Posted: May 14, 2008, 4:13 AM CST
Josephine sat in front of the tv munching. She munched through two giant sized packets of crisps (chips to American folks), a 200 gram bar of milk chocolate, an XXL pack of Pringles and a milk Bounty, a dark chocolate Bounty and three packets of peanut M&M/s.
Josephine felt miserable. The chocolate cheered her up; well, it cheered her up momentarilly - and the crisps and Pringles kinda absorbed some of the gooey chocolate mess she was fermenting in her stomach.
Enough 'food' - she needed something to drink. She staggered to the fridge in the kitchen and poured herself Diet Coke into a huge plastic beaker. On the way to the kitchen door she turned back and grabbed the rest of the bottle - no point in letting it go flat!
She settled down for the evening. She was on her own. She surfed the tv stations.
She went to bed; reading quickly and efficiently for an hour and making brief notes with a pencil in the margins.
The next day she washed and dressed and went to work.
She had a hard job. It required both knowledge and skill. She had to be very aware of all that was going on around her. Her job taxed her brain and also, very often, her emotions.
Josephine knew why she ate so much comforting junk food.
Her job carried enormous responsibility. Josephine had to advise other professionals and her comments could affect the lives of other people for better or for worse.
She knew her job was important, but the emotional strain made her need the comofrt of comfort food went she went back to her lonely home after a gruelling day.
Josephine was a judge. Josephine was a judge in a criminal court, and what she saw and knew and had to deal with could be very upsetting.
Josephine cared. She was only human after all, and so what if she was obese and called 'The Whale' by the entire legal profession?
That night she tucked into a large tub of chocolate ice-cream. It was a lonely life, but she did her best to cope.