Extremely Malnourished and Incredibly Shallow

by Jallison Sharting Fatso

The 3 glorious months of living off the fat of the land, a.k.a. graduation $$, have come to a screeching halt and the only thing left in my pantry is a box of instant mashed potatoes.

My problem is that my spending habits always seem to adjust to my income, and by adjust I mean exceed. I go immediately into sushi-for-every-meal mode. And what goes better with sushi than a new Macbook Pro? Nothing. $4000 quickly becomes $-34 plus a post-it note from my landlord saying "reminder: rent was due yesterday". I've realized 3/4 of all my purchases are from restaurants. My Wells Fargo bank statement looks like a ban-list for a WeightWatchers participant, with Taco Bell listed over 6 times for emphasis. My mother sat me down to make a "budget", which has always been a word ranking just below "diet" on the list of things I wish adult women would stop talking to me about.

Her first suggestion was to save all food related receipts and keep them in a place where I can easily be shamed by them, like the cup holder of my car. However, shame hasn't been quite the effective motivator since I got a bowl hair cut and a "flames" themed wardrobe right before switching to a new school in the 5th grade. The stack of receipts is quickly crunched down by my Rolo McFlurry cup.

Her second and third attempts took the form of emails about Type II Diabetes and starvation in the third world. Both "made me feel bad" as I guess was their intent but they really only curbed the spending of that particular afternoon. Guilt seems like a powerful driving force, but it never really inspires change beyond the handful of situations immediately following.

The closest thing to actual, long lasting motivation for self-control came yesterday afternoon when, after ordering a Big Mac sandwich, I pulled forward to find the McDonald's drive-thru attendant to be morbidly obese- the kind of girth that demands elastic and makes roller coasters out of the question. In a moment of clarity that unfortunately coincided with a moment of eye contact, I put my foot to the gas and kept driving without paying or picking up my food. If McDonald's replaced the giant pictures of 'Quarter Pounders with Cheese' on the windows with equally giant pictures of 'Donna at the Drive-Thru Window' it would really solve a lot of my problems.

Ba-da-bum-ba-da... I'm an asshole.

If God is a DJ, Life is a Dancefloor

Guess who's back at home? That's right, I am. And today is Sunday, so today my blinds were opened "to let the Son shine in, the Risen Son!" at 8f30 a.m. I'll let you decide if that was a typo. Born Again Radio blared from the living room and after an hour of fashioning ear plugs out of pillow tassels, I lifted my "grouch pouch" (body) out of bed and out the door to avoid any further "You're not coming to Church with us :(?" questioning.

Being a recent graduate, I already feel a pressure to BE AN ACTUAL ADULT/make my Facebook page look better, so my mom's "good adults go to church" dogma gets to me more than, say, her "don't eat that much cheese before bed" one. All I'm saying is if the cheese is there, I'm not just "going to sleep" without eating it! LOL Moms R from Mars, Kids R from Venus!

Maybe if this guy was going Sunday morning, I'd go. I feel like he would have a sweet list of books about how Andy Warhol was Christian without knowing it that he could jot down for me. Color me appreciative!

Runnin' Wit Chocolate: A Short Story About My Waning Popularity

I exercise like a dojo, so it's only fitting that I start this story by telling you I rode the stationary bike in the gym tonight for 20 minutes. I'm not bragging because it's such a usual thing for me to work up a sweat, I'm just telling you to "set the scene" as Shakespeare once said, probably.

So I'm riding the bike, listening to my power song (which I will never reveal to you) and I realize... I'm straight up panting, I mean pan-ting like a dog; a dog who hasn't ran even close to a mile in years and counts masturbation as exercise. My music was blocking out the heaving, and when I realized the decible of sound coming from deep within me it was too late; the damage was done and everyone around me could tell this, was a New Years resolution workout. And also, I ate a whole tube of BBQ Pringles earlier today. Nike Active Capris was looking at me with pity usually reserved for amputees and Tiny Reebok Shorts was smiling up over a book that I will now bitterly guess was Eat, Pray, Love. I was bright red and I'm sure I looked like some devil/puffer fish version of Donald Trump. So I did what any other self-respecting dojo would do, I kept working out for five more minutes at a sneakily decreased setting; then I left.

I was on my way back to my dorm room when I decided to stop by my friend Chad's to see how his Christmas break had been. It turns out he went to Kansas so all his stories were really boring, but in the middle of a story about "the pictures of his Grandma 'doing Rodeo' in the 50's" I remembered I had left like, 3 giant Hershey chocolate bars in his room after a bonfire last semester and he's really healthy so they were totally still there! Hooray! I left instantly because fate had run it's course and I even decided to run back to my dorm since my workout had been cut short.

I sprinted the lower parking lot and then proudly bent over in front of Nease Hall to heave the dey-vil spirits out. Bending over I discovered the chocolate bar closest to my sweaty palm had completely melted so I licked it off. I heard laughing and spotted, just over the horizon, Nike and Reebok on a cool-down walk after their rigorous workout. They passed me within seconds and it was too late to hide the evidence of the 3 giant Hersey bars that probably said "Family Size!" on them somewhere, so I stood there still borderline panting, meekly licking my palms trying to act like I was too pre-occupied (with licking myself (?)) to notice them.

Let's hear it for 2011!