Skinny Minny

 Google Images of Anorexia

My bad!  Left the car's headlights on overnight and the battery died.  Missed my aerobics class waiting for AAA to come.  Went to the gym late.  Huge room full of weights, mats, treadmills and those weird machines that make the permanent (but usually unfelt) charley horse in my thigh go bonkers.  What are they called?  Elytipical trainers? 

Get my bottle of antiseptic spray and a rag.  Already have my gym tag and water.  Locate the last free treadmill.  Now, treadmills are terminally boring unless you are a) reading or b) watching TV.  These treadmills don't have a good place to park a book, and the TV shows at 9:00 a.m. are terrible, esp. without sound.

Get to the point, you say.

I look around, and in front of me is the skinniest woman I have ever seen.  Next to her, a gaunt supermodel would look,  well, round.  She is about 5'7" and must tip the scales at 90 pounds.  Elbows so sharp  a nudge from her would be seriously painful.  Stick arms and legs except for bulging, sinewy calf muscles.  Big feet.  She looks like she has come from a concentration camp, except she's running on the treadmill.

I can't stop staring, because this woman is obviously anorexic and she should be eating chicken friccasee, mashed potatoes and gravy with maybe a cheeseburger and fries on the side.  She runs and runs and then she power walks for a while, bony elbows pumping and then she runs again.  Blonde.  I can't tell her age at all.  Finally I see a thick gold band, still shining.  Married.   Doesn't her husband care?   Is he an enabler?

I can't stop staring.  My time is up and Skinny Minny is still running.   I walk around in front so I can get a better look.  She has a pretty face, unlined, not the gaunt wrinkled visage I expected.  Oh yes, and she's tan, and it looks like a real tan.  Please say you weren't in a bikini!  Oh god, that would be terrible.

I can't stop staring. She has breasts, and I decide implants, because there is no other body fat.  None.  Botoxed, no doubt.  Does she think she's attractive?  I don't know.  She's not.  She's starving herself to death and 90 pounds on a 5' 7" frame is starvation.  I have an impulse that I resist, an impulse to stop in front of her and say, "get help!"  There are maybe 50 people in the room and she is killing herself in front of all of us.  None of my business, but if she were perched on the ledge of a 20 story building, wouldn't one do something?   

One is conflicted  when an attractive woman, one with enough money to seek any treatment she needs, is publicly killing herself.  Of course, I minded my own business, hefted a few weights and left.   She didn't have any water, either, and she didn't have the requisite antiseptic and rag to wipe off the treadmill.  I'm always amazed at how much one can intuit about someone just by really studying them.  But you can't really get inside their head.  Where all the crazy thoughts are.

Skinny Minny must have lots of crazy thoughts.  She probably thinks she fat.