The Eighth Page

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“Five Dollars For These Enchiladas!?!: The B.J. Garry Story” which explains why I’m decidedly wary of Venezuelans. Anyway, that January was one of the most difficult months of my life. After the mo-ped accident on New Years’, I was stuck in bed for a few days with the humiliation of a DUI and no one to keep me company besides that eerily angelic lady from those Lipozene infomercials. Now, I had packed on the pounds over the holidays – cookies, pies, and pure Crisco were the main culprits – and my self-esteem was low. But on those blessed mid-afternoon reruns of Fraiser, she would emerge on the screen, decked in a purple pant-suit worthy of a Prince video, and she would ever so gently ask me: “Do you want to lose pounds of excess body fat without exercise or formal dieting?” “Yes,” I would breathe, stunned that such a miraculous opportunity had arisen. The thought of losing weight without exercising or dieting seemed a thought irrecoverably lost in my conscience. I had bludgeoned it in the head, put it in the back of my brother’s pick-up, and dumped it in the Ohio River decades before. The cops had abandoned the search and the case had run cold. Now it was alive, back from the dead in the form of a middle-aged blonde zombie woman whose eyes beckoned me to the telephone to call. “But wait,” I would say to my purple-suited savior in the television. “There has to be some kind of catch! Don’t hurt me as I have been hurt by so many other cruel women, my love!” She would pretend not to hear me as she went on about clinical trials, but after a few seconds, she said it. “There is no catch! Take Lipozene; lose weight. It’s that simple.” After five seconds of digging through my futon to locate the phone, I dialed the 1-800 number, convinced my prayers had been answered by my tawny-haired messiah. One ring. Two rings. Finally, a voice emerged from the faint static. “Lipozene Customer Service, this is Rhonda,” said the voice. Her voice was husky. Masculine. Familiar. Irresistible. Sexy. It was love. “Hi,” I said with a pause. “I want Lipozene.” “Okay,” she said. “You came to the right place.” “Oh, I know,” I responded. “I’ve been waiting to come here for some time now, my sweet.” A pause. “May I have your phone number?” I implored. A click. In an instant, a door had opened to a new life. In a momentary fit of ecstasy, I had seen happiness concentrated into its purest form and spread over the canvas of destiny to create the most breathtaking masterpiece I had ever known. Now, Rhonda, my fleeting key to eternal serendipity, was gone. I was nothing more than a waste, a vile creature who squandered every opportunity that life presented him with. Getting into college, having a job, raising a family, having friends, not getting arrested, not being obese, and now, having a woman’s comfort. All impossibilities. I was even still a vir- 217