Free The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank by Erma Bombeck Page B

she's pale.”
    We all exchanged glances. “You don't know about Leslie?”
    Linda shrugged her shoulders. “She doesn't drink?”
    “Not a drop,” I said. “She's a Daytime Soap Operaholic.”
    “You're kidding.”
    “No, she has a fifteen-serial-a-day habit. Just sits there day in and day out with the curtains drawn and cries.”
    “Just because you watch a lot of soap operas doesn't mean you're addicted,” defended Linda.
    “Haven't you seen the literature from SO (Soap Opnrnholics)? Here, if you have any one of these symptoms, you're in trouble.”
    Helen handed Linda the SO Handbook.
    1. Do you watch a soap opera at seven in the morning just to get you going?
    2. Do you watch soap operas alone?
    3. Do you hide TV Guide so your family won't know how many serials you are watching?
    4. Do you lie about how many shows you watch a day?
    5. Do you contend you can turn off “As the World Turns” and “Love of Life” any time you want to?
    6. When you are "Guiding Light'-ed are you an embarrassment?
    7. Do you refuse to admit you're a Soap Operaholic even though you refused to miss “The Secret Storm” to have your baby?
    “If that isn't a kick in the head,” said Linda. “The Suburban Orgy is a myth!”
    Helen clapped her hand over her mouth. “Lower your voice, you fool. What do you think would be the resale value of these houses if that got out?”
    Hosting a Famine
    Fat just never caught on in the suburbs like I thought it would. I used to sit around and think how this is the year for the Obese Olympics, or the Pillsbury Eatoff or Bert Parks warbling, “There she goes, Miss North, South, and Central Americas,” but it never happened.
    Fat just never made it big. No one championed thin more than the women in Suburbian Gems. Some dedicated their entire lives searching for a lettuce that tasted like lasagne.
    They exercised. They counted calories. They attended Diet Seminars. Their entire conversation centered around how wonderful it felt to starve to death.
    Ever since the babies came I had noticed a deterioration in my own body. My neck became extended, my waist filled in, the hips ballooned, the stomach crested, and my knees grew together.
    One day my husband looked at me and said, “Good heavens. Are you aware that you are shaped like a gourd?”
    At that moment, I converted to the suburban religion called Cottage Cheese. I ate so much cottage cheese my teeth curdled.
    That wasn't the worst of it. Once you were an ordained cottage cheese disciple, you were committed to total understanding of the entire diet community.
    I don't think I will ever forget the first luncheon I gave for my neighbors in Suburbian Gems. They were all on a different diet. It was like hosting a famine.
    Helen was on the Stillman diet which means eight glasses of water, lean meat, and a bathroom of her own. [What does it profit a woman to look thin if you have to wear a nose plug for the rest of your life?)
    Ceil was on the Atkins diet for which I cooked an egg swimming in butter served on a table in the corner due to her acute bad breath. [No diet is perfect.)
    Marge was still on the drinking man's diet. She required a bottle, a little ice, and a clean glass. (Marge hadn't lost a pound, but it didn't seem to make any difference to her.)
    Ethel was on the Vinegar-Kelp diet. (She worried us. She kept drifting toward the ocean.)
    Wilma was enjoying maintenance on her Weight Watchers program. Before dinner was served, she ate the centerpiece (a candle and a plastic banana) and mumbled, “Bless me Jean Nidetch for I have sinned.”
    I, of course, had my cottage cheese,
    Why do women do it?
    You're talking to a pro. There was a time when I derived some comfort out of the knowledge that one out of every three Americans is overweight. But I never saw the one. Everywhere I went I was flanked on either side by the two chart-perfect women.
    I was surrounded by women whose pleats never separate when they sit down, who wear suspenders to