Weight Lifter

While the Snack Fairy is quite lovable when he's prancing through cornfields wearing his pink tutu on TV, he loses much of his appeal when he stands in my living room.

Thankfully, we could all keep an eye on this fairy in the commercial. Being a native American fairy he believes in making a spectacle of himself. Unlike his Irish cousins who pop in and out of visibility like whiskers twitching on the face of a cat.

It occurred to me recently, that the Snack Fairy and his Irish cohorts were working in cahoots. Every time I stepped on a scale, it would read ten to twenty pounds light. According to its calculations I was weightless as a bubble floating on air.

Which gave me a false sense of thin. So naturally, I ate more. Quite cheerfully, I would meander out to the kitchen and find the lovely pink-tutued fairy working overtime. For there on the counter — poof — snacks would magically materialize.

What happiness! To eat all you want and never gain a pound. Incredible.

It might have gone on forever like this. Yet didn't St. Pat's Day roll around like it has a habit of doing once a year? And isn't it on St. Pat's Day that we can clearly see the Leprechauns if we've a mind to such a thing.

So was I standing on the scale when I happened to glance over my shoulder and see the wee man behind me lifting the top half of the scale high in the air. Taking the weight off the truth in the scales, wasn't he now?

This smug fellow who appeared to be a miniature street urchin in pink strutted around and bragged to his friends that he had convinced me I was light as a snow flake.

Kneeling down on the carpet, I scooped him up in the palm of my hand, raised him eye level and spoke softly. "Hey, little man. Have you gotten confused? You're a cobbler by trade, you know, not a weight lifter."

"Sure now," the little guy said audaciously. "If you'd be movin' back to the auld country, I'd never need a purse to be containin' more than one shilling.

"But here . . . Here! A fella's got to be a jack of all trades to be survivin' a'tall and a weight lifter's as good a practise as any to be learning how to hoodwink folks."

"But why would you want to hoodwink people?"

"Cause that's what leprechauns do. "

"Oh! Why didn't you just say so! You're a Republican."

The microscopic sprite had the grace to look embarrassed. "I just might be that, too."

"Sure. Now I understand. The Republicans have been lifting weight from the truth for years. They put a spin on facts, blurring and whirring what's real into political talking points. No one contradicts the allegations and by endless, unchallenged repetition these oft told lies begin to sound like truth."

The pocketsized dwarf in pink nodded his wee head. "Struth ye be tellin'."

Gently, I placed the leprechaun on the scales, and by his own accounting, he weighed not an ounce.

I knew I must hurry.

If I would escape the prodding of this pixie to indulge the temptation of a snack orgy, then I must gain the advantage of an accurate scale. For this Republican leprechaun, dressed in his tutu, appeared so harmless and his talking points were so smoothly spoken that even though I knew it to be false, I believed a body wider than it is tall could still be considered slim and trim.

Quickly, I seized the wee fellow by the scruff of his neck, placed him in a glass jar, and swiveled the lid on securely. If we can contain the duplicity before it gains momentum, we have a chance to balance the bogus scales with truth.

The allure of the snacks still beckoned from their place on the counter top. Could I resist them? Probably. Yet the temptation to stand just one more time on those Leprechaun scales . . . ah well now . . . even St. Pat's Day has its limitations.
Weight Lifter © 2006 Chaeli Lee Sullivan