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Hippo is addicted to appetite-supressant pills. It's a relatively recent
development. He's hasn't bought into the notion that beauty is thinness, he's not
concerned about his weight, nor anything "stupid" like that, he just doesn't like to
take the time to eat.
As a little kid Hippo hated being called to come to dinner. He was
invariably always right in the middle of something important, something
exciting, some need more immediate than food. Hippo could go almost all day
without getting hungry. It seemed to him that one should eat when one is
hungry, there being no reason to feed the body when it did not need to be
fed. Hippo's mom had other ideas; she believed that one should eat three
times a day no matter what. So she forced him to eat dinner even when he
was busy with some pressing matter, even when he wasn't the least bit hungry.
Hippo also hated that eating was so time consuming. If he had to eat,
he at least wished that the whole matter could be finished up in a more
speedily manner.
When in his teens, Hippo dreamed of a day when scientists would invent
pills that could be digested, giving the body its entire daily requirements
of vitamins and what not. When his mother called him to dinner, he often
daydreamed about just being able to pop a pill into his mouth without ever
leaving the computer.
While these scientific advancements have not yet been truly realized,
appetite-suppressant pills and vitamin capsules have come a long way. Hippo
buys both in bulk. With two vitamin C, an assortment of vitamin A, B6, & E, an
iron substitute, and last but not least three appetite suppressant pills Hippo
can make it an entire day without hunger or, for the most part, fatigue.
Hippo once went 52 hours without real food.
Hippo tries to hide his "practice" from his friends. He eats with them
occasionally, but eats very little.
It doesn't work perfectly though. Hippo's skin is a little too pink; not
truly pale but not normal either. Hippo's body is very lank, he doesn't
weigh very much. Hippo gets tired very easily, and one side effect of the
suppressants is that it keeps him in a foul mood. The worst thing that's ever
happened as a result of his excesses, or lack thereof depending on how you
look at it, occured at the beginning of exam week. Hippo awoke Monday morning
feeling very hungry, so he got up and went down a flight of stairs to the
drink machine for a Nestea, a beverage of which he drinks a lot. As he walked
down the first-floor hallway towards the machine, he suddenly began to feel
weightless. Without warning the ground spun out of control and he found
himself lying on the floor in pain. He got up and staggered a few feet before
he fell unconcious. Again he awoke on the cold floor, in more pain. Things
continued like this for another 60 feet, over which distance he fell another
five times. When he finally reached the drink machine, it was being refilled.
Sighing sadly, Hippo sat down on the floor to wait for the guy to finish
restocking it.
Hippo suddenly realized that he needed to relieve himself. Standing up,
he lurched across the room towards the nearest bathroom. About half way there
he fell to the ground again. This time he lay on the floor and rested.
Gathering his strength he sat up and leaned against the wall with his eyes
closed, willing his brain to start working again.
Two housekeepers came out the door which he had been trying to make it
through and walked up to them. To Hippo they appeared to be moving in slow
motion and then suddenly appearing several feet closer to him then they had
been a second before; it was if he was watching a cascade of time-delay
photographs. They spoke to him in some weird unhuman tongue and he replied,
"I'm tired....I'm just so tired....I haven't eaten since Friday afternoon....
so tired.... I *really* need to relieve myself." One of the house keepers
helped Hippo to the bathroom while the other disappeared into the
housekeepers' office.
Once in the bathroom, Hippo attempted the trick task of pulling down his
boxer shorts. It took several tries. Then he tried to sit down on the
toilet, an attempt which ended in his falling forward to the floor, where he
lay unconcious for somewhere around ten minutes. He awoke when an EMT stuck
his head in and asked him if he was alright. "Fine.", he replied, and then
tried to remember where he was. Finally he pieced together that he was
lying on the bathroom floor and remembered what he had gone through in the
last half hour. He stood up and carefully lowered himself onto the toilet.
After relieving himself he reached down to pull up his boxers and noticed
that he wasn't wearing any. This confused him to no end, because he was sure
that he had been wearing his favourite pair of X-Men boxers when he had
entered the stall. He looked around for several minutes but could not locate
them. Several times the EMT stuck his head in the door and asked him how he
was doing. The final time, Hippo asked him if he had a towel.
"A towel?", the EMT asked.
"A towel.", Hippo answered.
"Huh?", the EMT said.
"I'm not wearing any pants.", said Hippo.
"Not wearing pants?", the EMT asked.
"No pants.", Hippo said, speaking slowly.
"Well then put on your pants.", the EMT replied.
"*NO* *PANTS*.", Hippo said firmly. Hippo was beginning to wonder if the
people around him were not only moving slower, but perhaps he wasn't speaking
the same language.
"You didn't wear any pants?", asked the EMT.
"I was wearing boxers when I came in", said Hippo, "now they're gone."
"Gone?", questioned the EMT.
"Yes. Someone has stolen them."
"Gone?"
"You're my prime suspect."
"Gone?"
"Look, GET ME A TOWEL OR SOME PANTS NOW!!!"
The EMT disappeared for a few moments and came back with a towel. Hippo
wrapped it around his waist and then exited the bathroom. Standing outside
the door, salivating with glee, were four EMTs. They made him sit down on
the floor and then asked him what his name was, each in turn. Hippo humoured
them ask answered the question four times. They next proceeded to each ask
him a set of 23 questions. By the time Hippo had answered a total of 96
questions, he was ready to go back upstairs and return to bed. The EMTs would
not let him though, and soon got into an arguement with eachother over what
sort of spinal injury Hippo was sure to have received from the many falls.
Hippo interjected that he felt fine and that his neck and spine felt fine, but
they just laughed at him and put him in a neck brace that made it hard for him
to breath. The ambulance soon arrived and the EMTs layed Hippo on a stretcher
and strapped him on, duct-taping his head down for good measure. Hippo was
wheeled out of the dorm, down two bumpy flights of steps, and then thrown
into the ambulance, which slowly drove him the quarter mile to the hospital
and then charged him $460.00 for their services.
Hippo has yet to find his X-Men boxer shorts.
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