No Way To Lose Weight

My great friend Lynn has had a terrible week.  First she got food poisoning so bad that she had to go the emergency room where they kept her for six hours.  Then last night her cat had a heart attack right in front of her and is now in kitty heaven.

Lynn is a world-class animal lover so she has taken this loss harder than the average pet owner and still being weak from the food poisoning has not helped.

To try and help her take her mind off her beloved cat I picked Lynn up and whisked her off to the place that makes her happier than anyplace on earth, Starbucks.  While there enjoying her Venti Green tea latte, with two pumps and no foam (I know her order by heart, but don’t really know what it means) we got to discussing how much weight you lose when you are sick.  Although Lynn has nary an ounce to spare, food poisoning can really do a number on your number on the scale.

This conversation brought back to mind the worst time I ever was sick.  Back in the 80’s when I was selling mail opening and extracting machines, yes, reread that last thing, I sold machines that opened envelopes and took the contents out.  So, back then I used to travel four states selling and then installing these big machines.

They were called OPEX machines and the kind of companies that bought them were ones who were getting lots of mail everyday full of money.  Places you pay your bills to…   think banks, utilities and mail order houses.  My territory, being in the south, also had the majority of televangelists as clients too; Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and Pat Robertson.

One week when I was about 25 years old I was spending four days at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) campus installing twelve new OPEX machines.  CBN needed so many machines because the 700 Club TV show received hundreds of thousands of envelopes a week all with money in them.

I will never forget the sweet woman Gail, who ran the donations department.  She was a calm Christian woman who was one of my nicest clients.

Installing new equipment meant that I had to train her whole department of three shifts of workers how to run the machines.  Running a mail-opening machine is about the easiest job on earth, but teaching people to do it day, evening and midnight shifts was not.  My first day there went fine, but by the second day I was not feeling well, and I mean really rough.

Gail came out on the shop floor and could see by the gray color I had taken on that I was not well.  I told her I thought I needed to go back to the hotel and she said she had a better place to take me first.

CBN was Christian Broadcasting Network University (Now known as Regent University), so I thought Gail was taking me to a nurse or the infirmary.  Practically delirious with a fever she guided me down long hallways until she opened a door of a giant room that was bright and full of people.  At first I thought I had died and this was heaven because there was beautiful music playing and the light was blinding.

Before I knew where I was Gail had led me down an aisle and up to a stage.  When then music stopped I heard her voice, strangely amplified, ask someone to heal me that I was sick.  I felt people touching me and just then I threw up all over the floor.

As horrible as it was to throw up I felt suddenly better for just a moment and in that brief second I realized I was not at an infirmary, but I was on a television set.  Gail had brought me to be “healed” and I had thrown up on live TV.  I saw the cameras and the audience and turned and ran, somehow finding my way out.

I have little memory of driving myself back to my Hampton Inn where I stayed holed up in my room for two days sick, as could be.  I eventually improved enough to drive myself back home to Washington D.C.   My service tech finished the install at CBN without me.

A month later I had to return to CBN and see Gail.  She was said I looked much better.  I asked her if I was the first to throw up on the TV show and she said yes, as far as she knew.  I told her the only good part was that I had lost 9 pounds that week from being sick.  We both agreed that it was the worst possible way to lose weight.