IF ANY OF the rest of you, like me, are insomniacs, you have found yourselves surfing the TV channels late at night and finding that eight of every 10 channels is featuring an infomercial teaching viewers how to get "washboard abs." At first, I didn't even know what that means.
Oh, yeah, sure, I know now - abdominal muscles - the midsection being that part of the body most Americans reportedly would like to improve.They want chiseled, well-toned middles, you see.
So I check out all the trim, gorgeous people of both sexes wearing clothes that adequately reveal their abs. These people are reading the teleprompter with sickeningly sweet enthusiasm.
None of them are acting award winners, that's for sure. They are advertising such miracle tools as the Ab Roller Plus that allegedly produces "a flat, sexy stomach in five minutes flat."
They demonstrate it graphically with long close-up shots centered right on the abs, which, it turns out, are not exactly the most aesthetic parts of our bodies, even when they look like washboards.
The ab hucksters show the repetitive movements of the ab gadgets over and over again, then exult in what amazing instruments they are.
Well, I guess they are slightly better than vibrating belts and belly creams, but not much.
Never mind that most experts say you can exercise your abs just fine without any special equipment, or that some of the dozen or so exercisers on the market are mostly useless.
And never mind that no matter how many ab devices you use, you would still need to do about a half million situps to burn enough calories to lose a mere one pound of fat.
That means, of course, people get "rock-hard washboard abs" only by achieving an extremely low percentage of body fat.
The fact is, these crazy infomercials are triggering the sale of an estimated 2.73 million ab gadgets in the United States in a year - that's about $145 million in sales.
I guess there are a lot of insomniacs out there - women who are desperate to have tiny waists and men who are worried sick about having their bellies slipping disgustingly over their belts.
I'll tell you, though, I'm learning something. Most people worry more at night - especially when they can't sleep.
If I'm awake at 2 in the morning, everything I'm worried about always seems worse - even my abs. Suddenly, it occurs to me, my abs are NOT like washboards.
Then I get steadily more awake and more worried. Even though I realize, rationally, that an ab gadget will not miraculously change my life, I still feel like building my body - now.
But that would be worthless, because I don't have any of the patented ab devices to use.
I can't just run out and buy an ab roller or something, because all the ab stores are closed. If I were to run in place, it would be sure to wake up the family.
The exercise bike is pretty loud, too. And I just can't bring myself to call the TV people and place an order.
So I go back to bed and resume watching all the beautiful people work on their abs. But that is getting old, so I change the channel to a 1942 gangster movie starring Sidney Greenstreet.
I don't last long there, either, because it is clear that Greenstreet has never worried for even one minute about his abs. So I flip off the TV, turn over and immediately go to sleep.
It's a miracle. My insomnia is cured by the Ab Roller Plus!