Funnel Cakes and the Perils of Eavesdropping

January 2, 2006

Let’s start with a story. Once upon a time at the Fourth of July fair, around a year ago, I was in the ridiculously long line for funnel cake. In front of me were two of your stereotypical fifteen-year-old airheads. In my boredom I listened in to the conversation in front of me. This is it to the best of my recollection.

“Like, did you hear about [I forgot her name.]?”

“No, why?”

“I heard she wraps bubble and plastic wrap around her waist and then goes out running.” [Here, I zoned out. What the hell was wrong with this girl? I’ve heard of extreme weight losing measures, but that was just stupid. I had made the dangerous assumption that people were intelligent enough to know that sweat was water weight and had to be replaced.]

“That’s just water weight," the second one responded. "It’ll never work.” [Well what do you know, my faith in the human race might not be totally be shattered.]

“I think I need to lose weight. I mean, I’m really getting fat,” continued the first one. [Screw it, all hope is lost.]

“Ya, you kind of are. So am I. I think I gained five pounds in just the last week.” [Wow, that’s just plain amazing. It took me a whole summer vacation of laziness, junk food and no exercise what so ever to gain four.]

Now then, considering that spare weight tries to proportion itself, I think I had a pretty good perspective of how fat they were. I’ve seen twigs with more weight.

Now, before anyone gets on about eavesdropping, I’ll say I probably shouldn’t have been listening to them gripe and moan about their weight. Well I was bored and didn’t even know them.

So here is my opinion on the conversation. There are people the size of trucks walking around. Yet there are people thinking that if they’re gaining a pound the world is coming to an end, hell is freezing over, and heaven is falling on everyone’s heads. If you’re going to be worried over it, get out of the funnel cake line and let the people who don’t care get to the booth faster.

Name: Minerva, Goddess of geeks. Age: 14 Occupation: Writing food essays, going to school and driving Mom crazy. Hobbies: Collecting quotes, petting dogs, messing up my friend's hair and annoying my Mom. Life so far: Born. Made it through middle school alive. My Favs: Ice cream, my dog, .hack , 3rd period, the Daily Show, british humor. anime, the Discovery Channel and my iPod. My Minions: my dog, Duke, Phil the Wizard Monkey of Oz, Ed Elric and Patsy Stone.

Email questions or comments for these two young women to webmaster@drgourmet.com.