And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance.
– From “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” screenplay by Richard Matheson and Richard Alan Simmons On Sept. 23, I told you I was 2.8 pounds from the target weight I set when I began my draconian diet of greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries and seeds.
That final 2.8 pounds proved to be awfully stubborn, but I finally hit the target last week. And I didn’t eat the pizza I had promised myself. I have loftier ambitions now.
You may cheer and applaud if you like. I certainly deserve it. This effort has taken more patience and discipline than I once thought I possessed.
I have now lost more than 30 pounds, which is the equivalent of one cinder block.
Now that I’m not carrying around part of a building under my shirt, I seem to have a bit more stamina. I might even take up wrestling again.
Perhaps I could challenge Bianca Belair to a match in much the same manner Bobby Riggs challenged Billy Jean King back in the ‘70s. I’m a little taller and a little heavier than Bianca, but she has youth on her side. It might be quite the bonanza on pay-per-view.
Then again, biological males competing against females is no longer unique in the 21st Century. Swimmer Lia Thomas even won an NCAA Division One Championship and was later nominated as Woman of the Year by the University of Pennsylvania. She overcame a clerical error at birth that mistakenly assigned her to the male gender. Or at least that’s the story I was told.
But I don’t wish to create “an unsafe space” by lingering too long on subjects I am ill-equipped to discuss.
The truth is, I may need to look into my own gender assignment. I was born close to Christmas and my mom told me her doctor was at a holiday party when he was summoned to the hospital for my arrival. I’m just saying, if the man was intoxicated when he delivered me, mistakes could have been made.
But that will involve a lengthy investigation I suppose, so I will have to get back to you on that.
You may have noticed I did not pen a column last week and our own Lance McCurley wrote a thoughtful piece about a local athlete who was shot and killed in a senseless fashion outside Sugarloaf Mall. Our plan is to rotate the column found on the front of the sports page each week, with Lance and Brendan Koerner each taking a turn followed by yours truly.
I just felt like it was time for these two young gentlemen to exercise their creativity and express their opinions.
Besides, everyone already knows how brilliant, insightful and modest I am. And now that I have lost so much weight, I can add svelte to that list of flattering adjectives. Well, almost.
It has occurred to me that if I keep eating salads, I could make an impact on climate change. If I am smaller, then it requires less energy to transport me from place to place. And if I eat less food, particularly animal products, I reduce my consumption footprint and make a sustainable Earth more possible.
According to material I found at the-incredible-shrinking-man. net website, “smaller people require less nutrients, water and energy to live under the same conditions and lifestyle of taller people. The energy requirements of a 50-centimeter human [that’s about 20 inches tall] might be approximately 60 calories per day. That’s the number of calories in a small apple and 2 percent of the caloric needs of an average person.”
If all people were 20 inches tall, “an average roasted chicken would feed 200 people. One potato would provide carbohydrates for 10 people and one tomato would equal soup for five.”
So, it seems that we all need to follow Steve Martin’s example and “Get Small.”
Then we could keep driving our F-350 diesels a bit longer, although Ford would have to start making them about three feet tall and put a ladder on the side of the truck for us little people.
But there is a problem with this approach to climate change. If we downsize ourselves and become a country of leprechauns, and the Chinese keep eating big bowls of fish, rice and noodles, pretty soon an army of giants shanghaied by President Xi Jinping will be sent to the United States to put us all in timeout.
But if Ron DeSantis becomes president and appoints me to the post of Chinese ambassador, I think I will be able to convince the Chinese boss that getting small would also be good for his country. After all, there are nearly 40 million people living in the Shanghai metro area alone. Making all of them 20 inches tall would create a lot of new room.
And while we’re talking world affairs, do you think Vladimir Putin would have invaded Ukraine if the average beagle could knock him on his butt?
Selah.