It’s a sure bet that this is not worth the weight
SOMETIMES I’m left wondering just how I get myself into certain situations.
Then, when I step back and analyse the situation, the same answer arises: I’m stupid!
It started out as a noble gesture. A friend of mine, for health reasons, had to drop some weight and I, ever the supportive mate, said I’d drop some beef too.
Well, I have been known to wear a bit of extra beef as a “winter coat”, which prompts my younger and less sensitive brother to regularly remark that I’ve got enough extra baggage to keep me warm during a nuclear winter.
Our weight-loss conversation being about seven weeks out from Easter, and the fact that I was about to enter into Lent, I, stupidly, set a target of dropping 10kg by Easter Sunday lunch.
That would be about 1.5kg a week, surely a doddle.
Well, it would be a doddle if I gave up all food and beverage, it seems, because two weeks into the quest and I’ve lost a total of about 0.00001kg, and I’m starting to panic.
You see, what’s a weight-loss competition without a bet?
Stupidly, I agreed to a bet with my mate on the diet and another mate who is equally as competitive.
Figuring I’d make the weight come Easter, I suggested the loser pays for a huge steak dinner and all the trappings.
Should I not make the weight, I offered smugly, I’d gladly pay for the dinner for three (at this point believing I’d be the victor).
“No,” one of them shot back, “the steaks (pun intended) have to be higher than that”.
‘‘ THERE IS OF COURSE ONLY ONE SOLUTION, I SIMPLY HAVE TO MAKE THE WEIGHT COME THE EASTER SUNDAY WEIGH-IN.
“You have to subject yourself to doing something that you genuinely hate doing,” they suggested.
That opened a myriad of possibilities: having to sit and watch replays of all of St George/Illawarra’s matches from the second half of last season? Being photographed hugging one of those hideous Ruthven St obelisks? Sit through a whole episode of Great Railway Journeys with Michael Portillo (the world’s most boring man)? Report on council meetings?
The suggestions were endless. However, they already had a punishment in mind for me.
“You have to queue for something and you have to look happy standing in line,” they said.
Now, for me, that is cruel.
If there’s one thing I absolutely detest, it’s queuing.
No matter if it’s the bar queue, the barbecue, the far queue or the than-Q, I simply hate the queue.
I am the world’s most impatient person, I confess, and there’s nothing more frustrating than getting stuck behind someone who doesn’t know how to use an ATM, or to be in line at the supermarket while some shopper decides to have a natter with the check-out person, thereby holding up the line.
“For God sake, fork over the cash and move on,” I’ve been known to cry.
During my recent trek north to a flooded Townsville, I got caught in a queue at the shopping centre behind just two people.
There I was with heavy frown, tapping my feet and fidgeting with coins as the two in front of me took their time unloading their trolley onto the counter.
And the two in front of me at the time were my travel companions. (I think they were doing it on purpose.)
The thing is, should I fail in my weight-loss quest, which is pretty much a given, my two adversaries get to the pick the particular queue which I have to join.
And, knowing this pair, I somehow suspect a drive to Dreamworld will be forthcoming and cameras will be at the ready to record the unsavoury moment.
There is of course only one solution, I simply have to make the weight come the Easter Sunday weigh-in.
After all, and in the spirit of the season, Jesus went 40 days without food which gave rise to Lent in the first place.
So, I mean, how hard can it be?