Naming Spiders, Flying Ace and Fat Boy vs Slim

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

I had a few suggestions for a name for the garden spider on my office window. Considering I only have four readers it seems that all of them responded. The winning submission was from Steve Whitmer, who I now have to send some sort of valuable prize worth at least a dollar. Her name is now Webster.

I may have another spider to name. He (don’t ask me why he is a he. I don’t know) was in the bath tub this morning. I tossed him out the window. I’ve tossed either him or his twin out several times. If he keeps coming back I’ll give him a name and permission to stay assuming I can get Management to agree. If she disagrees he won’t need a name except for his tombstone.

The Beagle puppy has been renamed from Chase to Ace as in World War Two Flying Ace. His specialty is chewing things, especially things I have used to spank him.

I have an appointment soon to get him fixed. I remember when my parents took my dog to get fixed. I didn’t even know he was broken.

Then they explained that “fixing” him would keep him from wandering around the neighborhood, staying out all night, following female dogs around and fighting.

When he got home and I found out what they had done to him I was concerned. After I got older and they started telling me I shouldn’t be staying out all night wandering around and chasing females and getting in fights I was really concerned.

Besides, what they did to the dog didn’t really fix him, it just took a lot of the joy out of his life.

Many people have told me that I am not supposed to have fun being on a diet. I am told diets are difficult, painful and so on.

What I see is a game between Fat Boy and Slim.

I was one of the skinniest kids in elementary school. The other kids did the “Jones, Jones, bag of bones” thing. Then I was one of the skinniest kids in high school and ended up with the nickname of Slim.

I had a lady friend who every time she saw me would say, “Averett, you have a string hanging off your sleeve. No, wait, that’s your arm.”

I never had to wonder if I had a broken rib. I could see all of them in a mirror. Slim could get into places other people couldn’t. Slim could sneak into the Drive In theater in the trunk of a VW beetle. There were advantages to being slim and Slim.

What I didn’t know was that Fat-boy was hiding inside Slim just waiting for a chance to take over. Slim and Fat Boy are different. Slim is straightforward. Fat Boy is sneaky. By the time Slim even realized there was a competition going on Fat Boy was way ahead. Fat Boy messes with the metabolism so that without increasing food consumption Slim increased weight. That is a pretty ugly way to do things but like I said Fat Boy is sneaky.

Once Slim realized Fat Boy was taking over and the real competition started. Fat Boy was in the lead. Fortunately for me I realized this before Fat Boy had doubled my weight. Still he had a 25% lead in the competition.

So Slim decided to take him on.

Every morning when I brushed my teeth I looked in the mirror and said “Good Morning Fat Boy.” Every night I said, “Goodnight Fat Boy.”

My bride Management didn’t understand. She thought I was tearing myself down. It wasn’t that. I was challenging Fat Boy. Now that I recognized he was there and he was winning it was necessary to acknowledge there was a competition going on.

Now the difficult part was-since Fat Boy was way ahead it took a long time to get the competition to the point where it is obvious Slim had a chance. You have to set a goal BUT Fat Boy isn’t winning until you get there. Every pound down is a win for Slim and every pound up is one for Fat Boy. One pound is easy, 20 aren’t.

At this point Fat Boy is getting his chubby little butt kicked. Just remember the Jim Croce song, “You don’t mess around with Slim.”