After I die, will bells ring in acknowledgement of the insane amount of time I spend thinking about my weight?

I can see my obituary now:

In loving memory of Erica Leibrandt; wife, mother, sister, friend—whose greatest joy was that she maintained a normal weight throughout her adult life.

Erica, despite her many other accomplishments, will always be best known for saying “no” to that third bite of dessert, fitting into a certain pair of jeans, and working out every single day.

She is survived by her children and her loving husband, who candidly remarked, “Erica was nothing if not a healthy weight.”

Erica Leibrandt’s mother is quoted as saying,”I am so proud to have had a daughter whose weight was always under control. I imagine she is in heaven making salad with God.”

In my eulogy, mourners will stand and tearfully recount the times I ordered gluten free pizza with no cheese while everyone else was having deep dish. They would also add, with a little wink, that everyone knew my secret—a post dinner pizza raid where I shoved as much cold deep dish in my mouth as was humanly possible before anyone discovered me, standing in the dark in my bathrobe with marinara dripping down my chin.

A foundation would be created in my honor, intended to pass along my obsession with weight to countless young women across America. It would be called “Nothing Is More Important Than Being Thin” or NIMITBT and my daughters would sit on the board, endlessly discussing juicing, and whether a paleo or a vegan diet is more conducive to to getting themselves to the absolute lowest BMI conceivable.

That old joke I used to tell would be bandied about with great sentimentality—“I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight,”—and committees would be formed concerning the education of children on how to avoid candy on national holidays—especially the insidious “fun-size”, because everyone knows you can mindlessly toss back a dozen of those before anyone says “boo”.

Congress would take note, and a petition to form a new law in my name would be circulated around Washington. This law would establish tax exemptions for appropriately sized people and offer incentives for each and every American to become pathologically preoccupied with the number on their bathroom scale to the exclusion of all other pursuits and concerns.

Eventually, I would be canonized, and affectionately declared the “Saint of Salad”. All the church officials would gather to honor me, and decide unanimously that they really should wear more fitted vestments, because their long flowing gowns make it far too easy to have a few extra communion wafers, and—they would gently remind one another—every calorie counts.

All the while, those who knew and loved me best will have their sadness eased by the knowledge that I am in a better place—that place being the ground, where with each passing moment I am getting thinner and thinner until one day I finally become the skeleton I always dreamed of being.

Yep, it’s a good feeling to believe that my legacy will have such far reaching repercussions. I know I will never regret the endless hours I spend thinking about the size of my ass, because at the end of the day, what could possibly be more important?

 

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Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: Roy Cheung on Pixoto