My Weight Gain Journey (Goblins, Aliens, and Diet Chocolate

Once I was a healthy child, not even slightly overweight. I did have an older brother who was skinny, so I might've looked a little chubby in comparison, but actually I was really healthy.

Then one day, the goblins came in the middle of the night.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"We want to fatten you up, child," said the goblins, licking their lips. "We are hungry, and you are not plump enough ... yet."

Then before I could do anything, they yanked off the covers and stuck a giant syringe in my stomach. The yellow glob-like liquid was squished free of the syringe right into my belly, and then they vanished, leaving me with a little chubbyness around my gut.

"Man," I said. "That's annoying.

The next day I started eating nothing but beets and cottage cheese, but the weight just wouldn't come off. I pouted.

A week later the goblins returned, but this time I was prepared. I had a case of diet chocolate cola, some really nasty stuff I borrowed from my mom. No better weapon than that. As soon as I saw their grotesque little slimy faces and gnarled bodies at the foot of my bed, I sprang into action. I jumped up and pulled the tab of the pre-shaken sodas. The gush of chocolatey fizzyness blasted their faces. Oh, how they howled. How they screeched. I grabbed can after can, yanking those tabs like triggers, and it didn't take long before the goblins retreated into my closet, scampered up the ladder into the attic.

The next day I hammered a few dozen nails into the attic doorway. No way would they return.

Still I ate beets and cottage cheese, but added the chocolate soda, and the weight stayed on.

Well, a year passed, maybe two.

One night I was in the middle of this awesome dream about flying. I was soaring over canyons like an eagle, looking down on a land bathed in a golden sunrise. Then in the dream, the sun fell out of the sky and winter came on, and I was on an iceberg. I startled awake to find my window was open and snow was on my covers.

And around my bed, a trio of sickly looking purple aliens, all one-eyed and multi-mouthed.

"What now?" I asked.

"Juicy human, juicy human," they chanted.

"Not this again," I said. I looked for a can of diet chocolate soda, but, alas, there were none to be had.

It was then that the alien in the middle turned, showing me what looked like a vaccuum cleaner hooked onto his back. He held a long hose in his three hands, and was aiming it at me.

My hope that they were here to right a wrong that the goblins had inflicted on me was short-lived. Immediately the alien jabbed the hose into my side and I began to feel inflated with air. Except it wasn't really air, but fat.

"Juicy human, juicy human!" they chanted.

After a minute they left, and I could see a red mark at my side, which was a little tender, and I noticed that I was most definitely more chubby all over my body.

The next day I started buying cans of of Sleek-Quickly Shakes. They had Vanilla Fantastic and Chocolate Wowser flavors. I liked the latter more. With ice blended in.

I lost a pound and then gained 10. Then I lost another pound and gained 50. This was annoying.

All that in just a few weeks time. Before I knew it, I was the fattest kid in school.

The aliens returned about a month later. This time I was prepared. I had my own vaccuum tucked inside my bed, and they didn't notice the cord plugged into the wall. Silly aliens.

The vaccuum was pre-loaded with celery and blended beets. Celery is good for poking eyes out and beets are just gross, period. I had it on reverse.

When the aliens came with their spiffy beam of light transporting them, I blasted them with the chunky concotion. They squeaked and squealed, scampering to try and get away and kept slipping on the beet juice. It was rather funny. But eventually they managed to ride that beam of light to freedom.

Never came back. The weight lingered.

By then, I had gotten used to being the big kid, though I hated it. I never did give up trying to lose that goblin- and alien-induced weight gain, but every time I lost a good amount, it seemed to spring back.

One day I weighed in at 300 lbs and I was quite unhappy with that, that I had the scale attached to a space shuttle. It's somewhere floating in orbit now, I suppose.

But the same day, a little brownie (the creature kind, not the yummy chocolate kind, though I didn't try to taste this brownie) sauntered up to me, inexplicably wearing a rather-cool cowboy suit.

He says to me in his very best brownie cowboy drawl, "Pard, Have I got the solution for what ails ya."

"Have you?" I asked.

"And how," says he. Then he handed me this red can that looks suspiciously like a frequently stocked beverage in my fridge but turns out to be labeled: CAN-DO.

"What a lame name," I said, but I drank it anyway.

He was gone before I guzzled the last drop. It was a little licorice-y.

Well, the weight didn't melt off in moments, which was disappointing. But I stopped the weight gain journey then and there, never going higher than 300. Oh, sometimes I gained a few pounds back, but for the most part it was slowly and slowly and ever-so-slowly going down.

I could use another can of that CAN-DO.

Meanwhile, I keep a ready supply of diet chocolate soda by my bedside. You never know when those creatures are going to come back.