Heavyweight

I was athletic in high school.
I was a heavyweight on the wrestling team. This sport required that you be in tip-top shape. I never reached my potential. I would smoke pot before practice. Once a teammate threw me on my stomach and a small cloud of pot smoke came out of me. The coaches were sniffing and looking around.

I never did get in shape. Once during a match, the seam in my pants ripped open revealing my butt crack to the cheerleaders. From the horrid expressions on their faces, I knew they didn’t like what they saw.

My football career was less impressive. I was the heaviest player on the team and the slowest. One hot summer I laid down on the tires we were supposed to be jumping through. The coach told the team to run over my fat ass. My back was sore for a week after that.
That was a long time ago. I didn’t let too much bother me in those days.

Soothe My Soul

I cannot maintain a proper diet.
My self-control and discipline have always been lacking. It isn’t the hunger–I rarely feel that.
It isn’t the small portions or vegetables.
It is cheeseburgers and French fries with catsup. It is chocolate cheesecake, pepperoni pizza and fried chicken.
These foods soothe my soul, and keep me fat.

The last time I checked my blood pressure, the cuff tightened, then exploded.

I haven’t had a date since Bush was president. I ask myself, do you want to be a lonely blimp on the verge of a heart attack, or do you want to be thin, in a relationship, and have a life that is wonderful?
Tough question.

Full of Balogna

This young attractive girl at work said, “You are full of bologna.”
I told her that I have been eating bologna all my life. I love it.
I once had a job in a deli slicing bologna, and in six months I gained forty lbs. Fortunately, when the owner realized my weight gain was from his bologna, I was fired. I would’ve looked like a blimp in another month or so.

Nutritionally, bologna has fat which keeps you warm in winter.
Cheese has calcium for strong bones.
This country grew into a superpower eating white bread. Mayonnaise makes everything go down the hatch smoothly. If you eat a sandwich thick with bologna and cheese, you will be full until dinnertime. If you need vitamins and fiber, add a piece of lettuce.

The young attractive girl, she said if I lose eighty to one hundred pounds, I might start to become attractive. I like her. She is nice.

Eat Light

This winter is making spring and summer look exceptionally good.
This harsh winter is affecting people in unusual ways.

The produce lady at the supermarket was punching a watermelon, the red flesh spewing onto the floor with seeds scattering everywhere.
I ignored her and walked faster, then missed getting my bananas.

The cashier’s fingers were very shaky, and she said my total was 97 dollars and 17 cents. I knew there was a problem, because I had only purchased a loaf of high fiber wheat bread. I would’ve been pissed, but she had a hot body, and I enjoyed watching her try to fix the problem.

As I made my way into the parking lot, a man looked directly at me and then pushed his cart straight at me. Just before his cart hit me, I noticed he was cross-eyed. The weather has gotten to me, too.
I dodged his cart, looked him in the eyes and said, “Watch it, buddy, or I’ll knock your eyes straight!”

Stay inside. Eat light. Worship the sun. Be brave.

Moving to the Amazon

After this horrible winter I am moving to the hot Amazon rain forest.

I would rather wrestle an anaconda than deal with the snow and ice.

I would rather let a tarantula crawl up my pants leg than deal with another freezing day.

I would fight a tribe of man-eating headshrinkers, as long as it is above eighty degrees.
This last slip on the ice caused a rib fracture and two sleepless nights of pain.
Enough!  Amazon, here I come. Goodbye, cruel North.                             

Gold medals

I didn’t make the Olympic team this year, but I could have medaled in the following events:
SNORING, I can get loud– One night the neighbor called and said that I was waking up his children. I do know I have scared the dog.
NOSE PICKING, After years of training, my index finger is very fast. I can flick a bugger while driving.
BREAKING AND LOSING READING GLASSES, This month I lost three pairs and broke two. This may be a world record.
These are not Olympic events, but if they were I would be a gold medalist.

Me, the Saints, and the Pistol

Oh no, Coach Larry is looking at me again, and he’s going to yell.
“Get the damn ball to Mike, he can score too.”

Coach Larry knew his basketball, and I was his starting point guard for the Saint John’s Saints 6th grade team. We beat every 6th grade team in Frederick County.

I was four-foot-five, quite round and could dribble, pass, and shoot.
My over grown teammate Rob “The Pistol” Schantz was six-foot-three, fast, and talented. We beat Waverly 66 to 12. I had nine points and “The Pistol” had fifty-seven.
I made one shot from the corner after my shorts had fallen to my ankles. The three fans, one of whom was my father, were amazed. This is how legends are born.

The year end banquet was well attended that year. Coach Larry announced that the unsung hero award went to the player who could dribble with his belly and score with his pants down, Stephen Lebherz.

The crowd cheered as I proudly accepted my award.

Brothers United

1969 was a good year. I was an eleven-year-old boy, and one chilly night I was laying on the floor watching TV.  My older brother burst into the room, said, “I’m drunk,” falls onto the floor beside me, throws up, rolls his face in the barf and moans.
I had been watching, Night of the Living Dead, so at first I thought my brother was a zombie. He had left with the juvenile delinquent neighbor Chip earlier, and I knew they would get in trouble. They took a fifth of my father’s Old Grand Dad, and drank it all.

My brother was thirteen and he had ruined my movie. My parents or my oldest brother would be home soon. If it was my parents the shit was going to hit the fan.  I thought I saw lights coming up the driveway– in comes Bob.
“What smells?”
“Bob, look, he is drunk, and he threw up, and pushed his face in it!”
Bob said, “I’m going to get him upstairs. You clean up this mess before Mom and Dad get home.”
When they did get home the rug was clean, but there was a big wet spot.
They had been living it up themselves and never knew a thing.

The Ice Storm

I’m not the camping type. When the ice storm knocked out our power four days ago, I didn’t know it was going to lead to a near nervous breakdown.

After two days without water I looked and smelled like Bigfoot. A lady behind me in line at the grocery store said, “What stinks?” 
She was staring at me, and that was the least of my worries, so I cut a loud fart. The ice storm and it’s aftermath was turning me into a big stinky lunatic.

My home was cold, no heat, no water, no TV, no fun.

At night for entertainment I watched a candle flicker.  I read by flashlight. I ate what was in the warm refrigerator just to keep it from spoiling.  When I finally got a shower at the gym, I had forgotten what it was like to see a grown man naked from two feet away.
This whole experience has been an eye opener.

The Weekend Kitchen Supervisor

Some things are hard to believe.
That I would last four years as a Weekend Kitchen Supervisor
at the Record Street Home for the Aged is hard to believe.

Working there one weekend can cause constipation, back troubles, some mental anguish, and pains in the ass. The residents are all women over the age of eighty-eight–some diabetics, some with food allergies, and the rest are just picky old bitches.

Getting the meal out is like finishing a puzzle. No potatoes on this plate, no prunes on that plate. My assistants are older women too, who have been doing their jobs for decades and don’t like supervision. I’ve already told them that I won’t fight men anymore, but I’ll take on a couple of women. I’ll hold my flattened hands in the air and tell them I know karate.

“Mrs. Brown says her oatmeal is cold,” Loretta yells as she comes through the swinging door.
“Nuke it one minute.”

Rosa says, “Mrs. Snyder says the bacon knocked her dentures loose. She wants to speak to you.”
“Just tell her, ‘Don’t eat the bacon!’ Tell her that her Poly Grip let loose and to just eat the eggs.”

Wow! I made it through breakfast…a long day ahead with two more meals to go.