My editors suck. In the spirit of this whole “health and fitness” thing, they told me I had to go clean up my act and maybe dig out the lint that’s protruding from my bellybutton so the staffers here don’t “gag on their morning coffee anymore.”

It’s not easy, getting healthy. When your metabolism runs on stuff that most would consider worse than gasoline, a simple change of lifestyle is slightly taxing.

I read somewhere that a glass of wine every day is good for your heart. I’ve been chugging the stuff by the boxful. But I wouldn’t say it’s achieved the desired effect—unless you count drunkenly screaming at neighborhood kids that their lemonade sucks and they should give up on their entrepreneurial dreams before their dreams give up on them. I don’t think little Suzie down the block is a fan of my projectile vomiting on her stand, either, though I did point out that a quarter’s a quarter, even if people buy lemonade only because they pity the crying girl with the stained stand.

Then I tried to clean out my colon. Nothing came out except for a note from my liver that said, “Good luck, buddy.”

Just in case I turn out to be diabetic, I tried pumping myself full of insulin I bought from a guy who was selling it on pallets behind Bubblegum Alley. That just made me sick. Well, it also produced some really cool hallucinations of dancing doughnuts sashaying around the Bubblegum Queen. Now I actually am diabetic. And I skipped a day of work to play Candy Land.

I tried going to the gym, but the guys there kept trying to bench press me; I’d like to argue that I intimidated them, but their glistening man boobs were beyond reproach. As further insult, my elliptical machine would only move in rectangles.

To top it all off, the new Congress is trying to take away my fancy socialist health care before I can even cash in. As a part of their keeping-promises malarkey, the House Republicans are taking a step forward in their goal to undo the careful planning of their Democratic brethren. Once the party of no, they’re now the party of nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. My two representatives—because I live in two districts for tax purposes (I don’t actually pay taxes)—probably have each other in headlocks as I peck away at my keyboard.

Lois Capps sent out a press package the day before the House was set to vote on the repeal of Obama-care, detailing all the nifty healthy stuff people will lose if the Republicans successfully put the kibosh on health-care reform. She detailed things like, I don’t know, the right to not be dead because your dirtbag insurer decides cancer is a pre-existing condition and you should turn out your pockets to keep grandma alive. Maybe it’s just her time.

On the other side of the aisle, Kevin McCarthy is probably giggling to himself, along with all his buddies, about how they get to thumb their noses at Obama and all his goons. Like an out-of-control tilt-a-whirl at the fair—arcing gracefully through the air—it’s impossible to say where this will all wind up, although there’s certain to be a great deal of bloodshed before it’s all over. The battle rages in the Senate, where Democrats still have a sniveling majority, even if they’re all trembling at the knees over 2012. And Obama has that veto pen. Maybe I should just buy myself a funnel cake and sit quietly and watch? Somewhere, John Boehner is blubbering softly. Someone please lend that guy a pair of huevos, as they call them in Mexico.

But when all is said and done, I’m left in my perpetually unhealthy state; I’m not sure I could get healthy now even if I wanted to, not without selling a vital organ or one of my yachts, at least. Maybe Jenny McCarthy can help. She sure helped me avoid the evils of autism with her anti-vaccine campaign. It helped me realize that medical practitioners are a bunch of dimwits compared to McCarthy’s rack.

And now she’s helping the rest of the world realize why our quaint San Luis Obispo is the happiest place in the United States—maybe the happiest place on Earth. You heard me, Walt. Or maybe you didn’t.

    From what I read, McCarthy was bouncing around SLO not too long ago filming a segment for Oprah to follow up on Dan Buettner labeling this place the happiest place to live. He said something like “they must put joy in the tap water,” or maybe that was the Parade magazine follow up. I can’t remember, because I was overdosing on life at the time.

I like living here, and I think most people on the Central Coast rather dig the area. There’s something, though, about someone telling me how happy I am that makes me want to prove them wrong.

Then there’s the fact that the Oprah-McCarthy team from hell is highlighting how great this place is in order to … I don’t know. What’s pretty freaking likely, though, is that they’ll drag a bunch of jerks over here with this massive marketing campaign that I didn’t ask for. Did you?

It’s got our Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Association all giddy, but I tend to think that stuffing the streets with the type of so-and-so who can actually afford to move here is a bad idea.

Maybe the latest Snuggie that used to be a Hearst Ranch zebra will help turn people away.

Until then, you can find me wheezing and vomiting at the gym, where I’ll probably be drinking.

The Shredder just wants you to be happy about being labeled happy. Send bits of glee—but not bits of the cast of Glee—to [email protected].