Fat Credit

Do you know why it is so hard to lose weight? Because we have credit cards.

Losing weight is like saving money. The first month that you start your new savings account, it's a pretty sorry looking balance. It's almost not worth the paperwork. And the next month when you put a little more in, it's not any more impressive, and yet it's been a whole two months! And you want new shoes! But once you get used to the habit of putting money into the account every month and going about your business, it starts to grow into something substantial.

On a diet, you feel at first that you are sacrificing so much food and food-based fun that you really expect to see big results right away. When you don't it's hard not to give up, take the metaphorical money out of the bank and buy a pizza with it.

When you want something you don't have the money for, you now have a credit card. You buy the big-screen TV, and pay back the bank in monthly installments - kind of like saving the money, but backwards. While watching a big-screen TV.

What if you could get a fat credit card? Lose all the weight tomorrow, and then pay it back, little by little, by dieting after the fact? Would we pay the diet-debt? Or would we just rack up more debt, until we are forced to starve?

That would be some ultimate foreclosure. Foreclosure of the Mouth. Maybe let's stick with the savings account plan.