger and little farther apart? You figure, what the hell, since you’re here, the genie might as well scrape all the plaque out of your veins, fix that trick knee, and give you a set of perfect white teeth, etc. And if you know anything about telemeres, you’ll be wanting him to reattach the loose ones onto the ends of your DNA (instant biological un-aging).

It’s important to not forget to have the genie strengthen your immune system. You’re one of the beautiful people now, with money to burn, so you’ll be wanting to travel. The last thing you need is some third-world parasite ending your pleasure cruise prematurely. Have him make that immune system truly immune.

If you play this right, the result will be your becoming a specimen of such human physical perfection, physicians will weep when they see you, mourning the loss of untold future income. And you still have one wish left! You’ve got everything you need now, so you might as well pacify that inner junior high kid and wish for world peace. What the hell. You’re benevolent in your perfection.

Oh god, if only …