Beach Donkeys Lay Down for Their Rights!

As I lay back on the bed, I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the soft music, dimmed lights and the gentle touch of a stranger's hands as they carressed my arm.


Yes, it was my regular blood donation day.


As a single parent of an almost 18 year old girl/woman, you take your pleasures where you can.


In that twilight zone of lightheadedness combined with no actual responsibilities for the next 45 mintues or so, my thoughts ran to solutions for those poor beleaguered beach donkeys so recently featured in the local rag.


(That was after my usual fantasy that the nurse was suctioning fat out of my hips as opposed to blood out of my vein.)


You see, there are some 900 beach donkeys hard at work on England's beaches lugging about increasingly supersized burdens on their already swayed backs. Donkeys UNITE! Well, they have and now limits are set on the poundage of the children allowed to be placed on a donkey's back. About bleeding time! Have you seen the size of some children these days?


As I became ever more lightheaded I came up with what I thought were some good solutions to this problem of child obesity so that any donkey would be happy to see them clamber up. I mean, how mortifying to have to step on a scale before getting on the donkey of your choice: "Sorry Mortimer" (that's what they call their children in England) "you're a tad bit over the limit lad, sorry ol' chap, can you say Atkins?"


So here are my solutions:


1) Fat Transfusions: If we can donate blood to someone who needs a transfusion why not suction off a few gallons of child fat and ship it overseas to all of those starving children in India and Africa? What with the increase in population and decrease in food production it seems a win/win solution all around.


2) Or, even better - Student Exchange: last year we had a student from France stay with us and then my daughter went and stayed with his family. Why not send those obese children to Ethiopia or Kenya and take a child or two or three in return (equal in weight to the obese child) and unexchange them when they have either fattened up or slimmed down. Think of the opportunities here for cultural exchange, learning a new language and so on.


Perhaps when my blood levels get back to normal I'll see things a bit differently, then again, maybe not!