Humor Writing….. NOT!

For the last five weeks, I’ve been sorta hungry… mainly, ‘cause me and a handful of buddies have been engaged in a High Stakes Weight Loss Contest, with $1200 American Dollars on the line… and what with the recession and all, the whole bunch of us have been trying pretty hard to win the contest! (Bad grammar alert: I know I should have said “a handful of buddies and I”, but the lack of nutrition from my current diet has made me too weak to go back and fix my error.)

I’ve been doing this roughly annually for the last half-decade or so. Competition is the only sure-fire way I have of losing weight. Of course, its evident that I’m not REALLY losing weight, at least not for the long term. If I was REALLY losing weight, long term, then I wouldn’t need to do it every year, now would I.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I announced that I was once again a Big-Fat-Giant Hippo-Pig-Whale, and, therefore, it was time to kick off our Annual Fifteen Fat Guys Weight Loss Contest.

We kicked it off back on Feburary 9th, and I’ve been hungry ever since. However, instead of 15, we had 12, one of which is not a guy at all, but a gal. Here is how we weighed in at the start:

Reigning Champion Don Gawrys, Manager of Michaels -- 374.2; Okra Strut Chairman and three-time champion Kirk Luther -- 247.0; Bruce Holland, Attorney -- 229.6; Tom Beottger -- 267.8; Terry Campbell of nationwide Insurance -- 235.4; Norman Agnew of Agnew Lake Service-- 285.2; Jim Miles, former Secreatry of State -- 241.0; Doug Adam, The Indesign Firm -- 277.2; Denis Vaucher, International Man of Mystery -- 228.2; Jimmy Carroll, Isle of Palms Man of Mystery -- 228.2; and, yours truly, Rod-Boy Shealy -- a massive, whopping, huge-enormous, earth-orbit-altering 248.6 lbs.

We’ve now completed five weeks of an eight week contest, and the contestants are getting… well, we’re getting a little ornery.

Plus, all the rest of them are real secretive about their current weights. It’s because they’re trying to use strategery in the contest!!! It’s also because they believe I will make Big Jokes about them in this column if they tell me how much weight they’ve lost. And they’re right! So they won’t tell me.

Every time we have one of these contests, I write pretty much whatever I want to about my Blubbery Buddies who have joined me in the competition. I refer to it as “humor”, and sometimes, my readers actually giggle or guffaw… and not just at my picture.

Well, apparently my fellow contestants have had enough. For the last few weeks, they’ve lighted up the Internet with their Blubbery Barbs aimed back at Yours-Truly!!!

They’re taking Porky-Pig Pokes!!! Tank-sized Teasing!!!

So, I thought I’d give you a sample of the Jumbo Jibes -- and feeble attempts at humor -- these Big-Bellied Bubbas been shooting my way.

From Young Mr. Agnew:

“As a member of Rod’s infamous weight loss contest (as a side note it really shouldn’t be called Rod’s as he has never won) I’d like to get a few things off of my chest other than about 60 pounds. With regards to our “Captain of Cream” and by cream I of course mean Ice Cream, not the popular band of the 70’s, it is probable that he once again will not win this contest. I am hopeful that I will walk away (walk, not jog or run) victorious this year, a feat that I haven’t been able to match since the “original” weight loss contest. This little-known contest didn’t get the publicity like the present day one. It probably didn’t get the publicity because it was yet another contest Mr. Shealy failed to win. This year, we have one of the larger contests on our hands, and that sparks even more incentive to win, something I doubt our esteemed publisher will be doing yet again this year. If you have noticed a developing theme in my letter, it is for good reason. Although I would like to win the contest this year, as long as one of my deserving colleagues wins, and they are not the publisher of a paper, I will be happy. I wish the best of luck to all participants… with the exception of Rod!”

From Jimmy Carroll:

“Weight loss, how about we change the game to memory loss. No huh, well as for your beach bum contestant, he is still holding give or take 6lbs lost. Darn, I am still walking every night, I gave up my life blood, sweet tea, I mean, real sweet tea and darn it, only 6 lbs!!!!! O-well, maybe I am becoming all muscle and my body is creating 6 pack abs, but the mirror doesn't agree. So unless there is some miracle here on the good ole Isle of Palms, I may be out another $100 bucks.”

From Kirk Luther:

“I realized that my wait loss has not decreased but has increased substantially since the beginning of this contest. I've calculated what my 'wait deficiency' is currently and want to share it with all of you: Wait for coffee pot to brew each morning: 3.2 x 30 days since start of contest = 96; Wait at the doctors office: 58; Wait at DMV: 43.5; Wait at dentist: 16.4; Wait for stimulus check: 63 days since Obama took office (90,720); Wait for this stupid contest to end as of today: 30 days or 43200; TOTAL WAIT (in minutes): 134,133.9. So there you have it... I have lost 2235..565 hours or 93.148 days trying to win $1200. If I had spent that time actually working for minimum wage at the current SC rate of $6.55 per hour I would have earned $14,642.95. We either have to up the ante for this contest or reconsider our priorities.”

So, as you can see from the three samples above, extreme weight-loss diets apparently not only make you hungry and ornery, but also seem to completely drain one’s humor writing talents. (I wish them luck at winning the money in the weigh-loss competition… cause they’re not gonna make it on the comedy circuit.)

And to my readers…. I’m sorry you had to witness this. I promise to never again include anything submitted from any of the other contestants in our weight-loss contest.

And I promise I’ll be back next week with my own rip-roaring, side-splitting, half-witted brand of fun, frolic, and frivolity. Or else something else.