My Taste Level Worries Me

Case in point: My cheetah hat. 

I worry about my taste level often. My favorite station on Pandora is "Today's Top Hits." I love Facebook. Ho-Hos are delicious. I can forgive myself for those things, but it was during my 8th week of attending Weight Watchers meetings that I really started to worry. I love those meetings. Talking about food. Following their plan. Counting points! It's one thing to be a vegan. I'm not. That would be current and hip and edgy maybe. A 32-year-old Weight Watcher enthusiast? Keeping that to myself. Oh my gosh. So embarrassing.

A few weeks ago I saw a woman from my kid's school at a WW meeting and I wanted to die. No one was suppose to know I was going here. And now she's ruined it. I waved. She waved. We later admitted we haven't told anyone we're members. I never saw her at a meeting again. She must be going another day. One of us had to.

I used my experience at the meetings to write the beginning of a short story for class. The first line is one of the best opening sentences I've ever written. I worked on it forever and was really proud of myself for thinking it up. It's all down hill from there.

Ever since Todd’s wife got home from her Weight Watchers meeting, he’s been hiding in their bathroom. The toilet is the safest chair in the house. He runs here often. One time after her team lost the Super Bowl. Another time when she burned the dinner rolls. This time Todd knew he needed to hide by the way she slammed the front door. And, like always, she’s blaring Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” from the speakers. It’s a threat. 

"It you like it then you should have put a ring on it. Don’t be mad once you see that he want it," she screams. The thing is, Todd did put a ring on it. But it doesn’t fit her anymore. It hasn’t for years. It’s in a glass dish next to the sink in the bathroom.

They never talk about the day she dislocated her finger trying to take it off. She blamed him. Even after getting it resized, she grew out of it. She blamed him. The jeweler said he couldn’t make it any bigger. She blamed his cooking, even though he made everything out of the Weight Watchers cookbook she bought. Every morning when they are brushing her teeth she stares at the ring, then at her husband. Back and forth. He hates that ring.

She turns off the song. For a minute the house is silent. He can hear her heavy breathing on the other side of the door.  

“Why did you make me eat so much food last week? I gained 7 pounds because of you! It's not fair,” she says.

It's over. Todd throws the ring into the toilet and escapes out the window. He didn’t know he would fit so easily through the small window. That cookbook might have not been helping his wife, but it sure helped him at this moment. He smiles as he dives into the recycling bins they keep on the side of their house. Under the Diet Coke cans, jumbo egg cartons, and milk jugs he can still hear the muffled voice of his wife ramble on about points and tracking. He doesn't have his wallet. Or car keys. Or shoes. But he's free.