WTF?!!

There are two questions that have dominated philosophical thought ever since man has been asking questions. You know the first one well: Why are we here? This question doesn’t interest me. The second question, however, doesn’t get the same press as that first one, but it is one you ask yourself countless times each and every day. Here’s the premise: You are in the canned-food aisle of the grocery store and, as always, you see the stacks of Vienna Sausages next to the Potted Meat Product and you ask aloud, even if you are by yourself, "Who the hell buys that shit?!" Of course the situation varies and with it the verb, but the question is always the same: "Who the hell ____ that shit?"

I have an answer, and she’s sitting behind me at work right now. In fact, she asked me earlier today if I had a blog. I said no, of course. She also described for me today the weight-loss center she visited yesterday for the first time. She described getting an injection (of what, she’ll never know) that made her vomit and caused extreme pain in her entire arm. She also showed me the pills they gave her. As she holds the bottle, she happens to notice that it says to take half a tablet twice a day, which of course is news to her as she has already been downing them whole. She also realizes that this stuff didn't require a trip to a pharmacy to pick up, which seems a little odd to her. So I asked her if there happened to be a doctor at this clinic administering the shots and pills. "Yeah," she says. "Well, he’s a nurse practitioner, but that’s the same thing, right?"

So today I answered the question "Who buys/believes/endangers their health for that shit?" as it refers to those sketchy, non-FDA approved weight-loss clinics, and I’m sure this co-worker of mine is probably the answer to too many other variations of the question, as well. And by the way, I’m fairly certain the pills are an amphetamine, so she won’t be passing any drug tests any time soon.