The Diet Column – Chocolate

So you’ve been faithful to all of the diets. You’ve followed every instruction to the tee. Thanks to the Gin and Tonic Diet, your social life took off to delirious heights. You were surrounded by wonderful friends in a place where everybody knew your name. You weren’t just a Joe Schmoe or a Plane Jane. You were Joe the Lion, the King of the Night. You were Jane the most popular girl at that Irish pub. But then the problems started. John got sick of washing the puke and piss out of his pants. Jane grew tired of waking up in random guys’ beds.

After a while, loneliness and a crummy sex-life convinced you that it was time to put on some weight. This is where the Cheeseburger Diet came to the rescue. That is until you found out that nobody likes weight in places where it’s not needed. This is apparently called being fat.

Then you thought that the Cigarette Diet was just what you where looking for. Unfortunately, your trip to the hospital this morning convinced you otherwise. Doctors diagnosed you with a lung cancer that is going to make you look like a skeleton. Now you’re worried about dying and are feeling a little blue. Well, fear no more, for your favorite diet column is here to help once again.

You have indeed come to the right place, my friend, because at Tales of Extraordinary Sanity we always have the perfect solution just for you. Feeling down and out? Then try the Chocolate Diet! Cheap, easy to find and full of all the energy that you need to face the rest of your short and painful life with a smile on your face. Who cares that your wife left you as soon as she heard about your cancer? Who cares that the stupid oaf, who used to live with you, split as soon as your body started to go? Repeat after me: We don’t need them. We have chocolate, the perfect anti-depressant, a true friend!

But this offer is available for a limited time only! Rumor says that the government is calling chocolate an illicit drug and that soon they will enforce a ban on it. This of course explains why everyone is so rich in Switzerland. Thanks to the chocolate cartels, of course! So don’t wait,  the Chocolate Diet is awaiting its latest victims… errr… happy satisfied customers!

- Simone la Cuercha

Roulette Table

My father would kill me if he saw me right now. And my mother would cry. She had two cousins that ruined themselves with this. One of them was also called Simone. It’s nice to know that I wasn’t named after him. He died of heroine. Or was it a car accident? Or maybe both… I don’t remember. The other one apparently lost his entire fortune at the casino. It only took a few months for him to accumulate a huge debt with the local loan sharks. One day he simply vanished. Probably he ran off to Brazil or another one of those gorgeous countries in South America. My mother loved that cousin. She knows what gambling leads to.

And yet here I am, my first time at a roulette table. So I take it easy; I lay my cigarettes next to the ash tray, and I point to the 10 on rouge. I win. A black guy, that looks like he spent at least twenty years of his life inside casinos, asks me, “Hey dude, may I have a cigarette?” I am glad to offer a cigarette to a fellow player. After all I am winning. So I play again, twenty bucks on 2^nd 12s. I win again. A young guy, who appears to be about eighteen and looks like he has smoked pot since he was twelve, asks me for a cigarette. I am winning, “Of course, here you are.”

“Where are you from?” “I am from Italia.”

“Oh Italy! Italy is wonderful, I always wanted to go and visit Madrid…” I hesitate for a second. This is one of those things that pisses me off about the US. Not only are people under twenty one not allowed to legally drink, but they are allowed to enter into this temple of sin and perdition! How the hell could you think that Madrid is in Italy!?!?!

“Yes, I love Madrid, I go there once month if I can.”

“Yeah, I bet you do, bro!”

“But if you ever go to Europe, I suggest you go to Berlin, France. It’s gorgeous. And my brother told me that Rome in Austria is wonderful!”

“Thank you bro, I really appreciate it.” There is no need for me to say that I lost all of my money that evening.

- Simone la Cuercha