Wednesday, October 15, 2008

A million strong and growing


As part of my new Stop Getting Old and Fat at an Alarming Rate routine, I've begun taking vitamins every day-- specifically, a B vitamin in the morning (for energy), a multi-vitamin at mid-day and calcium at night, so I don't end up like Sally Field in my early sixties, vaguely famous and hawking Boniva. Because vitamins are so widely praised, I figured I would immediately become invincible and probably be able to see through walls.

Sadly, though, all they've really done thus far is turn my pee a brilliant chartreuse color (which is interesting, because the ONLY thing I remember about health class in high school? Is the health teacher, a Russian-looking, perm-wearing man-woman, telling us that vitamins were just "expensive pee," because anyone who was living a decent life was getting all the vitamins they needed from their food. I remember this pronouncement coming on the same day that we watched the slides of people with diseased privates on a screen in the home-ec room, but I don't really see how those two topics could be related). While the neon pee is certainly interesting, I'm feeling a little let down by the whole vitamin industry-- was I really getting enough vitamins through my food after all? Are there that many vitamins in a plain Burger King hamburger?

Maybe it's too late for the whole vitamin scene. I'm aging at a rapid and disconcerting pace, despite my latest attempts to camouflage it with bold eye makeup (note: people with poop brown eyes? Aren't really good candidates for bold eye makeup), and there might be nothing I can do about it. The fact of the matter is, soon I will be thirty, at which point the people on my street will stop categorizing me as young, which means I'll probably lose the privilege of letting my dog poop wherever I want in their front yards.

I guess I thought the vitamins would counteract this somehow, and I would wake up young-looking and scary toned, like Madonna (who clearly got where she is today because of Target brand multi-vitamins). But I'm getting puffier and wrinklier by the day, with no possible recourse but to embrace it and start shopping in the Cherokee section at Target.

I don't think I'm going to stop taking the vitamins, though. The freaky pee is like a portable version of a laser light show.

5 pipers piping:

penelope said...

Weird, I just started taking this Super B Complex last week! The neon pee is a sight to behold. But after a week, I do feel like I have more energy? I feel like George Costanza raving about the mangoes.

Anonymous said...

Great. Now all I can think of is that health class. Did we take that together?

ashley said...

I just want to say that this post is so classic Shable. It makes me feel like you finished writing it and then pronounced "Will the real Kim Shaby please stand up?"

Love it.

Anonymous said...

Green pee, huh. I've taken vitamins my whole life and they never changed the color of my urine. Maybe go for the brand name stuff. They haven't stopped the old and fat process, either. For that, I've stopped eating. It helps with the fatness, but not the wrinkles which I swear only appeared within the last 6 months.

Anonymous said...

Take advice from the chick who can't spell. Her. Own. Name.