I'M ONLY PARANOID BECAUSE EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET ME ~ Writing Wednesday

Here is a more light hearted story, that was written purely for fun. Today, however, I am not the author. This awesome short story was penned by a very good friend of mine, Daniel Donovich.

He is a fantastic writer. Literally, he writes fantasy. Though, he does not (and most certainly should not) classify his work genre fantasy. He always writes stories with true literary value, and does so very, very well. To get a better taste of his work please go check out his blog. 


The story he gave us today is a bit different than his usual writing style (& he will probably say that is quite the understatement), it is more of a creative non-fiction piece. But I find it very fun & entertaining to read, & I think you will to.


Enjoy. 

I think my family wants me to be fat. Apparently, they're dissatisfied in their own corpulence; they can't stand to have one of the Thin in their midst. I walk around the house with a target on my back. A small target, that still sticks out from behind my back, but a target nonetheless. Furthermore, I don't believe they all have night jobs. No three people -- especially three people who live in such close proximity to one another, close enough to say to one another: "Don't work nights, it's horrible. You're pasty. You can't do anything, because all other business happens during the day, when you're asleep." -- could possibly all work nights. It's unfathomable. I think instead they have secret meetings to plot the assassination of my fitness. I can see my dad calling the meeting to order. 

"Alright, alright, this meeting of the Three Acceptable Dydek's will now come to order. What's the first order of business?" 

"Danny is starting to really get on my nerves," my mom would pipe up. "He's just too thin. We need to get some meat on those bones. Or something like it." 

And so the plan slowly hatches into being. First, my mom will make a dinner dish, something she's sure I will like. She'll text me about it while I'm at work, while I'm the hungriest, to tell me about it. "Chicken parmesan pasta" the text will say. Those three words have the power to raise the dead, assuming the dead like chicken parmesan pasta as much as I do. 

But something comes over me when I get home, because there's Pizza Joe's left in the fridge from yesterday. Nothing in God's green earth or in His holy city trumps cold Pizza Joe's pizza. Besides, I'd had a late lunch and wasn't actually feeling particularly hungry right then. There's one tiny square of the chicken parmesan pasta missing, just to let me know that it is, indeed, edible. It'll be there tomorrow. 

But their plan is far from foiled: my dad makes another dish the next day, and it includes bacon. The only thing that might make chicken parmesan pasta better is adding bacon. Bacon, if you've seen the ads, makes everything better. 


"Why didn't you eat what I made yesterday?" my mom asks. 

"Sorry," I reply -- a little off-handedly, I'll admit. "I finished the pizza last night, so I'll have the chicken tonight." 

"You're not going to eat what I made?" my dad asks, seeming genuinely affronted. His dish has bacon! How could I pass that up? 

In the course of my life, I've lost a combined 100 pounds. I know what it takes to lose weight, to maintain weight, and to gain weight -- at least for myself. I know, for instance, that I can't eat everything all the time; that tends toward weight gain, I've discovered. 

And that's their plan. Soon my brother will make stir-fry, and be hurt tremendously that I don't want to try his creation. Each one will make some not-lean meal, and ply my sense of compassion to get me to eat it.


"Oh, you already got Oreos? Gee, I didn't see those. Well, now we have two boxes! Eat as much as you want, I know you like them!" one says. But all I hear is the rattle of the snake. Saturday they called an emergency meeting. 

"He's going for a bike ride tomorrow! We can't allow that, he'll stay in shape! What can we do?" 

"The Steeler game! Tell him that that's our family thing, he can't skip out on that! And he should contribute to snacks for the game too." 

"Excellent! Two birds with one stone!" 

I dread to see what they'll come up with next; probably it will include two freezers of ice cream, a fridge full of Mexican chicken casserole, chili, waffles, bacon and eggs, ham, grilled steak, kielbasa, and hamburgers, and a pantry stocked with chips, Doritos, pretzels both chocolate-covered and regular, popcorn, cereal, and pop-tarts. Then they'll run over my bikes and pull the alternator out of my car, and give me the flu. Anything to keep me inactive and fed, and it'll be four months before I roll out of bed. Literally. 


(Author's note: don't worry, I actually love my family. And whether they're plotting against me or not, I am sufficiently strong enough to stand against their fiery arrows and Klondikes.)