How to get rid of love handles
Have you ever looked up the origin of something … and wish you hadn’t?
I have.
I could have dove right into the meat of this post. Just, cut the fat and got down to the nitty-gritty. See, back in 1981 — when we were all whistling the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme and marveling at the first space shuttle (I was 10) — the book Richard Spears’s Slang and Euphemism introduced the world to the concept of love handles: the “fat on the sides of a man or woman held onto during copulation,” the book sayth.
I’ll give you a minute. (It’s also called “side butt,” which makes me want to move on quickly from the history and nomenclature.)
As someone who has come equipped with said apparatus since, oh, the fifth grade, I feel license to feign disdain at the idea. But it’s there, and despite its crude dawning, love handles are something even great aunts and neighbors remark on when they see our muffin top degrading the lines of a tucked-in T-shirt.
For the sake of the title of this post, we’ll assume I’ve been successful in vanquishing these unrefined furnishings and want nothing more than to share my magic transformation with the neo-COVID-15 homebound snackers who scour the depths of Medium.
