Monday, January 21, 2013

Just Wrap Me Up and Call Me a Slim Jim


Just Wrap Me Up and Call Me a Slim Jim

By Cappy Hall Rearick

(reprinted from 2008)


"Thank you for calling the Weight Loss Hotline.

If you'd like to lose half a pound right now, press One

eighteen thousand times" ~Randy Glasbergen


The pain was awful. I was wrapped in ace bandages from my head down to my toenails while a big-haired woman, as though on a mission from God, squirted embalming fluid on me. This was supposed to make me skinny?

"The minerals seep deep in your pores, releasing ever one of them bad ol' impurities, Hon." I'd have liked those bad ol' martini impurities to stay right where they were, but my face was wrapped so tight that the Jaws of Life couldn't have pried my mouth open.

I shot a killer look at Mary Grace, the so-called friend responsible for my body torture. Tears poured down her face, which, incidentally, was NOT sealed like a bag of Fritos because she was afraid her make-up would streak.

She moaned. "I'm dying! I see the grim reaper in front of me."

"Nuuuhh uuuhh," I groaned. "iiiissss ooooeee mmeeee."

She quit sobbing and stared at what used to be me. "And you are...?"

Big-hair's sigh could be heard in Alaska. "That's your friend. The one you came in with." She slapped more wet fabric on my hips making my butt the color of a blueberry. Why did I let Mary Grace talk me into this?

"We'll lose a bunch of inches," she declared. "Georgette went from a size-eighteen to a six her first time."

"What'd she do, turn into human jerky? Mary Grace, who the heck is Georgette?"

"The owner of Wrapped Up. She's nice."

"You met her?"

"Of course. We chatted on the phone."

Mary Grace's new best friend hovered, successfully sabotaging an escape while her accomplice, the one with the biggest butt in Georgia, blocked the only exit. I'd have given them anything had they let us leave before we required life support.

Suddenly Mary Grace's whines intensified. "I'm begging you, Georgette," she sobbed. "If you unwrap us and don't hurt us anymore, we'll leave quietly."

Georgette ignored her. "Follow me," she ordered, giving my arm a yank. I was too terrified to resist. "Stand up straight! You look like a pretzel!"

My entire body was shrink-wrapped. I could barely blink. Stand up straight? I wanted to kill that woman.

Big-butt Broomehilde left the exit door to push my mummified body forward while Big-hair pulled. I staggered on feet wrapped in gauze and stuffed into plastic bags designed to collect my bad impurities. Mary Grace's sobs were the only other sounds heard except for the squish-squash of my bad impurities.

Wrapped up tighter than King Tut, I somehow made it to the rowing machine, at which point they ordered me to row for thirty minutes.

Surely they were not serious.

"But Aaaa haaa oooo eeee," I croaked.

"Why didn't you go before I wrapped you?"

I shook my eyeballs, my only moveable body parts.

"You'll just have to hold it."

"Nuuh uuuuhhh. Gottah goooo noowwww."

The she-devil glared, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I feared for my life. "You're such a baby," she snarled, then told Big-butt Broomhilde to help her unwrap me.

While they snatched me baldheaded, Mary Grace quit carrying on. "I gotta go, too!"

It took us ten minutes to get unraveled from the embalming wraps, and even less time to streak out of there before the bride of Dracula could catch us.

"Mary Grace, you said Georgette was nice."

"I take it back," she yelled, plowing through her pocketbook for car keys. "Delete. Delete. Delete!"

"Those women in there are certifiable, Mary Grace. That Georgette is a dominatrix. I've never been so scared in my life. I feel like slapping you silly."

A scowl formed on Mary Grace's face; her eyes turned black. "Touch this body, girlfriend, and you'll draw back a nub. Now get in the car."

Anytime my nubs are threatened, I do as I'm told. We didn't speak until we were well away from the house of horrors. Then Mary Grace started giggling and it was contagious. In no time, we were both laughing like a couple of hyenas.

"I need a tissue," she said, pulling over so she wouldn't kill us on I-95 while digging in her pocketbook. "My gawd. What an experience." She offered me a wadded up Kleenex.

I blew my nose. "Nobody is ever going to believe this."

She stopped laughing, grabbed my arm and squeezed hard. "Don't you tell a soul, you hear me? Not one word."

"Fear not, Mary Grace. I promise not to say one word."


There is no such a thing as a one-word column, right?

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Cappy Hall Rearick