Bill decides to lose weight…

(The Rise and Fall of Bill Cook - Part II)

Now that Bill was made manager and making an extra $100 a month, he decided to take a good long look at his health. If you’ll recall, Bill weighs close to 500 pounds and eats like a rabid hog. I expect most medical professionals would agree that taking control of his weight is incredibly important if he wants to live over the age of 40.

Unfortunately, instead of eating less, eating healthier foods and exercising, he decided to go to his doctor for a “magic pill.” His first attempt was with Meridia. This was a bad strategy for a number of reasons. Most importantly, since he was a heavy smoker and caffeine fiend, this drug (which is also a stimulant) caused him to stop sleeping and sweat more in addition to reducing his appetite. The only thing that his coworkers noticed about this medication was that he was even more irritated all of the time and his sweat-stained clothing was a much deeper shade.

His next attempt at medical weight-loss was truly disgusting and caused me to expect him to drop dead at any moment.

Bill began taking Xenical, a medication that prevents your body from absorbing the fat you consume. This pill can be a very effective way to lose weight when you combine it with a healthy diet and exercise. Again, unfortunately Bill didn’t change any of his lifestyle habits while attempting to lose weight on a drug.

To completely understand how extreme Bill’s eating habits are, allow me to describe what happened during the last shift we worked together. Godfather’s Pizza has a special where you get an extra-large, medium and dessert pizza for $30. For most people, this could be up to six meals, but Bill would consume it all by himself in one sitting. This “meal” was a favorite of Bill’s and I had seen him eat this much food many times before he was on any weight-loss medications. He was so fond of this particular pizza combo that we all referred to it as the “Billy Pack.” Because he ate so much, I was terrified I’d have to perform CPR on his bloated frame after he dropped in the middle of a carb-filled bite. Now that he was on Xenical, I was certain he’d end up shitting his colon out.

His absorption of these three pizzas would usually take around 30 minutes and by the end he’d be breathing heavy and dripping with sweat. All of this perspiration actually made him smell better as it washed away some of the spoiling obesity funk trapped within his layers of skin. Now that he was on a medication, he simply took the large, blue pill after finishing the first pizza and then sprinted to the bathroom after the last bite of his dessert pizza. Then he’d stay in the bathroom for 90 minutes. (I’m not exaggerating.)

The first few times this happened, I seriously considered picking the bathroom lock open, expecting to find him flopping around on the bathroom floor like a swollen guppy. I even went so far as to listen at the door to make sure I still heard signs of live inside. (For the sake of humanity, I won’t describe what I heard coming out of the bathroom. Let’s just say it was something like a cross between a pig being slaughtered and a sing garbage disposal.) Amazingly, he always came out of the bathroom an hour-and-a-half later looking refreshed and ready to tell me about all the crazy stuff that shot out of his anus.

Fortunately for him, this medication regimen didn’t last very long. While he wasn’t gaining weight anymore on his dinosauric diet, he wasn’t losing any weight either. All of this time in the bathroom was becoming an inconvenience for him and his internet porn habits, so after a few weeks, he was back to binging without purging. This sucks for me because I no longer get my regular 90-minutes of Bill-free time now that his bathroom trips have been reduced to 30-minutes or less.

The other day, he tried to explain how eating more than 1,000 calories at a meal actually kept you from gaining weight. I’d like to point out that as he said this, he was finishing his second foot-long meatball sandwich from Subway. He’s convinced that he’s going to lose weight by eating ‘healthier’ foods (like meatball subs with double the meat and extra cheese all swimming in mayonnaise.)

I’ve stopped trying to argue with him about his bizarre ideas and just look at his ramblings as some sort of eccentric performance art piece. It’s less depressing than thinking he actually believes the shit that spews out of his mouth.