Bad Fat Coffee

For most of the past ten years I've eaten a low-fat diet, only I've put butter on it. My reasoning has been that in order for vegetables to be good for you, you have to eat them, so soaking them in cheese sauce is better, and cheese sauce with bacon grease is best. (In fact, my Aunt Liddy makes a cheese-and-bacon sauce so heavenly you can skip the vegetables entirely.)

Recently, scientists have declared that there are actually two types of fat: bad fat, which is found in everything you eat, including probably water, and good fat, which can be found only in unicorn horns and fairy dust.

For example, I read the other day that some scientist says there is even bad fat in decaffeinated coffee, though regular coffee seems to be okay. The scientist, Dr. D. B. L. Espresso, said that all the people who switched to decaf for their health should switch back for the same reason.

Actually, his name is H. Robert Superko, M.D., and the study was known as the Coffee And Lipoprotein Metabolism Study, or "CALM," as they called it.

So when I got up this morning I brewed regular coffee, even though I usually drink an entire pot of decaf. My body, deprived of its usual dose of bad fat, began craving Aunt Liddy's bacon-and-cheese sauce on toast.

But I didn't care. I wasn't hungry, I was full of energy! I drank more coffee and took a shower, singing several songs that I made up on the spot, like "Uh-Oh, There's No Soap" and "Showerhead, I Love Thee." I'm actually a talented songwriter!

Then I put in a call to the White House, outlining my plan for how to keep America on the right track this century, which basically was "Put Bruce Cameron in Charge of Everything." I didn't actually reach the President but the person who answered must have been taking notes on what I said because she kept begging me to slow down. Eventually she asked me if there was another language in which I would feel more comfortable.

"Yes!" I told her gleefully. I put that on my list of things to do.

1. Learn to speak more comfortable languages.
   
   
2. Arrange a summit for World Peace (Wednesday?)
   
   
3. Talk to Janet Jackson about recording my Showerhead song.
   Maybe go dancing with her later?
   
   
4. Why shouldn't I drive a Corvette?

I realized that the more coffee I drank, the more I drank--I was spastically sipping the stuff and was almost through the entire pot. But why not make more coffee? There was no bad fat!

A telemarketer phoned and we talked for 45 minutes. I was a little hurt that after the second time we were disconnected he refused to take my call, especially since I wasn't finished explaining my plan for his company to sell Liddy's Bacon-and-Cheese Sauce over the phone, with the proceeds to go to the charity that I would be heading up with Janet Jackson as my co-chair and dancing partner.

I decided to stop drinking coffee when I realized that my fingers were so jittery they were typing things just by resting on the keyboard. I tried to reach Dr. H. Robert Superko, the scientist in charge of lipoproteins, to tell him that I might be a lot of things, but I sure as heck wasn't CALM.

Just after noon I began to experience the sort of headache you get when you accidentally get your brain caught in a paper shredder. I had to stop writing my U.N. speech and lie on the floor. My dog took this to mean we were trading places and went in to sleep on my bed. "Call 911," I told him feebly. "I've got dancing lipoproteins."

A few hours later the room stopped heaving long enough for me to fall into bed, which the dog didn't seem to appreciate. I lay there and vibrated, my heart fibrillating wildly.

So switching to regular coffee may not be as healthy as the good folks at CALM say it is.

Some of us just need that bad fat.

~ Bruce Cameron ~

[ by W. Bruce Cameron Copyright © 2007, (bruce@wbrucecameron.com) -- {used with permission} ]