The opportunity seemed to be well within my grasp. I could finally parlay my fat into cash. I just needed to be overweight and willing to lose weight. As you may know from prior posts, I am both.
There are two weight loss clinical trials that caught my eye. One was more local in downtown Chicago. I could easily take the train into Chicago and walk to the clinic, but I wouldn’t want to walk so fast that I would lose too much weight so that I would no longer be considered fat. I would have to leisurely stroll. It paid okay, but the real payday was at a research clinic a couple hours north in Madison, Wisconsin. Their weight loss clinical trial is paying $18,000+ for participation in their 6 month trial which includes some overnight stays with meals provided. Yes, it would include several all-expense-paid vacations for me.
But there is a problem …
I am not fat enough. Kind of ironic that my previous weight loss could keep me from earning money with my fat. The key is my BMI or Body Mass Index. I got to speak with a phone screener for the Chicago trial. I fudged a bit with my height and reduced it by an inch. I figured I could slouch if they actually measured my height as I have been called an incredible slouch many times in the past. And I fudged up my weight a few pounds. I knew that I would have no problem adding weight if required. But I came up short, or not short enough, which means not fat enough by just a little bit. The phone screener was great. He asked if I was confident in my ability to gain a few more pounds by the time the clinical trial started. Yes! I am extremely confident in my ability to gain weight. There has never been any doubt about that. But there was yet another problem.
The phone screener then told me about the shots. That would be how the weight loss drug would be administered to me. Those would be shots with very sharp needles. And then I was told that I would not know if the shots I would receive contained the weight loss concoction or a placebo. I thanked the phone screener for his time and told him I would pass. He was nice and offered to call me back in a couple weeks in case I got fatter. It was nice of him to be so confident in my ability to pork up. I’ll be able to wish him a Merry Christmas when he calls, unless my mouth is jammed full of Christmas cookies.
The same BMI problem knocked me out of the Madison, Wisconsin clinical trial. That and the fact that my family may not appreciate me taking monthly holidays to a weight loss clinic (fatcations?) without them. And Madison in January is hardly an attractive vacation destination.
I did get some good news though. I had applied for a clinical trial back in the summer, and they had to send my blood sample to Europe to be tested to see if I qualify. Yes, I am qualified! All I have to do is go back to give them more of my blood on a regular basis to get paid. I will literally be paid with blood money. Any money, even blood money, will be most welcome when the Christmas bills start arriving in January.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 