Sans Sucre

I have decided to adopt a new keep fit regime and am pleased to report that I can now lift the remote control without gasping for breath.

When doing my research to decide how to approach my new found zeal for fitness I noticed a theme starting to develop. Firstly I need to cut out sweet things and secondly I need to exercise more. Not exactly rocket science.

I have therefore decided to start small and let my routine grow. I am going to begin by cutting out three sugary things from my daily life. But what should they be. I already drink diet cola. This was the result of a previous attempt to reduce my noticabilty at gatherings. I managed, after two weeks, to get used to the taste and now I cannot return to the regular variety. Now I am left to wash down my mid-afternoon chocolate biscuit with a sugar-free fizzy drink. I have a feeling that one should cancel out the other but no scientific facts to back it up.
Incidentally, have you noticed that most ‘large boned’ people tend to drink diet drinks and a majority of slim people drink the normal variety? Not sure what to make of it but I am suspicious and wondered whether I am being given the whole facts.

Anyway, I still need to move towards being sans-sucre in other areas. I have decided, therefore, to give up listening to the Carpenters, I always found them very sugary. I will also cut out chocolate in the afternoon and not eat anything sweet after 20:00 hours (not even if the chocolate mints tell me that I should on the box).

Added to this I have decided to walk up one flight of stairs before getting the lift, instead of at the ground floor. I tried walking up all six flights at once but I had to set up camp on floor three and breath from my oxygen mask for a couple of days before continuing my trek.

The problem I have is that I am stuck in a vicious cycle. Two nights ago I went to the cinema and, because I have certain standards, I ate all my chocolate before they had turned down the lighting. This meant that I was forced to share a giant bag of popcorn with the rest of the family. My bride, of twenty-six years, chooses to take once piece at a time and eat it with her natural grace. I, however, feel that it would give me no challenge whatsoever and would not treat the product as nature intended it. It is perfectly obvious that one should take the biggest handful possible and see how many will fit into your mouth. You might not agree but I know that, in the spirit of Homer Simpson, I am right.

This always results in the loss of at least half of the contents of my sticky fist. When I was younger and leaner most of this excess would drop to the floor only to be used as sound effects at the end of the film. Now, however, the majority of the ‘fallen ones’ drop to be neatly perched on the ledge of my ample stomach, not more than 6 inches from my mouth. They remain there perfectly saved for me to enjoy during the rest of the show. The net effect is that I eat twice as much popcorn as I used to do when I was slim.

I think I need to find a cinema that is up six flights of steps.

Puttoffologist

My wife is a Putoffologist, she likes to putt off leaving the house whenever we are going out. Today she will have to do between 6 and 11 things before we leave for the cinema.

‘Are you ready yet?’ I offer in a gentle but firm voice, as I jangle my car keys knowing that saying anything more is to invite certain pain.

‘I have just got to do one thing before I leave the house’ she says, so I follow her and watch as she moves a cushion from the armchair to the sofa. A cushion! I ask you! I have been waiting for ages and then we are delayed even more because a cushion is not in the right place.

She faffs with another few items; the tea towel needs to be straight on the cooker handle, a plant has to be facing the other way round on the window sill and, this is the biggy, the TV needs changing over to another channel before it is turned off.
It is all part of what you might call the journey to the journey.

Then as I look at my watch as if to mime ‘what time do you call this?’ she responds with ‘I hardly call 2 minutes late, late!’
Well I have looked in the dictionary and it offers this as a meaning for the word ‘Late’: ‘occurring, coming, or being after the usual or proper time’
It doesn’t say: ‘occurring, coming, or being 2 minutes after the usual or proper time’
For good measure my wife drops her contact lens when trying to fit them near the mirror in the kitchen. After searching every nook and cranny I eventually spot it stuck to her cheek. You always look down on these occasions.

We get in the car and my wife turns into a DJ at the request of our offspring, none of whom can agree on which music is suitable for such a short trip. With a look of desperation she presses all the buttons she can find on the car CD player. We now have random tracks interrupted by traffic reports even though we are only travelling 6 miles. She has the same propensity to press buttons when using the computer. If it doesn’t respond at the first click of the mouse she continues to press until she sounds like a Spanish dancer playing maracas.
I Jokingly flick the interior light on and off and ask the girls if that feels more like a disco now. As usually they are less than amused. I am comforted by that fact that it is actually law that Dad’s jokes should not be funny. It is the same legislation that insists on parents being embarrassing when they go to any event with their teenaged children.

We arrive, on time, at our destination with all the female members of the party arguing over who most needs the toilet. ‘See! I told you we weren’t late’ says my bride in victory. I try to argue that it is only the skill of the driver that has made us punctual but no one is listening.
They have departed leaving windows down, doors open and bags left on seats. A few minutes later I join them in the foyer desperately trying to stash the drink and sweets into my pockets like a smuggler at airport security.

Then begins the discussion on which film we are going to watch. I try to steer the conversation away from sugar and toward anything with guns, cars and a story but I know that even before I open my mouth I am defeated.

We join the other cinema goers and, once we have changed seats for the third time, I begin the steady task of collecting popcorn on my T-shirt. I have the advantage of a nicely shaped stomach that produces a convenient ledge when I am seated.

All that is left is for me to meet my own personal challenge and eat all my chocolates and sweets in the first couple of minutes. ‘I can’t believe how fast you have eaten your food!’ exclaims my wife.
‘I hardly call two minutes, fast!’ I say as I settle down for a well deserved snooze.