chapter 2

Joanna marched right out of Doctor Bernstein's office and headed straight for her health club. Like so many of the recently fattened, she was absolutely determined that she would work off all the extra blubber she had accumulated in just a month and she'd do it in record time. And as also happens only too often, she tried to do too much too soon. She had climbed right on the biggest, fastest treadmill in the place and set it to a moderate jog pace.

Well, maybe six months ago that would have worked perfectly well. It would have been mildly challenging, nothing more. But it it was pure agony. Right from the beginning she knew she was in trouble. Her lungs burned, her heart pounded, and her hamstrings positively ached, right up until her right hamstring snapped.

Joanna knew immediately that she was in trouble. The sharp pain that radiated throughout her body told her that. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to shut off the treadmill and hobble over to a nearby chair. She rummaged through her purse, pulled out her cell phone and called for a cab, which she wisely took to the emergency room of St. Anthony's Hospital. It didn't take long for the emergency room doctors to figure out what happened. She tore the hamstring in her right leg. She was going to need surgery. Fortunately, her separation agreement with Engulf and Devour gave her health insurance coverage for a year, so the medical expenses were no bother.

But, instead of facing a few weeks of a strict diet and plenty of good old fashioned, hard exercise, Joanna faced six weeks of enforced idleness to be followed by several months of physical therapy. The pain, discomfort, and sheer inconvenience were things she could deal with. The boredom and disappointment were something else entirely.

The first day back home from the hospital, it took all she could do to move herself from the bed to the couch in her living room. Then she asked herself the more important question, "Now what?". How was she going to deal with the seemingly everlasting boredom? While she was contemplating her short term fate, she hobbled over to the kitchen, opened the freezer and pulled out a half gallon of vanilla bean ice cream. She didn't particularly LIKE vanilla bean ice cream, but there was nothing much else left to eat in her kitchen. So she turned on the TV and started to unconsciously spoon the contents of a half gallon of vanilla bean ice cream into her awaiting belly. The pain pill she had taken minutes before took care of the rest. It was off to slumberland for Joanna Kirshner.

She got up about five hours later, threw the empty carton of ice cream into the garbage and ordered a pizza for lunch. Thirty minutes later the doorbell rang and the sweet aroma of freshly made pizza wafted through her condo. She paid the delivery boy and gave him a nice big tip for his trouble, sat down in front of the TV, turned on the Game Show Channel and ate her way through an hour's work of old Match Game reruns.

Dinner was Chinese and her evening snack was some old microwave popcorn she found in the back of her pantry. It dawned on Joanna that she couldn't very well live this way indefinitely, so the next morning she called one of those grocery delivery services and got a week's worth of food, which she ate in four days. Little did Joanna know it, but her life was about to change forever in ways both unexpected but entirely predictable!!