That's No Mouse,
That's My Wife
by Walt
Giersbach
The
trillions of bacteria that live in the gut —
helping digest foods, making some vitamins,
making amino acids — may help determine if a
person is fat or thin. The evidence is from
a novel experiment involving mice and humans that
is part of a growing fascination with gut
bacteria and their role in health and
diseases… In this case, the focus was
on obesity. Researchers found pairs of human
twins in which one was obese and the other lean.
They transferred gut bacteria from these
twins into mice and watched what happened. The
mice with bacteria from fat twins grew fat; those
that got bacteria from lean twins stayed lean.
--The New York Times, Sept. 5, 2013
Martha always did pack a few more pounds than was
healthy, but I loved every inch of her expanding
upholstery. She was good-looking. Well-educated.
Cultivated. And morbidly obese. Eye candy,
and equally laden with calories.
“George,
I simply have got to lose weight. Regain my
girlish figure,” she cried.
“Well,”
I advised, “today’s paper says
there’s some research that obesity is a
built-in condition. Not something built onto
you, dearest. It seems the scientists have
been transferring gut bacteria from overweight
children to mice and it makes them gain weight.
Same thing with bacteria from skinny kids will
make mice skinny. Guess there’ll be a
wait….”
“Weight?”
“No, w-a-i-t.”
Soon
afterwards, I had to go out on an extended
business trip. Two weeks on the road, and
when I got back I almost didn’t recognize
Martha standing in the car park. She was lithe
and lissome, limber and…light weight. The
sand in her hourglass figure had shifted back.
“My
dearest,” I exclaimed,
“you’re…beautiful again.” Indeed,
Martha would have made a Victoria’s Secret
model weep salty tears of envy. She was the
epitome of what makes young men drool and exude
other bodily fluids.
“Why,
thank you,” she cooed, wrapping me in her
buff arms.
“But
how…how did this happen?”
“Mice.
I went to the pet store and bought an entire cage
of the skinny little fellows. I fed them
your mother’s recipe for haggis. I mean,
not the recipe, but a pot of haggis I’d
cooked. The little darlings vomited up their
very souls.”
“Wait,
Martha! You ingested that…? You
injected that…?”
“I spread
it on toast with a little Nutella.” She
smiled. “And the pounds simply floated
away.”
“But,
this is a scientific breakthrough!” I
shouted. “We’ll be famous.”
“Thank
you, dear, but there’s one teensy problem.
Maybe two or three. I have an insatiable
appetite for cheese. I’ve installed a
hamster wheel in our living room where I run a
few hours each night. And don’t be mad, but
I’ve moved our bedroom into the closet. The
mice scream and jump on a chair every time they
see me.”
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