Sandi Kahn Shelton

These days, life and fashion being what they are, all of us are being made to feel horrible about our harmless little rolls of fat.

You can hardly thumb through a magazine without seeing that your personal body is grossly  out of style–even if you wear a size zero. Size zero is the new size ten, as someone recently pointed out.

Dieting being difficult, and exercise getting to be more of a drag than ever before, Hewlett Packard has come to our rescue, thank God. They have developed a camera that takes away 10 of your ugliest pounds so that you can at least feel good about yourself when you look at yourself in a photograph. Never mind how the camera knows exactly which pounds to take away–just go there and watch the slimming effect at work, and you know you’ll never have to diet again.

Who cares if you’re really a little chubby? Take a picture of yourself and post that on your mirror instead, and you’ll feel great.

I think if this really catches on, I think we’ll see photographs of the future doing a lot more for us than they currently do. Hewlett Packard should work on a camera that can erase all those tired frown lines, of course, and maybe upgrade our clothing and dust our furniture. And with a little bit more effort, it could modernize our kitchens and improve our family members’ posture, perhaps give us newer cars. I’m waiting for the camera that knows how to correct unfortunate haircuts and even out hair color disasters. 

In fact, I think the Hewlett Packard camera could revolutionize life as we know it. Feeling dissatisfied with yourself or how many chins you have? Forget it. Just head back to the couch, get more chips, and if anybody complains, show them your photo. You’re fine just the way you are.

(And thank you, Heather, for letting me know about this.)

The winter–such as it is–is taking its toll.

Today my friend Beth told me she became flat-out hysterical yesterday when she tried to put her jeans on, and they no longer fit. Now this is bad for many reasons, not the least of which the winter hasn’t really kicked in yet, and that means that the Days of Wanting to Sit in Front of the Television and Drink Gravy Right Out of the Bowl haven’t even begun, and yet even so, the clothes are starting not to fit. It’s way too early for this!

But Beth is a sensible woman, and she told herself not to panic, that surely the jeans had just spent a little too much time in the dryer, and that she should just tug at them encouragingly and keep hoisting them up, think positive, keep pulling, and that all would be well.

But these jeans would not even come close, no matter how much she struggled. And so at last she came to the only possible conclusion, the conclusion any woman holding her pair of too-tight jeans would quickly get to, which was, (to quote):  “I am a fat fat fatty fat fat fatso who can’t even fit in her comfortable pants because she is so fat, and now I will have to start shopping in the tent section at L.L. Bean.”

She threw them on the floor and threw herself on her bed and started to sob.

And that’s when she noticed that the pants were actually her skinny little son’s.