True Story©… Mighty Moe Phitness
I know it feels like I talk about this a lot lately, but by the time the two of you read this, I will be within 20 ounces of the lowest I have weighed since I discovered food and alcohol as a combination. Even that low-water mark was the result of a bad accident that led to a broken jaw and me off of solid foods for eight weeks in 2003.
Covid season created a world wherein I was ABSOLUTELY not social outside of what could be attained from my phone or one of my computers. I was work/eat/sleep/work/drink/sleep/work, week in and week out and the weight that had been yo-yo’ing between 245 and 270 was firmly at 265. I felt like shit and decided to do something about it. July 2022, I decided to take out the running shoes I’d already acquired and hit the pavement. Three weeks later, I ended my (then-) 26-year relationship with alcohol. The first few pounds slid right off no problem. Nothing noticeable, not on a “go buy new clothes” level, but the scale was telling it for me.
Mid-2023 arrived and my weight loss had plateaued but mainly because I got complacent. I woke up one June morning and dedicated “no, we ain’t doin’ this shit again” and buckled the fuck down. Five days a week, sometimes three times a day I was on the pavement. When weather didn’t allow that, I was on the exercise bike. Mixed with my intermittent fasting regimen – I don’t eat anything solid for 14-16 hours after dinner every day – the weight came off more slowly, but more consistently with fewer stalls and INFINITELY more noticeably. I had happened upon what worked for me and I have stuck with it unflappably, even when I just don’t feel like it.
Speaking of “feel like it,” a lot of my times where I just don’t can be remedied with a simple change of scenery. I have always just gone and parked my car at mom’s house and walked through the three parks connected by greenways across the street from her house. The walk is usually good for about four miles.
While I am only out THERE maybe once every other week or three, there are some who I know for fact go daily. I know because they tell me. Once recently, I went over and set out upon the parks/ At the end of my walks, I always circle the first park to round out my total distancer or time spent into a full number. One lady was in the park with me and as I stopped by the exit to stretch, she approached me...
Her: “Hi.”
Me: “Good afternoon.”
Her: “You are a FAST walker.”
Me: “Thanks, I’m getting used to it.”
Her: “How long you been at it?”
Me: “‘bout 16 months or so?”
Her: “And how much you lost?”
Me: “Well, about 95 from when I was sick in 2015, but a lil under 60 right now.”
Her: “And just walking?”
Me: “No, I do a little lifting too, and I watch how I’m eating.”
Her: “Do you have, like, a goal?”
Me: “My goal? To record an R&B album and have my shirt off on the cover.”
Her: “Oh, you sing too?”
Me: “My wife says ‘no’ and she is probably right.”
[Phlip note: I HAVE to mention my Wife Person™ to any woman who speaks to me because reasons]
Her: “Hah.”
Me: “Nah, I am going for 195-200ish with all my clothes on - watch and shoes and all”
Her: “And it is JUST exercise, you don’t, like TAKE anything like supplements or anything?”
Aww fuck… Didn’t we JUST do this shit in the neighborhood?
Not to let y’all in on anything more than you need to know, but I have some health conditions that suffice it that I just don’t even TRY to navigate what supplements will or won’t interfere with my medications. I am SUPER cautious about even the outlying possibilities that I won’t even bother bring it up to my doctors, not even pain medication for soreness.
Oh shit, she is waiting for me to answer! I better come up with something on the spot.
Me: “Well I had weight loss surgery once but that didn’t work, so I tried crack and benzos next, but I got arrested for possession once. I settled on this one supplement I call ‘Oswald’.”
Her: “‘Oswald’?”
Me: “Yep, works like a charm. It’s a weekly shot.”
Her: “You mean like Ozempic?”
Me: “Moreso than you might imagine.”
Her: “Hell, maybe I need to hire you as my trainer or my Master Yoda or something.”
Me: “Here, email me at this address and we can work out the logistics of it all. This phone I have on me is my personal one, I have a different one for business.”
Her: “What’s your name?”
Me: “It’s Moe.”
I finished stretching and went into mom’s house to say bye and grab a bottle of water and STARTED to head home, but I remembered a spot of business I needed to set up on the way. I went home and had an email from the young lady about how to get into my program and costs and everything.
I explained in response that the only thing I ASK to be compensated for is for the Oswald and any donation offered for my time, commiserate with her experience and outcomes would be a donation - a “tip” if you will.
Back to that “spot of business,” as I called it…
On the way back to the house, I swung by the old neighborhood to see what illicit deeds the drug users are hitting on these days. As I mentioned once in the past that dope fiends can sometimes come in handy when you need some unsavory shit done or a law broken without question or shame. I advised that I would need a B&E at a pharmacy, that the pay wouldn't be great but so long as he got me what I needed out of the cooler then he could help himself to whatever else is in there.
Of course he was with it and completed the mission THAT night.
I gave my “customer” the Moe Phillips burner phone number, which forwards to the phone I stashed at the treehouse – forever plugged in and on silent with no vibration – and eventually back to my own phone.
Her: “I’m ready to start when you are.”
Me: “Meet me at that park at 5:15, I need to go to mom’s house anyway.”
Her: “Okay, and how much?”
Me: “Oswald is fifty a week.”
Her: “And how do I–...”
Me: “Cash in person or cashapp to the number you called.”
Her: “I’ll send it now.”
Me: “See you then.”
Back home that evening, we watched the news before Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy came on and they mentioned a shortage of Ozempic following an apparent theft at a major pharmacy and how other pharmacies in the area were scrambling to help out.
Me: “Heh, Oswald…”
Wife Person™: “What!?”
Me: “Imagine if someone stole all the Ozempic and tried to make a street drug of it, like I did with Plan B a couple of ValentiMe’s ago?”
Wife Person: “Ugh…”
Me: “Since a street drug named ‘Ozzy’ would be on the nose knowing what we know about Mr. Osbourne, so they call it ‘Oswald’.”
Wife Person™: “Sir!”
Me: “And the way people are clamoring for Ozempic, on or off label, as it is… Gold mine!”
Silliness aside, the lady from the park preemptively sent me a cashapp a couple of days later ready for not only her next week’s supply, but one for her friend as well. When we met at the park, she handed me an extra 20 EACH and thanked me.
This would continue for the next few weeks – including the bringing of new people AND tipping – and I began to notice I was down to my last case…
Back over to the hood I go.
Once in the neighborhood, I am wandering about like an absolute asshole looking for this one particular crackhead, completely unable to locate him. I approach a couple of others and ask about him. Of course, I didn’t know his name so I had to describe him like there was some kind of fucking sketch artist was there to help us hash this shit out. After silently conferring through confused looks, one of them realized what was shaking.
Crackhead #2: “Oh! He talkin’ bout baldhead Germaine! He come through a few weeks ago with all kinds of goodies but won’t tell nobody where he got it from. He was making big money off it for a lil minute, but not sharing none of that shit. The cops came and picked his ass up last week, said he had stoled all that shit from a drugstore or some shit.”
My reliable source of Oswald has dried up now, and is likely to eat several years of prison time because drug addicts don’t tend to have effective legal representation.
Back to the drawing board with me, I need to get a new burner number and avoid that damned park like I owe somebody money out that bitch from now on.
I just hope he sticks to the code and doesn’t mention me, even if we didn’t ever exchange names.
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