THE EXPANDING BELT NOTCH THAT SHOOK MY WORLD
By Bob Vickrey                                                      

February 20, 2011

This morning as I was attempting to buckle my pants and go on about my day, I found myself once again wrestling with this seemingly simple chore as I inhaled deeply and fumbled to cinch the respectable belt notch that would still allow me to breathe normally. Bluntly speaking, I was holding it in.

The way I remembered it years later was something like this: I was standing at the corner of Glendon Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles waiting for the light to change and had just glanced at my watch when suddenly without warning; my chest simply fell into my stomach. It happened so quickly that onlookers standing on the sidewalk audibly gasped. I remember one saying “Did you see that? His belt seemed to explode and his waistline ballooned from a size 32 to 36 in the blink of an eye.”

At least that’s the way I now imagined it happened. I tried to remember when my waistline had betrayed me, and if it had been truly gradual, or if it had happened the way I had dreamed it. All of this was very disconcerting to a guy who had always been thin and never had to hit the treadmill just to keep the weight down.

I even imagined the news story which might have been written about the event in Westwood that day:

Witnesses said they had never seen anything like it. The thin middle-aged gentleman was just standing there on the corner and suddenly got fat around the middle. Doctors later were quoted as saying: “There was simply nothing we could do. It appears that Mr.Vickrey’s sedentary lifestyle led to this unfortunate incident. The atrophy in his body was so severe that all we could do was stand by and watch. We felt so helpless.” One of the doctors on the scene who was interviewed said “Actually, we find this incident to be very common among American males who watch too many sports on television, stuff their faces with Oreo cookies, and consider their trips to the refrigerator aerobic exercise.

I envisioned a follow-up newspaper account that would offer a good ending:

We are very happy to report that Mr.Vickrey survived the accident that day and now lives independently in his own home and still maintains the ability to handle his own affairs. However, his waistline still measures 36 inches!

I remember once laughing at those middle-aged guys wearing the jogging suits around town simply because they couldn’t buckle their pants up anymore. They had run out of belt loops.

Sinking to the level of wearing elastic-waist warm-ups is surely the telling sign of a man who has simply given up on his appearance. You have officially announced to the world that you no longer care. If you check your closet and find there are more long pants that say ‘Nike’ than ‘Levis’ you know you have arrived at that point. Be very afraid, for you have now glimpsed into your future which will surely be dominated by elastic and Velcro.

It wasn’t always that way. There was a time when I was a respected card-carrying member of my local health club and spent the needed time to workout regularly, going through an aerobics program several times a week and even adjusting my diet trying to improve the quality of my life. Goodbye cokes, chips, and all those pizzas.

Those years in the club offered varying results. One of the chief results was sheer boredom. I remember looking out the windows which opened to the blue Pacific and wondering what I was doing inside this sweatshop walking on a treadmill when I could have been strolling on that beach below kicking up sand between my toes.

I went through that embarrassing vanity period that so many young men pursue and buffed my body up by about four coat sizes—which in turn, cost me hundreds of dollars to replace the clothes in my closet which no longer fit. The atmosphere in the weight training room brought back childhood memories of the hall of mirrors at the carnival. No matter where you looked in that room, there seemed to be scores of your image staring back at you.

One day, I simply had enough of it and realized most of what I was doing had little to do with improving my overall health. Besides that, I discovered vanity was way too much work. I quit.

I’m now a member of my local YMCA and enjoy the fact that the members there come in all ages, sizes, and shapes—and no one seems to be training for the next Olympiad. They’re very much like me and constantly check their Velcro waistbands to make sure their pants stay up while they’re on the treadmill.

Bob Vickrey’s columns have appeared in the Houston Chronicle and Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. He is a member of the Board of Contributors for the Waco Tribune-Herald and a contributor to the Boryana Books website. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California.