Nutrition

Like most modern Americans, I abhor the idea of personal responsibility. Hey, if you get your fingers cut off when you stick them into whirling lawn mower blades, it is clear that the evil corporate demons owe you a comfortable living for the rest of your time on earth. Those responsible obviously include the mower manufacturer, the genetic scientists who made the grass so appealing to have in your yard, and the homebuilder who so callously left all that empty space around the outside of the house...just to tempt you to install the lawn that eventually left you crippled. Those people are criminals, and certainly must PAY...and that payment should include enough cash for lifetime HBO, Showtime, and Pay-Per-View Wrestling.

No one would argue that. But I recently had a medical checkup and found that my cholesterol is a bit high...and I'm not exactly sure who I should sue for causing this. I suppose that each restaurant I patronize bears partial responsibility, as does everyone in Wisconsin for allowing cheese manufacturers to do business there. And the government of Mexico, too (of course), for exporting the concepts of tacos and burritos.

It is a vast conspiracy that involves people from all over the world. By the time my lawyers (I'm considering Franklin D. Azar) are finished getting me the money I deserve, I suspect that we'll also lighten the wallets of Italy, various hamburger clowns, and the center of all evil in the Universe...Hershey, Pennsylvania.

But it's a pain to have to sue all these people, when it's really the government's fault. If our lazy Congressmen would just hurry up and pass legislation to make pizza illegal and provide us all free fruit (and someone to cut it up into easy-to-eat bite-size chunks), then I could eat healthy and solve this cholesterol problem without having to resort to legal action. It's those damn rich people who created the variety of alluring stores where I'm tempted to buy all this tasty food, so they deserve to have their taxes raised to pay for my inability to resist their products. Obviously.

Anyway, the point is that my employer needs to give me paid time off while I pursue legal recourse to remedy the fact that my high cholesterol has not yet resulted in my possession of a premium cable TV package. And the worst thing is that the stress of knowing about my arterial time-bomb makes me want to eat even more comfort food, and that could raise my LDL levels even higher. How can I eat right and exercise more with such a metaphorically heavy weight hanging over my head?

I know what you're thinking: Wait a minute, Dudes...Terry is far too handsome to be afflicted with high cholesterol -- it's a disease that's only supposed to affect ugly people, like Tommy LaSorda, Manny Ramirez, and Bernadette Peters. Ah, yes. This is normally true, but I have been watching some World Cup Soccer lately, and that could explain the anomaly.

We may never know for sure. But one thing is certain -- I would also be suing my childhood dentist if he wasn't already dead. Thanks to his monumental incompetence, my metal amalgam fillings have begun to deteriorate after only 40 years or so...and now need to be replaced. So that means I have to go to the dentist this morning and have a few of those clunkers yanked out and replaced with modern composites to make my teeth as strong as they would've been if my parents hadn't forced me to eat all that food that attracted the decay bacteria in the first place. And Lord knows that their half-hearted attempts to get me to brush and floss by reminding me multiple times a day were totally inadequate...so I guess I should be suing my folks as well.

Sigh. I have SO many lawsuits to file. Why is life so hard for me? And why isn't the government handling all this, instead of forcing me to do it myself?

Oh well, I guess I can ponder these questions while I'm reclining in the dentist chair with my head full of Novocaine. But even if I do come up with answers, don't ask me to reveal them to you today; I'll probably be drooling on myself for most of the afternoon.

So if you see me, don't expect conversation. Just smile and wave. And have a great day!