39. Failed Dreams

This is an excerpt from a quirky mystery novel I'm writing, "Eula May and the Flim Flam Nun".  I hope to have it ready for e-books by December 1. If you like this, please leave a comment.

I stopped in to our small, independent drugstore owned by old school friend, Orin Phillips, to pick up some calcium tablets laced with Vitamin D. I thought I might as well get a head start on preventing osteoporosis, although at 40 I was much too young. I had recently moved back to Karnak after living for 20 years—two decades, Oh my gosh that sounds so long—in Los Angeles. I was a 'tired' dancer. Not 'retired' just 'tired'.
       Orin greeted me with a big grin. “Welcome back, Judy. We missed you.”
       “Thanks Orin. I'm afraid some people in town are glad I failed to be a dancing star in Hollywood and had to come back home dragging my leotard behind me.”
      “You did pretty well for a while, there. I saw you on TV a couple of times.” “Yeah, I made it on to a few variety shows, but nothing lasted.”
      “Show business is really hard, but then it's hard to be a success in any field.” He looked sad.
       I didn't want to pry but I wondered what happened to him while I was away. “Did something crush your dreams?”
      Orin stared off into space. “I know what it’s like to want a better life. I did have a special dream one time, too. But it never panned out.”
     “Oh, Orin, did you want to go to Hollywood?” I asked, although I didn't exactly see him as a movie actor with his spiky red hair and face that turned red anytime a stranger asked him a question. 
     “No, nothing like that. I dreamed of discovering a pill that would take pounds off sensibly and safely and permanently. I was going to call them—Orin’s Life Savers. Because that’s what they would have been. But someone stole my formula and the world of the overweight is still struggling to lose pounds in unhealthy, dangerous, and temporary ways.
     “That’s so sad, Orin. Who stole it?” I never knew Orin was ambitious. I thought he was happy being a person everyone went to with questions.
     “It was one of those big pharmaceutical companies that make money from selling diet pills that don’t work, so people keep buying more and more of them. They sent a con man down here to talk me into giving it up. He said they would pay me for the rights to it. He took all my research papers. Later, when nothing else happened, I found it was all a lie. They just wanted to bury my great idea. And I had no proof of the hours I spent working on it and how successful it was.”
     “Oh, Orin, your discovery would have really been a major boon to all the people who want to lose weight.”
     “Well, I can’t do anything about it now. But that’s why I understood why you took off for Hollywood.”
    “Maybe it’s not too late, maybe you could still have your dream come true,” I tried to inspire him.
     He just shook his head and rang up my purchase. “No, it's best if I just do what I'm doing.”
     As I walked over to Jack Rockenbuck's office, I wondered if there was anything I could do to help Orin. Jack was another old friend who grew up to be an accountant. My taxes were a mess and I needed to talk to him about them.
    After Jack and I discussed what could be done to straighten up my problems with the IRS, I asked about Orin. I repeated the story Orin told me of how the big drug companies stole his effective weight loss formula. I concluded by saying, “Poor Orin, he was just trying to help people and he became a victim himself.”
      Jack’s eyes almost popped out of his head and he jumped out of his chair so fast it swirled around. “Victim!” he protested. “That’s a hot one.”
     “What do you mean? What really happened to his weight loss product?” 
      Jack pounded his fist on his desk, “That little druggist who looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth nearly killed everyone who took his pills. The FDA shut him down, as soon as the complaints started piling up. He sold the pills as a natural product, so it didn’t really come under the supervision of the FDA with all the necessary research and clinical trials, and so forth.     
      "But it turned out the pills contained a super dose of natural laxatives. And since the customers were told to take them several times a day, they were literally shitting their weight off. But they also were losing important nutrients upsetting their electrolyte balance.”
      I interrupted, “Please Jack, not a lecture. I don’t need to know the whole history of nutrition. Just tell me what happened to Orin.”
      He sputtered a bit, calmed himself and continued. “Orin pleaded innocent, said he had no idea people would be misusing them. Since the written directions didn’t say anything about taking more than one a day, no one pressed charges. I think his weight loss customers didn’t want anyone to find out how stupid they had been. Orin just made a substantial donation to help buy the new colonoscopy machine at the hospital with the stipulation that no publicity go out about the pills. He just stopped selling them.”
      I fell back on his client’s chair, sinking down into its depths. “Orin almost killed people.”
      “Yeah,” Jack agreed. “But the amazing thing about it, human nature being what it is, some people were upset he wouldn’t sell them any more pills. They were losing weight and they didn’t care if that put their health at risk.”
      Welcome back to Karnak, I thought. Land of failed dreams and failed common sense.
                                                      The End

34. Ice Cream Saves The Day

The scale hovered and settled. Henry groaned. He had gained another pound. Martha would never nag him, but he knew she would be disappointed. She was the perfect little wife. Little and perfect being the operative words. They were going to her 35^th high school reunion and she wanted both of them to look their best. That was no problem for her. To him she looked as good as she did the first time she skated into him, knocking him over at the Stardust Roller Rink back in LaSalle, Illinois. Her blond pony tail swinging back and forth over his felled body was the first thing he noticed when he stopped seeing stars.

      “Oh, my goodness, I am so, so sorry.” She crooned as he struggled to get up. She insisted on taking special care of him the rest of their time at the rink because she felt guilty. And she continued taking care of him right up until now, 30 years after they first met. Once, a little tipsy on champagne they drank to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, she confessed.

      “I ran into you deliberately. You were so cute, I thought you'd never notice me so I had to do something drastic.” He was flattered and flabbergasted.

      But now he felt he was looking older and he knew the extra weight wasn't helping his appearance. Martha was concerned about the effect on his health but he wanted to lose weight so her friends wouldn't think she had married a loser. Ha, he thought, that's funny. If only I could be a loser, of weight, that is.

      He left the weekly meeting determined to do better. But he was depressed. All his calorie and point counting had added up to another pound. He noticed the empty store next to the Weight Watchers office had a new tenant. Oh no, he whined, Satan, get behind me. It was a gourmet ice cream shop.

      After a short internal fight with himself and a longer time in the shop choosing his 'cheer up' consolation prize, he walked out of the store. It took two hands to carry a huge banana split, overflowing with scoops of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream, bits of banana, pineapple and walnuts. And then, sin of all sins, everything covered with mounds of white, fluffy whipped cream. His mouth watered just looking at it. He would eat it in the car, tossing the plastic bowl and spoon in the nearby trash so Martha would never know.

      Henry struggled to get his car keys out of his pants pocket while balancing the ice cream temptation. A woman shrieked and he jerked his head up. A scroungy kid was tugging at the black leather purse hooked over her arm. She fell and the robber jerked the purse away, swiveled and started to run, right into Henry.

      Splat! The banana split was crushed between the two of them and dropped to the asphalt surface of the parking lot. The boy slipped on the concoction falling on his back with Henry falling on top of him. The strip mall's security guard had heard the woman, called 911, and was running over to handcuff the thug.

      It must have been a slow news day because as a police officer was questioning Henry and the victim, a KWTV news van pulled up and started filming. A reporter waited until the officer left and then slid in with more questions. Henry was flustered, embarrassed to be seen with 'contraband' ice cream, and jumped into his car to escape, leaving the woman to deal with the interview on her own. The reporter called out to him. “You're a hero.”

      Home at last, he sighed, and snuck into their bathroom. Luck was with him. Martha was pulling weeds in the back yard. He stripped off his sticky, icky clothes and took a 5 minute shower. He hoped Martha wouldn't notice the smears on his dirty clothes now stashed in the hamper. After a 500 calorie dinner, they settled down on the family room love seat to watch the news. Too late, Henry remembered the TV news van. Sure enough, the lead story was, “Ice cream one, purse snatcher, zero”. Henry cringed as he saw his tubby body covered in ice cream. What was Martha going to say?

      Martha's mouth dropped open as she stared at the images flashing before their eyes. When the news switched to international events, she hugged him and said, “Why, Henry, I never realized a man wearing an ice cream suit could be a hero.”

                                         The End

19. Birthday Cake Blues

I used to work for a major weight loss program, which shall be nameless.  With obesity rates in the United States approaching the 50% mark, the program was turning out to be a platinum mine, for the owners.

          My job was to provide group counseling for our enrollees.  I also focused on how to substitute appropriate for inappropriate behaviors associated with eating.  You know the drill, always eat at a table, never eat while watching TV or reading.  Yada, yada, yada.

 I always told my classes they knew more about calorie content than I did.  But we were meeting to learn ‘mindful’ eating.  Sort of like a Buddhist retreat for chunky monkeys.

One of my clients was a sweet faced woman about 45 who was cute as a button, but the button was for a supersized jacket.  She never missed an appointment and took lots of notes.  She was a star performer, on a great losing streak, working off one to two pounds a week. 

However, at her most recent weekly appointment she had not lost any weight, which wasn’t that unusual for people trying to regain a healthy weight level.  But she had gained two pounds.  I went over her daily activity and food intake chart with her to find out what had happened.  Hopefully, if we located a problem she could avoid it in the future.

I pointed out one notation for Sunday and asked, “What does, “Badly Behaved Cake” mean?  Did it jump into your mouth and force you to chew and swallow?”

She sighed.  “I wish I could say that, but I was badly behaved not the cake.”

            “Well, that’s what we’re here for--to learn about behaviors-- so what happened?”
          “It was my husband’s birthday so I made his favorite chocolate cake.  We each had a slice and with four kids that meant half of it was eaten that night.  I put the rest of it away in the freezer.  I thought it would be easier for my husband to slice a piece for himself each night and easier for me to ignore it if I couldn’t see it.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” I complimented her.  “Out of sight, out of mind.” 

“Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.  It was more of an ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ plan.”

The rest of our group started smiling as if they knew what was coming.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about that cake and how good it looked and how good it tasted when I ate my small piece the night before.  I kept thinking about it and thinking about it.”

“Ok, now Linda, we’ve talked about this before.  What are you supposed to do?”

“I know, get out of the house or start cleaning a bathroom.”

I nodded encouragingly.  “That’s right.  So you know what you should have done.”

“Yeah, my mind knows, but my mouth overrides it.  I finally couldn’t stand it any longer and took it out of the freezer, cut a thin slice, and ate one thin slice at a time until the whole cake was gone.”

“Well, that wasn’t a good decision.  But now you can learn from that mistake.”

“Oh, gosh.  I’m not done yet.”

Now I was getting concerned.  “What else happened?”

Cindy, another group member with a love of chocolate, wanted to know more, too. “Yeah, we need full disclosure here.”

Linda continued, “I was so upset with my lack of willpower.  How could I eat all of my husband’s favorite cake.  He was probably looking forward to some when he came home for work. “

I pushed her to keep going, “What did he say when he discovered you ate the rest of his birthday cake?”

She laughed and admitted, “He never found out.”

I shook my head to clear it. “I don’t understand.  I can’t believe he forgot about it.”

“No, he didn’t forget.  I just hurried and made another cake and ate half of that one, too.”

                                      THE END

 

15. What's wrong with Arlene?

Something was terribly wrong.  No one had seen Arlene in two days.  Usually she never missed a meal, let alone the shore excursions.  Like me this was her and her husband’s first trip to China and she had vowed that she was going to see and do as much as possible.
            On our tour we had already visited Beijing and been amazed by the ultramodern, 100 story skyscrapers that still had empty spaces near their tops so evil witches could fly right through without stopping to do mischief to the people living and working in the building.  We had also seen the incredibly primitive and cramped hutongs, courtyard areas where people had lived for centuries.  They were now being razed in the name of progress and healthier living conditions with a few being saved for historical reasons.  As we got on and off the bus at each tourist site, Arlene kept urging her husband to keep up so they wouldn’t miss anything.  Although both past 65 and breathing hard, they kept up with the rest of us.

The Yangtze River Cruise was more restful as the ship drifted with the current past tiny fishing villages and the brightly painted fishing boats.  The first day, Arlene and her husband made it to every meal as early as possible and were the last to leave.  Her little fireplug shaped body seemed to need constant refueling, although she occasionally complained that she was overweight.  It seemed unlike her to miss so many meals.

Of course if she wasn’t feeling well, she could be getting trays brought to her room.  Her husband, Henry, still appeared, slightly tipsy, at each meal and complaining of how Arlene was driving him crazy.  We wondered if he stashed bottles of liquor in his luggage.  He never drank at the ship’s bar but always seemed to be a little incoherent.  

We did sympathize with him.  His wife had started out on our tour walking without help.  The first day on the river though she brought out a cane.  Perhaps the motion of the boat upset her equilibrium because each time we docked at an interesting village on the Yangtze, it was a miracle how she maneuvered over the cobblestones, rough pavement and gravel.

Now Henry was accusing her of refusing to walk—just to drive him crazy.  When we asked how she was, he would just say, “Crazy as a coot, crazy as a coot.”

            Well, that didn’t explain why we hadn’t seen her.  Finally, a group of us first requested and then demanded that we be let in their cabin to see her.  He tried to stall us, saying she was sleeping but we forced him to open the door.  The door swung open noiselessly and we saw Arlene tied to a chair in front of the TV.  She rolled her eyes at us and muttered, “Oh, no, oh, no.”

We gaped at her and then looked aghast at Henry.  Had the man tied her up so he could drink as much as he liked.  What was going on?  Did we need to call the captain?

Henry stuttered, “Now, now.  It’s not what it looks like...”

He turned to Arlene and pleaded, “Please tell them what this is, before I’m thrown in a Chinese prison!”

Arlene hung her head, “Oh, I’m so embarrassed.  I just wanted to lose some weight and I can’t help myself when I see all that tasty food spread out, and it’s all FREE, even if it is Chinese.”

“But why are you tied up?”  I asked.

“I asked Henry to tie me up so I couldn’t go to the dining room.  Don’t worry, I had regular bathroom breaks, when the dining room was closed. And I do drink water.”

“So you’re OK?  You’re not being held against your will?”

“Yes, yes, I’m OK.  Please go now.”  She lifted up her head and smiled.  “I’m really fine and I’ve lost five pounds already.”

                                                 The End