Me, Myself, and I

A tumultuous interior monologue that pits the author’s mind against a recalcitrant body.

I haven’t always been the suave, sophisticated, refined, cultured, urbane, and debonair persona that is the façade of the caricature of the fabrication that I am today. Just a few short years ago I was probably just as big of a slob as you. OK, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. I seriously doubt that anyone in the history of mankind has been as big of a slob as you. I mean, look at yourself in the mirror. I don’t mean to be critical, but they just discovered a moon of Pluto that is smaller than you.

On second thought, let’s not even get distracted by the Katrina-like disaster that passes for your life in its present phase. I’m looking to make some big changes around here and you may not be able to make the cut. You can stick around if you want, but before we get started, please do me a favor. Put on a shirt.

What’s that? You don’t have to shout—I’m right here. Yes, this could take a while. You want to order out for pizza? Isn’t that a half-full bucket of chicken on your lap? OK, don’t get hysterical. What? Yeah, everything on the pizza is fine with me. Sure, whatever you say—go ahead and order two if you want.

So, what I think is that we really need to get our act together around here. A little exercise wouldn’t kill any of us. Let’s all hit the deck and see how many push-ups we can do. On my count. Ready? Uno…dos…ouch! That’s enough for today. You know what the Greeks say, mens sana in corpore sano, sound mind, sound body. That’s Latin but the Greeks said it first. That’s why I’m the brains of this outfit and you are the body, although ‘body’ is too kind of a word for your present condition. Other descriptions that come to mind are ‘sack of shit’ or ‘pile’ or ‘complete load.’ The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Where did you go?

Sure, I can talk a bit louder while you go into the kitchen, but the pizza should be here any second. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that gallon of rocky road that we bought last night. No, I was not holding out on you. I went to the grocery store last night after the bars closed, which explains my shopping choices: ice cream, two bags of corn chips, and the rest of that stuff was meant as toppings for the ice cream. What did you call me? Yeah, weird like a fox. Have you ever put bacon bits on rocky road ice cream? Then shut up until you’ve tried it.

See what I told you? It’s pretty good, isn’t it? Where was I? So in addition to a vigorous daily exercise program, we are going to work our intellect. Through an exhaustive campaign of reading we will strop our mind like a razor. I have picked up a collection of the classic works of western literature which we will attack from A to Z. Turn off the TV, I’m talking here. Oh wait, this is the episode where the Skipper has prostate cancer and Gilligan operates on him with the monkey as his nurse. This is a classic.

Just put the ice cream on this stack of books next to my chair.

Was I right about the bacon bits? How should I know how the Skipper’s incision kept from getting infected? Who am I, Dr. Phil? They probably made penicillin out of coconuts. Do I have to do all of the thinking around here? What’s that? You do all of the heavy lifting? I suppose that if you consider lifting your big ass out of the chair as heavy lifting. I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.