Who Used the F Word about Vern?

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

The other day we were all on the boat and my husband looked over and said the F word and directed it right at my sweet Vern.  Vern was just sitting there minding his own business and taking in the sights all around him when John said that word.  If I had known what was coming, I would have run over and covered his ears.  It just happened so fast!  One minute we were talking about what happened to all the geese and the next minute John looked over at Vern and said, “I think Vern is getting F-A-T!” What was he thinking?  Everyone knows you could get punched in the face for telling a person they are starting to look fat and I was sorry Vern didn’t know the command for “jump as hard as you can onto his lap,” until he screamed he should have worn a protective cup on the boat and yelled out another F word.

In our house, you don’t use the F-A-T word.  In fact, we learned long ago about touchy subjects and how to re-word comments for a better reaction.  Just today we decided to take the dogs for a walk and as we were exiting the car, my husband looked over at me and said, “let’s get you out there in the wind, so we can call that hairdo windswept.” 

He could have said something unkind about my hair sticking up every which way, but instead he chose to give me a funny little nickname that made me laugh.  Another time I told him a woman came up to me at the deli counter and told me I had small feet for such a tall gal and instead of laughing and saying something about my big feet, all my husband said was, “did she have her seeing eye dog with her?”  Big feet and wild hairdos are not off limits in our household, but he knows that weight can be a sore subject and he is always very complimentary to me even when I have left him open for some really great one liners.  All the more reason I was totally shocked when he said what he said about Vern and in front of him, no less.

I swear it was only a lick or two...........

I mean, come on, if he can stand there with a straight face when I come home from the gym and tell him I have the same amount of body fat as a walrus, he can sit on our boat and not talk about Vern’s weight.  Even when I said I hoped I didn’t grow two big tusks or I was going to be hours at the dentist for my next cleaning, all he said was to look at the bright side, we’d always have a place to hang our coats. 

Sure, we have had moments in our household where we forget the rules. Like the time I told my daughters to watch what they eat and exercise often and they could end up with a body just like their mom’s and one of them said, “Is that how that happened? Really?” and the other one started screaming in an over the edge, panicky kind of way until I feared I was going to have to slap her to snap her out of it.  Instead, I held her tightly to me, letting her feel her mother’s love all around her, until she said, “Mom, I can’t breathe.  I am caught up in your double chin,” and then I held her a littler tighter and squeezed.  That to me is just friendly banter and I can take it, but Vern is an innocent dog, as sweet as apple pie, and his self-esteem could be severely damaged by a fat joke.

Somebody called me the F word!

My husband knows to use words like, “under tall, over short, big boned, curvaceous, healthy, hearty, shapely, and zaftig,” but that day, on the boat, he said the F word.  After I got done gasping, I whispered to my husband, “Vern heard you. You hurt his feelings and you need to say you are sorry.”  At first John laughed and said he didn’t realize that the dog who ran head first into the porch screen earlier that day was the sensitive type, but he went ahead and said something to Vern about girls liking the big guys and Vern wagged his tail.  Pretty soon Vern went back to shaking and rolling so it seemed like the crisis had passed.

That towel was supposed to protect the seats!

 

I have noticed throughout my life that when you are trying to lose weight it is better to hang out with other people who are trying to lose weight, too.  Otherwise, you go out to dinner and one of you is eating salad with no dressing and the other one is trying to enjoy a piece of blueberry pie and ignore the disapproving looks coming from the salad eater.  You know it is just a matter of time before the salad eater says something like, “the weight is just dropping off now that I have given up refined sugar,” and the pie eater is thinking, “I wish you would shut your pie hole so I could enjoy my refined sugar in peace.” 

John really does inspire me because if the Doctor tells him to do this or that for his health, he does it the same day.  For me, I get mad at the Doctor, mentally call her lots of bad names, and tell myself just because she has some fancy degree in health doesn’t give her the right to tell me what to do and eventually convince myself that what she said was my idea to begin with.  We get to the same point, but my way is a little more roundabout. 

 

Trust me, I am only trying to make sense of my husband’s insensitivity and I am not making excuses for him saying the F word to Vern any more than I used to do when he disciplined our children.  Back then, I would just remind him to wait until there were no witnesses.  

We are trying to be more active and eat better and with that comes a new mindset and that day on the boat, I think John imagined he was Bob Greene and Vern was his Oprah to mold and shape and the power went to his head and he blurted out the F word. 

When I told him the vet said at his last appointment that his weight was fine, but she didn't want him to gain any more weight, he said he would be curious to see what she said at the next visit.   With the weather getting cooler, I am hoping longer walks will help because if the vet tells Vern he is too fat at our next visit, Vern is going to hear another bad word that starts with a D….D-I-E-T!

[Bonnie and Kona]

Vern is like a Milky Way bar... fluffy not stuffy. We do not use that word at our house either.... ever. I think DH may need a little reminder of the rules of etiquette, political correctness or just safety measures regarding unseemly speech. I'm surprised Vern didn't make that leap into his dad's lap all on his own. Them's fightin' words. I had to look up zaftig. I'm not sure I want to be called that either. It's definition is okay but the sound of it is still a bit insulting.

[Camilla and Darwin]

Poor Vern! Tell your DH that it's just Vern's fur making him look husky

[Jane, Rooney & Stuart]

OMD - poor Vern.  Bad, bad, John!!!  This makes me really nervous for our cruise because while I had big dreams of loosing a ton of weight and showing up all thin, well not thin really but not fat - I only lost 13 lbs so I'm still  “under tall, over short, big boned, curvaceous, healthy, hearty, shapely, and zaftig,” - glad I'm not eating at the early dinner seating with you all, no telling what Johm might say!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Hilarious! I am undertall nowadays; glad to have a socially correct label.  Poor Vern.  I think he and Clancy can commiserate.  We are pretty strict about Clancy's meal portions and he really wishes we would go back to a grained food so he could have bigger meals.