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4 THE RURAL VOICE
Gisele Ireland
Making men suffer
If eavesdropping is a sin ... forgive
me for I have sinned big time and
never enjoyed anything more.
To make it even more interesting, I
Teamed something of importance. I'II
bet my biggest jar of Wrinkles -Be -
Gone cream that
most women are
not aware of the
suffering they
inflict upon their
men in the ,
month of
January. I'm
referring to
ladies who
resolve every
January I to lose
"x" number of
pounds. The
agony men
experience is
directly related
to how determined their wife is and
their fortitude to semi starvation.
The worst case scenarios came
from men whose chunky chicipoos had
joined a "club" to aid them in their
quest for a bikini form. Men agreed
that if women stayed in this form of
modus operandi for a prolonged
period, they would certainly lose 200
pounds of unwanted weight ... their
husbands.
Starving Man #1 told his
sympathizers that once the decision to
diet was made the house was swept
like a mine field. Anything that tasted
good was either given away or
discarded and replaced with raw, fat
free and low cal. This also includes
anything liquid. He claimed he could
locate his wife anywhere on the farm
when she crunched on her daily ration
of rice cakes. "You have no idea", he
told the guys, "of the chill that runs up
your spine when you hear that
crunching next to you in the middle of
the night and wonder how hungry she
is and how safe your body parts are?"
Starving Man #2 found the constant
weighing and counting units with the
aid of the "fat bible" very tedious and
annoying. Food at his house was now
served on dessert plates so it would
look like more, but it never fooled his
stomach. He could take it in two
swallows and finish off the napkins
and tablecloth before she ever noticed
as she was absorbed in arranging her
micro -portion attractively on her plate.
She weighed herself on a daily basis
and her disposition was directly related
to the numbers on the scale. If the
needle didn't move, or worse yet, went
up a notch, it was best to be out of the
house for an extended period. He
became adept at devouring a roast beef
sandwich with mayo and eradicating
the evidence from his breath in the
time it took him to get the mail and
bring it home.
Starving Man #3 was the most
supportive of the group. He suffered in
silence and became a regular at the
town's local eatery. He could enjoy a
piece of pie and coffee with cream
without fear of being attacked for his
food from behind or being seen as
"insensitive". He, of course, likes his
wife just the way she is and says the
time of torture usually only lasts
several weeks, or until she can't face
another rice cake. Bring home lots of
things she likes this expert related.
Anything green is good, like trees, a
bushel of celery or' a wagonload of
carrots.
Men who make supportive noises
and say all the right things likely have
the shortest period of suffering. Men
who complain, hide potato chips in the
woodpile downstairs and twinkies in
their tool box become targets. Take
heart, it's all over by February 14
when ... it's stuff me full of truffles
time. Bon appetit!O
Gisele Ireland, from Bruce County, is
an author of several humorous books
on farm life.
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