Shalampax Speaks

I know this is going to be hard to believe, but Tuboflard, the Chief Medical Officer at the Shalampax Medical Clinic, has taken a vow to lose three hundred pounds and build up a muscle or two.

That’s not as ambitious a goal as it sounds. She could afford to drop a hundred pounds off just her derrière and she’d still be carting around her own nicely-padded, organic pillow. Three hundred pounds off her whole body would leave her obese, but no longer quite as morbidly so.

Tuboflard refuses to say what led her to this decision, but most of us think it was her embarrassment over the incident when, for quite a while, one of her triplets was thought to be lost or possibly dead. Instead, the child was playing unseen under one of Tuboflard’s rolls of fat.

The fact that Tuboflard can sit only in specially reinforced chairs because normal furniture is no match for her colossal mass might also have contributed to her decision to lose weight.

Tuboflard plans to lose the weight by watching what she eats and exercising.

Watching what she eats has always been a problem for Tuboflard. She can see the food on the table well enough, but once she gets it anywhere near her mouth her enormous cheeks block her view of the food. As a result, she is a very sloppy eater and tends to miss her mouth frequently.

Because of all of her droppings, she needs to prepare twice as much food as she plans to consume, which helps to keep the Shalampax grocery store exceptionally profitable. (The owner of the store is desperately hoping that Tuboflard does not have the willpower to follow through.)

Tuboflard cuts down on food costs by following the 10-minute rule. If food has been on the floor for less than 10 minutes she considers it to be safe to eat. However, with her triplets now crawling, they tend to get to the food first because Tuboflard’s immensity doesn’t allow her to move quickly. Hell, she can barely move at all. As a result, the triplets, who are eating food off the floor that was not intended for infants, are starting to get quite chubby too. This might be another reason why Tuboflard intends to change her ways.

Regular physical workouts constitute the other half of Tuboflard’s weight-loss program. If you’re a longtime reader you’ll know that a locked, never-used exercise room was discovered in our building a while back. Following the advice of our Prime Minister, Manexposinghimself, the exercise equipment was removed and comfy couches, large screen televisions and beer fridges were installed in its place.

Contrary to Manexposinghimself’s suggestion, the exercise equipment was not dumped in the ocean. Instead, it was thrown in the basement behind some mechanical equipment. Nevertheless, at this point, pulling it out for Tuboflard’s use would be senseless. No treadmill, stationary bike or other equipment would last a minute under her bulk.

Tuboflard might be able to use some of the free-weights, but that would probably be difficult for her until she loses a little limb-mass. She gets a better workout than most Olympic weightlifters by simply lifting her gargantuan arms over her head.

Until she gets down to a size that the equipment can support, Tuboflard’s workout consists of an hour’s walk around the hallways every day. [Note to my fellow Shalampaxians: If you’ve been feeling the building shake and hearing deafening thuds in the halls, don’t be alarmed. It’s just Tuboflard getting her exercise.]

I wish Tuboflard the best of luck in her weight-loss program, but I see two drawbacks if she is, in fact, successful.

For one thing, Tuboflard will no longer fit her name. That’s neither here nor there because few of us suit our names. Our monikers are simply based on something our parents saw shortly after we were born. Tuboflard just happened to grow into her name. If she grows out of it, her name will lose its current inadvertent relevance, but, like I said, that’s no big deal.

The other problem is more serious. Tuboflard has no medical knowledge or skills. And she is a horrid administrator. Her only qualification for her job as Chief Medical Officer is that looking at her makes the rest of us feel good about our bodies and our physical condition. For as long as Tuboflard has been Chief Medical Officer, we have always been able to comfort ourselves by saying, “Well, at least we’re not as bad as Tuboflard, and she’s Chief Medical Officer!”

Thus, if Tuboflard drops some weight and gets in shape she’ll probably lose her high-paying job for which she is not the least bit qualified. Is the tradeoff worth it? That’s something she’ll have to decide for herself.