Old Fatty

So, I went to visit my doctor recently and, I don't know about you, but I rarely get good news when I go. It's either high blood pressure, high cholesterol, deteriorating joints, or as was the case this time too much fat. Not too much fat in the diet. Too much fat on me. Apparently I am one of those kind of people who do not handle excess fat well. It seems to be building up on and around my liver and creating a disease called "fatty liver disease." I'm not kidding. I wonder who thought that one up. I mean when the doctors were all sitting around thinking up disease names, what happened?

"Let's see," said doctor #1. "I have observed a disease that causes inflammation of the joints and deterioration of the cartilage. Let's call it rheumatoid arthritis."

Doctor #2 was studying and thinking about heart failure and said, "I think we should call this acute myocardial infarction."

Then there was doctor #3. "Hey this guy's got a liver with fat oozing out of it. I'm thinking fatty liver disease sounds pretty good."

I can't believe the guy even made it through medical school. What was he thinking? I mean if you tell someone that you had an acute myocardial infarction, they're gonna say something like, "Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry." Even if they don't know that it's just a fancy way of saying "heart attack." But try telling someone you have fatty liver disease. They usually have a hard time not busting a gut laughing out loud. Nobody is going to take you seriously when you have a disease with a name like that.

But nonetheless, my doctor–after he wiped away the tears from his eyes because he was laughing so hard–gave me a stern look and said, "Bart, you need to lose about 20-30 lbs. If you do not, you risk serious liver damage down the road a few years. I would recommend that you cut everything you like out of your diet."

It's not bad enough that I have a disease that sounds like an elementary school kid made it up, but the cure for the disease is to cut edible foods out of my diet. Oh, I can have the old fruits and vegetables, blah, blah, blah. But fundamental foods like pizza, cake, pumpkin pie, ice cream, coke, buttered scones, and Cinnabons have to go. What kind of a cure is that? Don't they have a pill or an operation or some cool machine that would solve the problem? For example, I looked up the recommended course of action for someone who has had a myocardial infarction on Wikipedia. It said, "Most cases of myocardial infarction with ST elevation on ECG (STEMI) are treated with reperfusion therapy, such as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or thrombolysis. Non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) may be managed with medication, although PCI may be required if the patient's risk warrants it."

Now that's serious therapy, even if I have no idea what it means.

Why doesn't the government work on any really serious problems...like halitosis?

I have remained silent on this issue for far too long. However, it's time to "bite the bullet" and speak up. The issue is this: There are far too many people in the world who are completely clueless about how bad their breath is. And to compound the problem, none of us will tell them about it. We just stand there and grin and pretend that we are completely enjoying the fact that six inches away from us there is a volcano issuing forth toxic gases that could wilt a two-by-four.

Seriously, this is a major problem. Even when we do work up the courage to try and do something about it, things often backfire. I tried once to tell a friend that perhaps a couple of tic tacs would be in order, and might even help him to get a second date. He never spoke to me again. I was just trying to help. Really.

Just the other day I was working with an individual whose breath was somewhere around 7 to 8 on the 10 point scale where 1 is fresh, sweet mountain air and 10 is a mixture of dead fish and rotted, maggot infested cow. I pulled out a couple of breath mints and offered them to him in a polite, but non-threatening way and he smiled back at me and said, "No...no, thanks. I'm fine." I wanted to scream, "No, you are not fine! Your breath smells like you ate a pot of ten-year old fermented gingko berries for breakfast!" (And, by the way, I do know what rotted, fermented gingko berries smell like because there is a tree full of them right outside my office building that fall all over the sidewalk every year and then get stepped on and tramped into the building where we all look around to see who stepped in the doggy you-know-what).

But I digress...I, of course, did not say that his breath smelled like fermented gingko berries. I just smiled and took a couple steps back, a move that would have helped except for the fact that he then took a couple of steps forward to keep our conversation more personal, I suppose.

Well, I have a plan to solve this problem and I mean to get to work on it right away. I am planning to see if I can get President Obama to take this on. He is one of the few people who has the will and the means to tackle a problem as serious as this one. I hope that by next year we can have breath scanners in all public places...no...why stop there. We'll get him to put whole body smell scanners. That way we can catch those with any kind of offending body odor (from whatever part they are coming from). Those who do not comply will be locked up together for a couple of days to enjoy each others company and emanations.

This whole idea has me so worked up that I'm getting hungry. Think I'll go finish that leftover garlic and anchovy pizza.

Bad News and Good News as the Campaign Winds Down

 I'm not going to try and sugar coat the news I have for all of my supporters today. That would be unfair to all of you and, in addition, I understand that sugar is not particularly healthy in combination with a diet that is already high in baloney. So, this is it. Due to a miscommunication with my staff, my name was, as you can see above, left off of the election ballot. Apparently, my staff spent all of the funds raised for the campaign on pizza and root beer for their campaign planning sessions and had nothing left to pay the fees needed to get my name on the ballot.

I learned of this devastating development only this week when I received my absentee ballot in the mail and found that Roseanne Barr was on the ballot, but not Professor Bart. In fact, you can vote for Roseanne in any of the states shown on the map below. I have been deeply involved in this presidential race, as you all know, but I was unaware that Roseanne was also running. Had I known, Roseanne was in the race, I would probably have withdrawn long ago. I mean, how can any of the candidates compete with someone as knowledgeable, well-liked, and unbiased as Ms. Barr.

So, that is the bad news. The good news is that I had a revelation while filling out my ballot. There was no one running for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Therefore, I am encouraging all of my supporters to write me in for Chief Justice. Since no one else is running, I am certain to win. I look forward to greeting all of you next Wednesday morning as your new...Uh, hold on for a moment. One of my staff is trying to tell me something, but he has too much pizza in his mouth...[what do you mean, we don't elect a Chief Justice. You don't think they just let those bozos in Washington pick who they want, do you!]

Please, forgive me for that interruption and ignore anything you might hear from my former staffers (I just fired them all). Now get out there on election day and "Vote for Bart."

[If you have missed some of the earlier reports on the Vote for Bart campaign trail, you can find them in the archives: My Economic Plan, Election Endorsements, Campaign Fundraising, Ice Cream Politics, Politicians Love a Parade, Breaking News, Campaign Rumors, The Real Issues, Vote for Bart, Mr. President, The Cortisone Effect, Let's Get the Campaign Rolling, Important Endorsements]