Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Emperor’s New Pants

With apologies to Hans Christian Andersen

Long ago, there lived an emperor, who was… well, let’s just say he made Henry the Eighth look like Sammy the Skinny Serf. When Shakespeare said “heavy is the head that wears the crown,” this was the guy he was probably talking about.

Anyway, even though he was morbidly obese, he always took great pains to dress impeccably. In fact, there were only two things the emperor really liked: clothes and macaroni and cheese (well, technically that’s three things).

He didn’t care for his soldiers, and the theatre did not amuse him; the only thing, in fact, he thought anything of was to hit the drive-thru window of the kingdom’s fast food joints and go shopping for new duds at Ye Olde Big & Tall Emporium. He had a coat for every hour of the day, and even a special coat that he wore to the… ummmm… when he was going to the “throne” room.

One day a man named Charlie Ton came to this city. This guy made people believe that he was a mighty weight-loss wizard, and declared he could help anyone in the kingdom lose weight without diet or exercise. Though they were ignorant peasants, most of the inhabitants of the land were too smart to be taken in by the conniving con man.

However, losing weight without diet or exercise sounded pretty much okey-dokey to the emperor, so he granted an audience to the scurrilous scammer.

“What is it?” asked the emperor hungrily. “Adkins? South Beach? Please tell me that I do NOT have to have someone count points for me…”

“No, sire,” replied the smiling Charlie. “You just don these magic pants and you can eat whatever it is thy heart doth desire.”

The emperor was obliviously happen and took the magic trousers. He had his attendants disrobe him and he slipped on the new pants.

“Check it out!” he said, admiring himself in his royal mirror. “They feel great! And they even have a drawbridge.”

“Do you mean a ‘drawstring,’ my liege?” asked his head attendant.

After the beheading, the new head attendant commented on the emperor’s attire: “My, those pants for stylin’, forsooth! How’s that drawbridge feel?”

“Fantastic,” laughed the emperor. “Now let’s go get our buffet on!”

A month went by and the emperor never took off his magic pants, but he did have to loosen the draw… the drawbridge once or twice.

Then one day, while out serving as official starter for the Annual King Spring Fling 5K run, a young boy pointed at him and scoffed.

“Ha! The emperor’s wearing sweat pants in public! He’s given up!”

Sadly, the emperor realized that the young lad was correct. That night, he started a new diet, began a strenuous exercise program and launched his own blog: “Losing Weight… My Crowning Achievement”.

- The End -


29 comments:

  1. I have been trying to comment on your blogs for days now and cant...am checking to see if today it works.
    Want you to know you on my feedreader so pop around to read...and do try comment...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm struggling to comment on your blog...for days now....

    ReplyDelete
  3. How does he do it? (and by 'he' I mean YOU, Jack. YOU are hilarious)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have a post coming up in a few - Dr. Oz no-no: NO STRETCHY PANTS!!!!

    Always a message within the fun!

    ReplyDelete
  5. LOL! Thanks for sharing, Jack!

    ReplyDelete
  6. look, the king's wearing sweatpants in public, he's given up..
    lmao
    That was me, except I called the 'dress pants...only they were upscale stretchy pants...lacking only the draw string.
    awful.
    great story...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great Post! Do you ever get tired of hearing that? I should just cut and paste that phrase everyday, and save myself the effort of typing.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ha! Love the emperors new pants...

    My "giving up" was skirts with elastic waistbands, so I kidded myself that I was dressing up for work.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Not much more I can say different than anyone else here who has commented. Dude? You are down right funny. Okay, I don't really talk that way .... thanks for writing this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  10. lol. this is my first comment on your blog since starting to follow. THIS was hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Forsooth. lol. Sorry to hear about the plus poundage from last month. I'm not really worried about seeing you become the fat funny guy. So good luck and keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
  12. This was so funny you made me forget how hungry I am!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Very cute adaptation to the story!

    ReplyDelete
  14. You're so talented! LOL! I enjoy reading your blog:)

    ReplyDelete
  15. oh man im wearing sweat pants right now... well im just in the living room...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Do. Not. Just. Look. At. Number. On. Scale. The ONLY number that matters now is bodyfat percentage. In fact, if you can get the scale to simultaneously go UP and bodyfat percentage to go down...you are doing DOUBLE awesome duty! if you were 210 and...say....12% bodyfat...that beats the crap out of 200 and, say, 19% bodyfat. Truly...truly...truly!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I could use some magic ... Maybe a magic pen. Or one key on my keyboard. A magic key.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Yup...I always knew I dressed like royalty.

    ReplyDelete
  19. very funny, but sadly, this is what happened to me when i got up to my highest weight. none of my pants fit and all i could wear was sweatpants.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Totally not the point of the story, but I laughed my @ss off at "After the beheading..."!

    ReplyDelete
  21. My crowning achievement was getting to buy pants that no longer had an elastic "gathering" for greater comfort, or a fake panel in the front to resemble a zipper and button. It's the small things in life, really.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Ugh, I hate sweatpants. Don't own a single pair. Didn't even wear them when I was pregnant.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails