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.

Miscellaneous diet, dieting, exercise, weight, weight loss

There is a room on the fourth floor of our building, room 4242, to be precise, that no one had entered since the building was built. That is, no one had entered it until recently.

Before you ask, let me assure you that the fact that the number of the room is the same as Shalampax’s population quota is absolutely, positively, without a doubt a total coincidence. At least, I think it is.

If you weren’t going to ask about the coincidence of 4242 then never mind. It’s not relevant.

Decayingdeadbird, the architect of our building, never told anyone the purpose of room 4242. And no one ever bothered to ask. We all simply assumed that it was a mechanical room.

Everyone has been afraid to enter the room. We were afraid that, if it was indeed a mechanical room, something may need fixing and the person who discovered the problem would be the person expected to fix it.

We all knew that these were merely assumptions that could easily be wrong. Curiosity finally got the better of Manexposinghimself, our Prime Minister. Consequently, he recently ordered that the room be opened and investigated.

Of course, he made sure that he wasn’t the first person to enter the room. If the assumptions were correct and something needed fixing, he wanted to make sure that no one would expect him to fix it.

Prying the door open took some doing as the hinges had seized up from decades of disuse.

Once inside, government workers slowly and reluctantly began the job of digging out the accumulated dust. When that job was completed a couple of weeks later the room was found to contain six treadmills, five stepping machines, three rowing machines and an extensive set of free-weights.

Apparently, Decayingdeadbird had intended that room 4242 be used as a gym. Who knew? Better yet, who cares?

On discovering the intended purpose of the room, a great debate ensued to try to decide what to do with the room henceforth.

Someone suggested that it be left as a gym for use by any Shalampaxian who wanted to exercise. About a half-hour later, when the uproarious laughing finally died down, a number of other suggestions were put forward.

There is no consensus yet, but the thinking seems to be congealing around Manexposinghimself’s idea of throwing the exercise equipment into the ocean and replacing it with comfy couches, large-screen televisions, and a few beer fridges.

The committee looking into this question is still open to suggestions from readers of Shalampax Speaks as to what the room should be used for. If you have any ideas, please leave them as comments here. Thanks.

Miscellaneous exercise, gym, stepping machine, treadmill, weightlifting, weights, workout

At 7:30 p.m. tonight, Shatteredeyeglasses will present a half-hour television special titled “Fitness for Couch Potatoes.” The show will be broadcast on Shalampax’s closed-circuit channel 969.

Shatteredeyeglasses has published the following agenda for the program:

1. The Importance of Stretching: Why It’s OK to Yawn

   The first segment of the show examines why it is acceptable to count any involuntary, casual stretching of your arms and yawning as part of your prescribed pre- and post-exercise stretching routine.

2. Beer: Weightlifting Made Easy

   Shatteredeyeglasses tells you the proper way to build muscle by lifting beer bottles from the cooler you’ve placed beside the couch to your mouth. In addition, he’ll show you how to exercise your wrists as you tilt the bottle to pour the beer down your gullet.

   You’ll also get helpful tips on how to perform these exercises properly so you won’t overstrain your biceps, triceps or heart muscles. Pre-show hint: When starting out, have someone else drink the first half of the bottle of beer for you so it will be lighter when it’s your turn. Once you’ve built up your muscles, you can do it all yourself and graduate from drinking 48 half-bottles to 24 full-bottles, or more, during each sitting.

   If you are looking for a way to improve your appearance, this exercise routine is it. Shatteredeyeglasses guarantees that if you precisely follow his instructions, you and those around you will look much better to you after you’ve polished off 24 or more beers.

   (Note: Bottles are heavier than cans. Thus, if you drink from cans rather than bottles you will have to drink more to get the same level of exercise.)

3. Remote Exercise: Remember the Fingers

   Most people never consider the fact that there are muscles in their fingers. This oversight is surprising as many people appreciate the joys of fingering. In this segment, Shatteredeyeglasses will show you how to work the remote control to build your finger muscles.

4. Chips: Doing the Dip

   Eating a super-jumbo bag of potato chips every hour on your own can be fattening. Shatteredeyeglasses will show you how you can work off some of those calories by placing the dip bowl on the coffee table in front of you rather than on your lap or beside you. Getting a rapid rhythm going as you lean forward to put dip on each individual chip—and occasionally double-dipping—can significantly increase your caloric burn rate.

5. Gluteus to the Maximus

   Many couch potatoes are proud of their fat asses. If that’s not you; if you’d like to do a little tightening of your gluteus muscles—the three muscles in each buttock—then be sure to catch the last segment of Fitness for Couch Potatoes. In this portion of the show Shatteredeyeglasses will show you how you can build your gluteus muscles by rolling from a sitting to a lying position once every half-hour during your many hours of TV viewing each day.

   Shatteredeyeglasses will also give hints on how to perform this maneuver without kicking your couch-mate in the groin. Of course, if you want to kick your couch-mate in the groin, you can pretend to be asleep when Shatteredeyeglasses presents these tips. You can then plead ignorance when your couch-mate doubles over in pain. If you’re like most Shalampaxians, it should not be at all difficult to plead ignorance with a straight face.

Here’s the best part. Because Fitness for Couch Potatoes is on television, rather than a live performance, you can watch from the comfort of your own couch and workout along with Shatteredeyeglasses as he takes you through his couch potato exercise routines.

Events couch potato, couch potatoes, exercise, fat ass, gluteus maximus, gluteus muscles, television, TV