November 14: Overeating, Hunger, Winter's Fairy Tale

...As a result of overeating, Templeton grew bigger and fatter than any rat you ever saw.  He was gigantic.  He was as big as a young woodchuck.

Templeton eats at the end of Charlotte's Web.  Winter sets in.  Snow comes.  The rat moves into the barn, makes a nest near the grain bin, and gorges himself daily on Wilbur's food.  As a result, he puts on weight.  A lot of weight.


Winter does that to people, too.  Especially in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The weather turns cold.  Winter storms arrive.  Suddenly, all Yoopers want to do is burrow into the couch with a bag of Cheetos and eat.  I'm not sure if it's a self preservation thing or a hibernation thing.  We can't go outside for extended periods of time.  So, we stay indoors and put on weight.

For instance, at this moment, I'm craving pretzels and peanut butter.  I don't know why.  I'm not a big fan of either of those food items.  However, the idea of taking a pretzel, digging it into a jar of peanut butter, and eating it--that just sounds like an excellent thing to do this evening.  I am thwarted in this enterprise by three things.  One, I have no pretzels.  Two, I have no peanut butter.  Three, I'm too lazy to get in a car and go to a store.  Therefore, I am about to ransack the kitchen for a substitute snack.

Once upon a time, a pretzel maker named Werner lived in a small village on the outskirts of an immense forest.  Everyone in the village bought pretzels from Werner.  They were known as the kingdom's best pretzels.

On long winter nights, Werner would go to bed with a bag of fresh-baked pretzels and a pot of homemade peanut butter.  Werner would eat and eat until all the pretzels were gone and the pot was empty.  Werner grew very large.

Soon, Werner was eating his entire stock of pretzels every day.  By mid-January, he ran out of money.  Then he ran out of pretzel ingredients.  Then he ran out of pretzels and developed a nut allergy.

Werner never made another pretzel.  Instead, he gathered thistles and made thistle jam.  Nobody bought his new jam, and, eventually, he lost his cottage because of back taxes.  Werner died broke and hungry and cold.

Moral of the story:  never eat pretzels and peanut butter in bed.

And Saint Marty lived hungrily ever after.

Anybody else hungry?