Since being reprimanded by a medical professional, I've been trying to eat healthier, which means eating just two cookies at a time instead of an entire bag of chocolate chip cookie dough.
This is enough to wash the taste of fresh vegetables and other healthy foods out of your mouth.
This quest for better eating habits—figuring out how many sweets I could sneak in without getting another warning from my doctor—reminded me of a very scary bedtime story I read many years ago.
A horror-movie-worthy engineer at the University of Plymouth in the UK has designed a “smart” fridge that's programmed to keep unhealthy snacks away from dieters.
A refrigerator trained to taunt you with foods you shouldn't eat! Could there be a crueler nightmare than this?
I don't remember how the fridge worked. It must have been some high-tech wizardry, probably something futuristic like those automatic flyswatters on “The Jetsons” that would pop out of the fridge and swat my hand whenever I reached for a Coke or a candy bar.
When I was married, I didn't need this fridge torture. My wife might be three rooms away, listening to Motown at full volume with headphones on and running the screaming vacuum cleaner, but she'd come over and clap her hands whenever I opened the fridge door as quietly as possible.
She justified this with the usual weak excuses: “I'm worried about your health,” “The chicken is for the church picnic,” “Please leave some for all of us,” etc.
You may say that this is impossible in America. But what about the constitutional rights to life, liberty and happiness? Isn't happiness defined as chocolate, french fries and pudding?
Ah, but read the fine print. It's actually not in the Constitution but in the Declaration of Independence, where it says: “…and the pursuit of happiness.”
Capturing is optional.
Being married also means committing your life to another person and voluntarily accepting limitations on your freedom.
So, if she tells you not to eat the cherry cheesecake, leave it be – it's for your health's sake, because if you try to eat it secretly, you might end up with swelling and bruising if she finds out.
Returning to the sinister smart fridge, this technology threatens to spread like a crazy virus, a pandemic of mayhem, destroying all the cupcakes, sub sandwiches, and stadium dogs we hold dear.
One day, you might drive up to a fast food restaurant and order a juicy double burger smothered in cheese, bacon, and barbecue sauce, a side of giant fries smothered in salt, and a giant chocolate milkshake.
But while you speak into the cracked intercom above the menu board, laser beams beam at you, measuring every fat cell in the car.
You pull up to the window and instead of what you wanted, a kid in a funny hat hands you the BMI special, a garden salad and an iced water.
“And if you lose eight pounds, I'll give you a low-calorie dressing. Have a great day, Fatso.”
Or when you go to the grocery store, you might notice that the carts are electrified, just like the fences that are electrified to control grazing cattle.
When you touch the shopping cart, the cart scans your fingerprint, reads your blood sugar level, and shows you a list of tasty foods you can't eat while on the diet, like chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. If you grab the ice cream, the cart gives you an electric shock, which continues to jolt you until you throw back the offending food.
Please keep this low-tech refrigerator, it will keep your lemon meringue pie from spoiling.
For more weight loss tips from Cole, contact him at [email protected] or visit the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.
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