choose the best answer

According to smut and fluff this ahem friend of mine was reading last night (and no, she was NOT in the bathtub with candles lit and no, Nina Simone was NOT playing on her IPOD), the average American woman gains between 10 and 20 pounds after settling into a serious, in-it-for-the-long-haul, monogamous relationship.

(The limitations of our options even in 2009 never cease to infuriate. Choose one: single and skinny or attached and fat. Ponder this for no more than three seconds and then MOVE ON).

According to my ahem friend, a checklist was provided to safeguard against tipping the scales in the wrong direction once Mr. Right shows up. I ran through the list in my head and realized that it was mostly useless. Since 2500 miles separate us 95% of the time, there is little danger of me snuggling on the couch with him every night with a big bowl of chocolate chip ice cream between us or blowing off the gym on a regular basis so that we can linger over a two hour dinner of linguini and wine (both of which are major culprits according to my ahem friend).

This may be the only upside to a long distance relationship. And, in exchange for the constant low-level nausea that plagues me due to our separation, I think I deserve to have all of my jeans fit me the way they did last month (OK maybe the way they did pre-Christmas cookie spree).

I felt a kind of euphoric relief when I realized all of this. And then, just while my eyes were closing (again, NOT when I was soaking in the bathtub NOT listening to Nina Simone's lulling voice) I realized I wasn't in the clear yet.

At that very moment downstairs in the freezer were a box of frozen Twinkies, a gallon of rocky road ice cream, and two boxes of orangecicles. What? When did I turn into the kind of girl who keeps children's frozen novelties in my freezer? It was quiet subterfuge.*

Along with his t-shirts, cufflinks, and toothbrush, a Particular Someone, had in factleft behind the props for his totally unacceptable diet of sugar and saturated fat. What was next? Mounds of raw red meat and Cheetos! Fish and Chips! Cheesticks.

I then wondered: Is this how a man feels when his new girlfriend slowly starts leaving more and more of her belongings in his apartment? Is this how he feels when he finds her hairbrush in the bathroom cabinet? Does he fear that he may turn into a woman if he opens his closet and finds her pencil skirt hanging there?

Logic dictates that I will not get fat just by opening my freezer, right? Right?

eLLe speLLs subterfuge- noun. deception by artifice or strategem in order to conceal, evade, or escape. Or fatten.