The In Crowd

Chubby Americans will try just about anything to lose weight. And I mean anything.

No really. It’s very scary.

I recently completed the Prison Plan Diet, which I invented on my own and had hoped to make millions off of until I discovered a flaw during R&D.

In 2000, Gisele Bundchen’s body prompted nearly 36,000 Brazilian women to get breast enhancement surgeries.

Allegedly.

I didn’t check that fact, but it sounds like something we humans would do — that is, see something a beautiful person has and then torture ourselves with the inequity of it all.

The Olowalu Petroglyphs are tucked in a valley in the West Maui mountains. To get there, you take the Honoapiilani Highway to mile marker 15, where you turn right at the water tower (or at the grumpy-looking man who stares at you like he knows you’re about to die) onto an unmarked dirt road with chickens on it. Then you drive about half a mile or so on what seems like private property until you reach the most boring thing you will ever see in your entire God-given life.

Oh, if only the tour book companies would hire me. I not only would tell the truth about vacation destinations, I would also include little icons of witch hats to indicate where you and your spouse are most likely to argue. Maui Sugar Museum? The parking lot gets one witch hat. Waterfront dining in Lahaina? Well, look at that — no witch hats! Olowalu Petroglyphs in the West Maui mountains? So many witch hats.

For the first time in my life — since the Coreys were in office, anyway — I have entered the new year without making a single resolution.

No weird beet juice diets. No hopeful Martha Stewart chore checklists. No complicated charts mapping out my attempts at friendliness, increased water intake or timed expressions of love.

No, this year I am simply going to be unfettered and see what happens.

Not everyone has weight to lose.

I get it.

Despite living in one of the fattest states in perhaps the fattest country in the world, I seem to know very few chubby people. In fact, I’m pretty sure all the women I’m friends with spend their non-air-eating time drawing flirtatious winky faces in the Size 0’s of their clothing tags. Not that I’ve seen anyone do this — I just know it’s what I’d do if I were them ... and I wouldn’t stop there either. I’d resew those tags onto the outside of my clothing and I’d add little dialogue bubbles above the zeroes with snippets from my Thin Person Acceptance speech: “First, I’d like to thank starvation ... oh, and the makers of speed. And thank you, envelope glue for believing in me. I never knew how good you could taste for brunch.”

Well, congratulations, society. You payed at least $18 million to watch a pretty woman with a stunning lack of talent get married for 72 days.

I say "you" because, shockingly, I only watched "Kim's Fairytale Wedding" yesterday, and I had to shut it off halfway through because I was two seconds away from charging a private plane to a stranger’s credit card so I could fly to Calabasas and set fire to those hideous Judith Leiber clutches Kim designed for her bridesmaids. I changed my mind only because I didn't want to deny Kris Humphries' poor, chubby sisters the opportunity to sell theirs on eBay, which I assume they're doing right this minute (Anyone in the market for a sparkly old lady purse with a bunch of K's on it? Now's your chance).

Every Halloween I can count on a couple of things happening: One, I will eat Kit Kats for breakfast, hide the wrappers in my purse and hope my husband doesn’t wonder why the candy bag is light and his wife is heavy.

And two, there will be approximately 45 million new and randomly eroticized costumes — such as “sexy” Osama bin Laden (no, really), “sexy” Chucky doll (why not?) and “sexy” poison ivy, which, by the way, I recently had on my arms and I can assure you, it was about as sexy as the final stages of Tom Hanks in “Philadelphia.” (Oopsy. I’m just now realizing Poison Ivy was a legitimately sexy character from “Batman” and not the rash. The things you learn when you’re making inappropriate AIDS jokes. Still, I’m talking angry, red, blistery lesions on my arms that itched and lingered for days. What do you have to say about that, Uma Thurman?).

Ordinarily I make my plans according to what I assume to be the opposite of whatever one million moms have scheduled for their days.

Change some diapers? Nooooope. Mold and shape young lives? Uh-uh. Kiss boo-boos and put myself last? Ha! Not likely, folks. Spend embarrassing amounts of money on things I might throw out next week and then take a mid-afternoon cocktail nap after Googling “can a person be too well-rested” and “how do I know my cat loves me for me”? Ah yes, pencil me in for that — and I do mean use a pencil. You never know when an emergency meeting with my couch, some chick-lit and a giant iced coffee might come up.

Bosses! Am I right?

I don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood for a little girl talk.

Hmm. What. Shall. We. Discuss? Let me see, little girl talk ... little girl talk ...

Oh, I’ll just get right to it because who has the time these days. What the heck is up with Gov. Nikki Haley?

About 10 years ago, I spent the day with the owner of a traveling sideshow for a story I was writing on the county fair.

He and I sat in his trailer — which smelled of well-loved dog and old bowls of generic Spaghetti-Os — and we talked for a long time about human oddities and the dying freak-show industry.