MIDRIFF

According to the Probert Encyclopedia and International Slang Dictionary ones midriff is synonymous with the proverbial SPARE-TYRE. Now I don’t want to be cynical but when you start defining the sleek tight abdominal region being flabby as a natural state then we’ve gone too far into the Twinkie zone! I’m all in favor of cream filled goodies mind you but when you are shaped like a Hostess cupcake it’s time to start thinking of an exercise program.

Heck I’m sure I jog 100 miles back and forth to the refrigerator over the course of any given month I tell my friends. They respond, “That is not what one would define as a positive weight loss program you Ding Dong,” (if I make one more reference to a Hostess company product they’re gonna want a kickback from my lucrative writing perdeim. I don’t have to worry though because I’m contracted with a salary of Ho Ho’s and Snowballs. Uh oh too late I think I just broke the Hostess rule twice over (cha-ching…that’s the sound of Hostess making out like a bandit).

The obsession with food…no lets not even call this stuff food. That would be ridiculous. Any edible product that has a shelf life exceeding 10,000 years because of its preservatives should not be considered food. The wise ones among us no longer consider this stuff nutritious.

Heck in college my roommates and I lived on only junk food, beer, and cup o’ soup! Perhaps it is in that period when my mind became warped by all of those glutamates, sulphates, and dextromathorifanic material put into these products to keep them fresh. I’m sure if my 13th birthday cake had been loaded with all that stuff that I could eat it at my retirement party and find it tasting pretty much the same as if I had just blown out the candles as a teen.

My writing has never been the same since college however. The professors use to laugh at my humorous compositions all the time. I thought they found it amusing but when I think back on it and coupling that with their head shaking and “F” grade giving perhaps they were laughing at my slow descension into a world that would make Willie Wonka smile.

Now if you listen to what all of the current children’s television programs tell you about eating only fruits, vegetables, and a balanced breakfast I need to know how would you get all of the energy required to make it through your busy day? Without sugar where would we be? Captain Kangaroo use to promote cereal with tons of sugar when I was growing up. We had T.V. dinners, pudding in metal cups and we took our sandwiches to school without any ice packs or thermos items to keep our brown bag stuff fresh until lunch time. It’s amazing the whole school wasn’t wiped out by some great food poisoning outbreak. I think we were immune to such eventualities because of all of those special preservatives in the Hostess pies and cakes (cha-ching - more kickbacks).

Today’s well balanced meals being snuck into children’s lives are even further removed from true nutrition. In the name of convenience you can pick up an entire meal for their lunches in the chilled food aisle. There’s pizza, hot dogs, turkey, ham, and nacho lunches all prepared and ready to be devoured. They come with a fruit drink which could attract a thousand honey bees at a hundred paces!

The effect is about a million times the sweetness of the fruit they are purported to come from and there is a dessert which is usually a candy bar. That’ll top out their day at school or the day care. No wonder ADHD is a big problem with today’s youth. All of that sugar sends them bouncing off the walls in the doctors office. I for one can tell you doctors are fond of their walls and will prescribe something to calm children down just so their walls will stay intact. Ritalin should be called rid-a-lad as often as they dole out the stuff!

We no longer have time to invest in the three main meals a day like when mom stayed home to make sure we had some real food to balance all of those cookies and cakes. Now this high sodium, super caloric, mountainous carbohydrate loaded material is being pumped into the next generation like you would not believe. The Oompa Loompa’s would not be happy! As a matter of fact our kids are beginning to look Oompa Loompa-ish!

Aside from enabling them to belch like sailors on shore leave stumbling out of the bar as they head to the port brothel there is little nutritional benefit to the youngsters. Yeah, our children are going to live longer but not because medical science has realized any stunning medical break through. Their longevity will be due to the Twinkie to the third power advancement that makes up their diet now.

What has all of this got to do with midriff? Well spend some time looking at your children’s stomach. Is it flat and tight like yours and mine were growing up? The answer is probably not. The odds are that you’re building a little porker there that is only going to be satisfied by one sweet piece of junk food after another. They are little sugar addicts. On top of that no one wants to see a youngster in a bikini who thinks they’re sexy sporting a belly bigger than their dad.

Clothes have gotten bigger and the tag sizes deceptively smaller to accommodate the bulging spare tire we are saddling our youngsters with. It’s a psychological game and the hyjinks has our youth deluding themselves even more than we do as adults. That can’t be healthy. Consider that most of us think we look like Brad Pitt or Jennifer Anniston and you realize that we are as loopy as our children when it comes to rationalizing our appearance. C’mon 60% of us are “overweight,” (which is the Center for Disease Control’s terminology for “big fat tub of flab bouncing whale waving blubber). If our children get any bigger at birth hospitals will send them home with booties, a cap, and a onesie made for two.

It is time to shut off the valve of all those processed foods before you
wake up and find the stay-puff marshmallow kid lives in your house. Kick them out to play in the backyard with their friends away from the TV and keep the poppin fresh dough boy away from your child’s waistline. The midriff bulge is a sure sign your kid is a junk food junkie. You should make an effort to avoid burdening them with all the wonders that go with that state. After you get them strait you can work on your own mid section. It is twice as hard to eliminate that tire once you are middle aged. Holy cow that’s another troubling topic you have to worry about. Virtually all things you eat as a midde-ager ends up on the midriff! It’s troubling enough to send you to the Twinkie aisle (cha-ching)!

BEAUTY!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! I might agree to the premise however, the person who said that might have been cockeyed! I don’t have a typical view either! Can someone explain the beauty obsession to me? Mankind spent millions of years evolving from hairy, foul smelling, unsightly animals to become civilized creatures of devotion looking well groomed and bouncing down the road with a fragrant scented, appealing attire.

Womankind happily flocks to the nearest cosmetic counter to fritter away their hard earned dollars. They are oblivious to the picture of George Washington and the other Presidents on those precious bills. How ironic! Just think of how those legends and their wives lived. Wooden teeth, semi- weekly bathing, out houses, and something akin to towels instead of tampons were the order of their day. Have you tried to find the “beauty” of their wives? I don’t know how succeeding generations would have ever appeared if these men spent time looking at the mates they chose. Why people learned to close their eyes when kissing their partner makes perfect sense. It must have germinated from a sensory deprivation perspective so as to assure survival of the species. Holy cow the modern woman of the 1800’s was a presentation of unattractiveness! Apparently, ugly was a condition of Victorian age.

We turned the corner with the industrial revolution and beautification became more of a 20th century phenomenon. The second half of the 1900’s exploded with the message: WAKE UP YOU HIDEOUS THING! LOOK IN THE MIRROR IF YOU CAN WITHOUT CRACKING IT! All of this seemed to advance in the wake of the appearance of Phyllis Diller in the 1960’s. With her on the scene as a skinny, eye challenging, stand-up comedian with a wild housewife hairdo, she gave cause for the rest of America to reflect. They looked and while they could identify with the unsightly condition and laugh, they didn’t like what they saw in themselves! Enter Mary Kay, Max Factor, Maybeline and The Flintstones. The cartoon represents a point of view of escapism. It is where ugly people would go who hadn’t discovered how to change their look. Plus everyone could always count themselves as better looking than Fred. An obsession was born!

In this country we spend millions of dollars of our hard earned labor simply to make ourselves presentable to someone else. So what is so wrong with looking like your hair and face slept in a paper shredder last night? The Ugly Duckling is a wonderful story but Hans Christen Anderson was no beauty either. It really exemplifies where to look for the beauty most are seeking. You’ve sometimes got to look for the swan lurking under those feathers.

Men want to wake up next to Cheryl Tiegs or Christy Brinkly yes that is true. But do you know what those women look like without their make up? They look like our wives! How’s that for shattering your faith in Hollywood!

Why do we reject our prehistoric heritage so? I suppose the answer is obvious. Who wants to live with an unsightly stench ridden animal who is the victim of uglyosis? Ask most wives and they’ll tell you that state of existence is what marriage is all about. Okay so men are more masculine and our testosterone lets you know we’re coming into a room before we get there. What’s the big deal? How loudly do we complain when the lady’s paint their finger and toenails like cheap Singapore hookers offering the $7 Saturday night special? The color of choice by the way is always some shade of red! 4 out of 5 harlots prefer crimson over the other colors of the rainbow.

As men we have been trained by Madison Avenue to drool over whatever makeup freak show the feminine sex displays. We’ve been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog who by the way knew how to appropriately apply make-up better than the average women. Please ladies if you’re going to wear it take a make-up artist class or something. I spent too many blind dates in my youth going out with makeup victims who looked like ghost women or Krusty the Clown.

Senior men are not as dashing as the myth portrays either. Oh we’re striking alright; like the aftermath of an ugly stick attack! Looking at our reflection we yell “HEY WHO TOOK MY FACE!” Then we think to ourselves, “maybe it slipped while I was sleeping, and the good looking face is hidden under my protruding belly fat!” Sure we have as many folds of skin as a Shar-Pei (sharpay) puppy! We become as cute as old shriveled fruit left in the dehydrator. Just add a touch of grey to the temples we are considered distinguished. Ha, once again I’m glad to be of the less fair gender! Not having to wear high heels, and that baby thing, means men have got it better!

We’re allowed more delusion in our rationalization too. In reflecting upon this topic most men think “I don’t know where my youthful good looks have gone. If you want to see what Tom Cruise is going to look like in 25 years glance my way.” The deterioration would drive a lesser man over the edge. Actually at my house we just removed the mirrors. Men don’t want extra ordinary beauty measures especially after we’re married! We’re just happy scratching ourselves as all women with a Mrs. title in front of their name’s are well aware! Men want natural beauty without all of the aids! As someone who spent 35 + years looking for that special kind of beauty in a woman I understand that is hard to find. When I finally found her she needed no makeup at all. I won’t comment on any change in hers looks because I like sleeping in our bed. We sleep with our eyes closed too so I don’t have to comment on changes. Everything looks better in the dark and after a few drinks. Also, our couch is the kind that leaves ridges in your face when you sleep on it. If I keep going to work with face ridges my coworkers may get wise! So far my comrades just think they are the usual wrinkles.

Most women have a short window of opportunity to shine their best. Usually that occurs in their late teens to mid 20’s. After that being plain is an admirable goal. That is not true of all people however. It is because of those exceptions that the entire beauty industry thrives. It is for the rest of the plain people to kid themselves, remember their peak, and to dream on. As for me I avoid my reflection as much as possible and squint when I look at my loved one. At night she returns a loving glance ever the fibber about my sex appeal. It’s lucky for us that we both have x-ray vision to see beneath each other’s skin. Hers is under a pound of makeup! As for the pillows on our bed they are stuffed with down feathers from swans, or perhaps ugly ducklings!