An Open Letter to Weight Watchers

A snapshot from a Weight Watchers meeting in the she-she Upper East Side. It's so unfair - check out all the work they've had done.

Dear Weight Watchers,

Hi there. You might remember me. I went to 2 or 3 of your meetings a few years back, in an almost abandoned church uptown. I was the one cheated into buying $45 worth of useless manuals using your "Points" system, which you ended up changing not 3 weeks afterwards with no offer of a refund/exchange. Still don't remember me? Hmm... I was the normal looking girl there with a chatty friend in the third row, behind the two rows of severely anorexic gym rats and in front of the rows filled with the morbidly obese black and hispanic women. The girl who kept quietly scoffing as some 98-pound waifling spent 15 minutes talking about the point differential between steamed asparagus and boiled peas. "Are peas carbs?" she quandried, as I flipped through my (soon-to-be) useless pamphlets explaining fool proof ways to get the "skinny on skinny".

God, still no memory? Gee... ba ba ba... Um. I was the girl sitting next to the fat woman who told us how she lost weight on her Cancun vacation, which surprised her, because even though she ate everything in the buffet three times over and nearly tore into one of the innocent Mexican busboys quaking behind the swinging door to the kitchen, she thinks that walking down that flight of stairs to the beach really burned the fat? The one whose metal folding chair shot me a pleading look halfway through to save its life? No? Hmm, strange. Well, no matter I guess.

Just wanted to send a little tip from a brief (but fumingly angry) ex-customer. Next time you choose a theme song to your commercials urging heavy women to get in shape, you might want to pick something other than Cher's "THIS IS A SONG FOR THE LONELY." I'm sure you thought it was apropos, and maybe it is. But ah-literally, everytime I hear the gayest beginning chords in the history of techno strike up, and see those plus-sized women jumping gleefully in the air like a re-re Mary Tyler Moore, I actually harbor feelings of hatred towards you and your insensitivity. I mean, how the hell did a song ABOUT LONELY PEOPLE get picked? What was that meeting like?:

Intern: Sir, here are the models we picked for the 2005 ad campaign.

(5 heavy-set women enter)

President: These broomsticks!? I want them fat, fatter, fatter! I don't want them to fit through the doorway. You find me the fattest women stat, or it's your unpaid job! Bring Harold in here!

Harold: Yes, sir?

President: Harold, have you picked the song for the new commercial?

Harold: Well, sir, I have a couple in mind... "I Get A Kick Outta You"?

President: (sigh) Next.

Harold: Uh, OK... (shuffled some papers) Um... Desiree's "You Gotta Be"?

President: Too.... inspiraaational. No, I want to beat these fat bitches down until they're banging on our doors on their knobby hands and knees begging for us to accept them.

Harold: Oh, well I...

President: You gotta hit their weak spots. Did anyone ever write a song about a husband not being attracted to his cow of a wife anymore?

Harold: I doubt it.

President: OK, what about "All By Myself"?

Harold: Not bad.

President: God, I don't know, it needs to be more... trannified. You know, make 'em feel like less of a woman?

Harold: I think I've got it.

President: Hit me.

Harold: "This Is A Song For The Lonely" by Cher.

President: Harold, my boy, looks like somebody's going after my job!

(Harold and President laugh for 45 minutes.)

President: Now get out of my office.

Long story short, if you want to get women to use your services, start out by not reminding them of their infinite pit of loneliness. It's also best to not remind them of their suicidal tendencies, or that time their Uncle touched then in their bathing suit area (although I am sure there's country song written about that somewhere).

Concerned,

Sister Celine Dijon (and my dog, Chicken-Fingers)


On second thought, maybe it's a geen campaign: Lord knows after seeing this picture, I have just lost my appetite not only for food, but also for the existence of God.