GUARANTEED WEIGHT LOSS

Jule Selbo

Monday, May 25, 2026.  Weight: 560 pounds.  I dreamt fat.  I couldn’t get out of bed because extra flesh was weighing me down. My cheeks drooped past my jaw and swung on my shoulders. My toes were too big for my shoes. I went to the doctor, and this is what he said: Finish the damn book.

Monday, June 1, 2026. Weight: 10,004 pounds. Extra heavy fluid on my brain was trying to ooze out my ears. My ass was so big I couldn’t fit through doorways. My ankles looked like an elephant’s. I switched doctors, hoping for a magic pill. This is what she said:  Finish the damn book.

Monday, June 8, 2026:

Weight: I looked like a model. Paris was calling for the next Stella McCarthy show, there was a tube dress that only me – the model with no-extra-body-fat could wear. I felt like renting a billboard on Times Square:  6 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery, coming soon.

MONTHS PREVIOUSLY WHILE IN WEIGHT DENIAL:

I had taken to lying because it was the only encouragement available to me.  “Almost there”. “Two more chapters, know exactly what I need to do, should be quick”.  “Gotta finish the big climax and then I’ll sail to the end”.

I live in a large condo building; there are about 150 plus residents and it’s cool to realize some are Dee Rommel fans. But before June 8, I had taken to leaving the building before sun-up and coming back after normal bedtimes because well-meaning people were stopping me at the mailboxes or in the hallways to tell me of their disappointment that my yearly Dee Rommel book was not ready for their normal holiday-present-giving. But they became kinder when they saw the panic on my face and although their interior voice was saying ‘shame on you’, they would smile and ask for a publication date that I could not give them.

Halfway through the writing of 6 DAYS, I’d realized I had opted for complication and not complexity. I’d put off making necessary decisions that would get me on the “slide to the finish”. I got stubborn and didn’t want to go back into the chapters I had already completed and semi-polished. I was a little kid stomping my foot and refusing to take that much-needed bath.

Finally, I had to go into clean-up mode. The shower took a few months – but that wasn’t  as long as I thought it would be and it wasn’t as painful a scrub as I had anticipated. Water-logged and wrinkly-skinned, I excised two characters and committed to my bad guy being even badder.  That chapter that had become my biggest and heaviest bug-a-boo “wrote itself” (Ha! But you know what I mean -).

I had been walking around with 700-pound barbells on my shoulders and wearing wrist and ankle weights as earrings for too long. I shucked them into the dumpster.

Finally, the day of writing “THE END” manifested itself like the yearly sing-along of the Hallelujah Chorus at Blue’s Barroom Messiah.  Thanks to all who put up with me during my oh-so serious weight gain –  see you at the gym!