Almost A Lost Cause

Elliot had a bad habit of forming bad habits. He didn’t let that bother him…most of the time, anyway. It did, however, bother other people. That didn’t bother him so much either…until now. Now it was crushing him. Now is when he wanted to be a “knight in shining armor” instead of an obese, clumsy, booger-picking nerd who could only be comfortable in sweatpants and t-shirts.

           Priscilla was new in town. Her promotion to Midwest District Sales Director of Faux Fur Sure, Inc. had necessitated her moving to Madison, Wisconsin from her hometown in a small Iowa suburb. At 5’ 8” and 120 pounds, she could have been a model. Her smooth, slightly tanned face was perfectly adorned with a small, narrow nose and sea-green eyes. Her wavy mahogany hair fell across her shoulders like a silk shirt tossed carelessly over the handlebars of Elliot’s exercise bike. She wore brightly colored knee-length dresses that clung loosely to her voluptuous figure.

           The first time Elliot saw her, she was standing in line at Capucine’s, the small European bakery/coffee shop that had, to his detriment, opened not fifty yards down the street from his roach-infested apartment. He worked from home, so it was all too easy for him to walk there as often as his heart craved those magnificent patisseries (which was at least twice daily).

           He soon discovered that Priscilla made her own regular pilgrimage to this same dreamy haven. Every morning, at 8:30 sharp, she walked in and ordered her usual: a mocha latte with low fat milk and a slice of gluten-free, half-sugar, low-sodium zucchini bread.

           Elliot’s hunger for love (or lust, as it were) grew quickly, outpacing even his insatiable fleshly appetite. By Christmas, he had determined he was going to change. After the holidays, of course. You don’t start a diet between Halloween and New Year’s. That’s a recipe for guaranteed failure! But for Elliot, it wasn’t only his overeating that had to change. He had many habits that were not exactly babe-inducing. He chewed his fingernails. He picked his nose (difficult to do without fingernails). He belched in public. He sighed loudly and often. He was a kleptomaniac. In addition, there were positive habits that needed to be formed: regular bathing and brushing of teeth, for starters.

           Elliot knew he needed a major overhaul, but he didn’t know where to start. On January second, which happened to fall on a Saturday, Elliot took the city transit to the large bookstore downtown. Being an avid reader and frequent customer there, he knew it contained two large aisles of self-help material, and figured that would be as good a place as any to start.    

           It didn’t take Elliot long to find material of interest. Many titles struck his fancy: Ditch the Fat, Not the Fudge; Clean Nose, Clean Hands; Why Chewing Fingernails Can Lead to Erectile Dysfunction; Burping is For Babies; Sing, Don’t Sigh; and Please Pay for This on Your Way Out!, to name but a few. Eventually he became so overwhelmed he just wanted to sit down and cry. He managed to hold back the tears, but he did sit down - right in the middle of the aisle - with an armful of books. He began scanning through them, checking the table of contents and back cover synopses, sighing audibly after each one. In between volumes, he would occasionally pause to pop a zit, wiping the blood and pus on the front of his dingy t-shirt; or to dig out a booger, which he would dispose of by rubbing it off on the underside of a book shelf.

           As he continued browsing, vacillating between eager optimism and staggering hopelessness, he was about to stick his finger in his nose again when a figure suddenly appeared at the end of the aisle. His heart nearly exploded as Priscilla stopped in her tracks with a look of disbelief she could not initially hide. Had he been in better shape, he would have sprung to his feet, without the assistance of hands, like an over-wound Jack-in-the-box. As it was, his movement could best be described as a forceful twitch – the kind you experience when you are just falling asleep and are awakened by an entire body-jerk – but was only detectable by the jiggling of his gelatinous abdomen.

           Luckily, Priscilla recovered quicker than Elliot at the mutual shock. Her look of disbelief immediately turned into a generous smile. As Elliot worked his way to his feet, she greeted him warmly. “Hi, my name is Priscilla. I see you at the coffee shop all the time.” He was rather embarrassed to discover she had seen or noticed him at all, yet relieved at her friendly demeanor. This was like a dream come true for him, notwithstanding the circumstances. He fumbled and stuttered through an introduction, feeling like the biggest loser in the world; except for one very important fact. She recognized him and had actually taken the time to introduce herself. The idea that she seemed to not be repelled by his presence was more than he could have hoped for. Engaging him in conversation was like a banana split with…no, it was more like a Farrell’s Pig Trough!

           After rubbing the palm of his hand on his sweatpants and shaking her extended hand, she nodded toward the pile of books and rhetorically questioned, “New Year’s resolutions?”

           “Yeah,” he mumbled looking down at his blue Croc-clad feet.

           “I think it’s great that you’re making an attempt to improve yourself!”

He couldn’t tell her that she was his sole source of inspiration. “Thank you,” he responded shyly.

           “You know,” she continued, “I understand your plight. I was in your shoes once.”

           “Impossible!”

           “It’s true. I was quite rotund growing up, all the way through high school. It wasn’t until I was a freshman in college that I decided to do something about it. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I feel so much better about myself, and my health even improved.”

           “Well, you look amazing! But I don’t know. I think I waited too long. And I have more issues than just my weight to deal with.”

           “Let me help you. I know you can achieve your goals if you try. You just need a little encouragement.”

           With that, she helped him pick up the books and replace them all to their respective spaces on the shelves. At one point her left high heel got caught on a loose circle of thread sticking up from the carpet, causing her to lose her balance. She grabbed onto a shelf to steady herself and her fingers found a moist, sticky glob. She didn’t grimace or moan or let on to her incidental discovery. Actually, she almost laughed out loud, recalling a time in her past when she suffered many inglorious habits. She assumed it must have been Elliot’s booger. She had caught him a time or two, out of the corner of her eye, at Capucine’s. She nonchalantly ran her hand across his upper back, returning the favor. He turned to her and smiled, clueless. It was all she could do to keep from bursting out in laughter.

           She convinced him to focus on one habit at a time to start with. She picked out a book that she had read herself on her road to reconstruction: Change Your Mind – And Your Skivvies, You Animal! A new day and a new dawning had begun for Elliot.