Dave, we knew ye when...

So David looked at me through a wall of tears. “Look at me, willya? I look like I’m related to the Pillsbury doughboy.”

I tried to soothe him as best I could. “Dave, dude, bubie, I warned you about the evils of writing. It was your grand idea to write the next Great Italian Novel by suggesting that Michelangelo was a drag queen who was being shaken down by the good friars from The Sanctuary of Monte Cassino.”

He smiled. “You have to admit, it’s a great plot.”

“Come on, Dave, it’s out there. It’ll never sell.”

He looked hurt. “Why do you say that? Don’t you think I can write?”

“It’s not that. It’s the plausibility factor. No one is going to believe that your winkie was accidentally knocked off during a rave and Mich had to chisel you a new one, only he ran out of marble and that’s why he had to cover you up with a grape leaf.”

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to have tourists peek under my grape leaf?”

“Well, they won’t now, for sure. Look at you,” I said, pointing to his expanded girth. “You’ve let yourself go, man. What is this going to do the tourist industry in Rome? If you’re going to write, you have to arrange your BIC Index* (*Butt In Chair) into more manageable chunks. You have to lighten up on the Hostess Ho-Ho’s for starters. Get up every hour and walk around, do some sit ups and stomach crunches. Put a salad into your diet.”

More tears fell down Dave’s portly cheeks. “What do you recommend?”

“Here,” I said, handing him a card, “this is your pass to 24-Hour Fitness. You’re in California now, so you’re gonna get fit, get a tan, lose the grape leaf, wax your chest, and, for godssakes, buy yourself some swimming trunks.”

He smiled for the first time that day. “And my novel?”

“What the hell, it’s crazy enough that Janet Reid will love it. Oh, and pass me that box of Twinkies, willya?”