“Yeah,” Wife says. “I didn’t care for the icing, but it was good.”
“Yeah.”
I stare out the side window as I drive, carefully considering how best to bring up what’s sure to be a controversial request.
“So,” I say, “I’ve been thinking about the book.”
“Which book?”
“What do you mean which book?”
“Well, you’re always reading two or three at once.”
“The one I’m writing.”
“Oh yeah, that one. What about it?”
“I need your help with one of the chapters. I need to write about how you initially reacted when I told you about my plan to become a superhero, so we need to sit down and have that conversation.”
“We had that conversation months ago.”
“Yeah, but I can’t remember it. We need to have it again.”
“That’d be lying. Just write about how I reacted then.”
“I don’t remember how that went down, other than you thought it was weird.”
“You remember me hanging my head in mortification and disbelief that you were going to go out in public dressed like a dork?”
“That sounds like you, yeah, but I can’t remember any of the specifics. We need to do it again.”
“But it’s a nonfiction book. If we make it up, that would be fiction.”
“The only untrue part would be when we had the conversation. The fact that we had it would be true.”
Wife gives me a look that, after years of marriage, I don’t need superpowers to recognize.
“What, do you have a moral compunction against helping me?”
“No, I just—”
“It’s not like we’re going to get caught. People do it all the time,” I say like a kid in gym in junior high offering someone her first joint. I just need to throw in “All your friends are doing it” and “It’ll make you feel good” to have all my bases covered.
“You mean like the Oprah guy?” she says.
“Are you comparing me to James Frey?”
“If the lie fits—”
“This is totally different. He lied about important stuff. I’m talking a minor chronological fib here. Besides, it’s not like they could fact-check it and find out that’s not how it happened.”
“Yeah, if anyone suspected anything, I’d have to rat you out.”
“You’d rat me out?”
“No, I mean, I say, I’d have to rat you out for anyone to be suspicious.”
“Oh. You’re saying there’s no reason for anyone to get suspicious unless you ratted me out.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Okay, it sounded like…never mind. So you’ll help?”
“You can’t just remember the old conversation?”
“Why do you have to make everything so hard?”
“I’m your wife.”
“Oh yeah.” Damn her female logic.
There’s a pregnant pause as I consider how best to win Wife over to my way of thinking. As usual, Wife thinks of a solution while I was still sorting out the variables.
“This should be it,” she says.
“What?”
“You should make this the conversation. Everything we just said. That’d be funny.”
“It would be even funnier if I wrote a whole section on the made-up part and then tagged this on afterward, revealing the first section a lie. Kindofa lie.”
“Chronological fib.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, that’d be funny. Do that.”
“I knew there was a reason I married you.”
“Besides my good looks, sense of humor, and intelligence?”
“And big boobs. Don’t forget your big boobs.”
“I love you too, baby.”
Okay, exercise done. Good. Thank God. Won’t have to do that for another twenty-three and a half hours. Next: diet. I’d previously sat down with my team of diet and nutrition experts* and worked out a rigorous meal plan consisting of:
Breakfast
1 Graham cracker with a tablespoon of peanut butter
1 protein shake (1 scoop protein powder, 1 banana, 1 cup ice, 1 cup lactose-free milk)
1 orange
Midmorning snack
1 apple
Lunch
Holy crap, what do you care? Why am I telling you all this? Long story short, if I stick to it, this should give me a total of about 1,550 calories a day. Sure, that may seem a bit low for an adult male, even a dieting adult male, but I’m sure I’ll be fine. Just looking at the list, it looks like an insane amount of food to take in every day, so I’m not too worried as I’m heading into my first day of eating healthy.
By the way, you’ll notice a conspicuous lack of sugar in the diet. That’s not just because I’m trying to lose weight. I have hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, for you nonmedical personnel out there. My parents discovered this quite by accident when I went into a coma as an infant. It really wasn’t as big a deal as it sounds. In fact, they also accidently discovered I was allergic to being stung by bees, eating wheat, and hitting my head really hard on bricks.
Diet Log, Day 1
9:00 A.M.
I’ve been at work for an hour and a half and just had my apple. For me, eating fruit is a lot like exercising: I resist as much as I can on the front end, but when I’m done with it, I feel a lot better. The best part is, no sugar cravings yet. This could be easier than I thought.
NOON
I’m finishing up my chicken and broccoli when I realize I haven’t opened my jug of water yet. I guess I should get started on that if I plan on finishing the entire thing before I go home. I figure that if I stop drinking by five, I should stop peeing just in time for bed. I’ve had a few stray thoughts about sugar, but nothing bad. I’m supremely confident in my ability to pull this off.
4:00 P.M.
Holy crap, I need something sweet. Daddy need a fix—bad. I run to the shared filing cabinet/secret candy depository in the office and see that there are eight Hershey’s Kisses left. I snatch four, take them back to my desk, and attack each one in a manner much akin to a paranoid squirrel eating his last acorn, my eyes darting to and fro lest someone discover my shame.
Oh God. Oh God. That feels so good. Seriously. I melt down into my chair and briefly become one with the universe. I’m a little, chocolate-fueled Buddha; my third eye is open and all the good and the light of the cosmos are flooding into it en route to my stomach, the seat of my soul. I’m without need, without desire. Nirvana is mine, all you non-Hershey’s Kiss-eating bitches.
4:10 P.M.
You bastard! You utter bastard! You were good the entire day, and now you’ve gone and blown it all! Way to go, loser!
Ugh.
I feel like crap. I scurry