So... what you're saying is that you think I'm fat?

Here's a punchline I hope someday to use. When someone, someday, asks me how I get ideas for my blog I'll say: "Oh, well, you know, sometimes they just come to me or I'll be reading and I'll get an idea or sometimes someone will walk up to me and hand me an idea. Literally."

The other day I was at work in the evening and there was this guy who had been shopping and he walked up to the counter. He looked like he wanted to ask a question so I asked if I could help him. And the first thing he says to me is something like: "Are there a lot of overweight people in {city I live in}? I mean, the demographic. It's related to a business opportunity." I think I must have stared at him for several seconds. The wheels were turning in my head. At first I wondered if this was in any way related to the store that I work for and us selling things. "Uhm. I'm not sure I really know..." I temporized. "Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?" He asked me next. We do. I gave them to him in the hopes that this will cause him to buy his magazine and go away sooner rather than later.

While he wrote on the paper he spoke, making the writing go much more slowly. He sounded vaguely excited about whatever it is that he's talking about but I find it difficult to understand people who are talking in the direction of their own hands (unless their hands are between my face and the person talking). Phrases that I remember him say during the entire conversation include: "It's a meal-replacement shake. 170 calories. I did it. I'm a biker. I race bicycles. But I couldn't get rid of that fat around my belly but this did it. I know people that make 30,000 dollars a month. I make 15,000 dollars a month and I'm a pilot. It's real easy. You just have to do it and you lose weight and if you can get three other people to do it it pays for yours. After that you make money from it. And you don't have to talk to family or anything. You can tell anyone. You'll be helping them to lose weight." I also remember something about a BMW and protesting that I could not drive. I think he also invited me to call him.

I realized that he might never go away if I did not agree with him so I told him I would visit the website he had written down and check it out. Apparently satisfied he bought his magazine and finally left. Once he was gone I had time to actually digest what he said. Especially as I briefly told my coworker about him when she came back to the front of the store. And basically it boiled down to: There's a multi-level marketing opportunity to sell meal-replacement shakes. First you take the "ninety-day challenge" and then you can sell it to other people and make money from it.

I did look up the website he gave me. It's vernonSHOPS.myvi.net/challenge. This is obviously not the website for the real product but instead a generic and individualized shop just to convince you to enter your contact information so this guy can contact you and try to sell you this and probably you'll also go on a bunch of mailing lists you'll never be able to get off and telemarketers will call you and that kind of thing. Just by poking around his website it looks as though, if he is indeed making 15,000 dollars a month, he is not doing it through the website. There's extremely little traffic at all, never mind from other people. I decide to move on and from the logo I can tell that the company is called ViSalus so I punch that into Google. I don't even have to bother putting in "scam" along with it because half the websites that pop up along with the actual one contain the word scam in the title. I look at their website and the stuff that they've given away and the things they've done for people.

It appears as though ViSalus is not actually a scam but it is a multi-level marketing scheme. (About which you ought to already know my opinion and if not check out my previous post Pyramid Schemes, Multilevel Marketing, & Paying it Forward.) I wouldn't expect to make money from it and it's not a product I would use. Despite the fact that the name is "ViSalus Sciences" and they have this "scientific" information on their website about the products I also wouldn't think it would be the safest way to lose weight and I'd advise consulting with your physician if you are considering trying it. Their website makes it seem very exciting and like a sure bet kind of thing but as with all of these companies: They aren't trying to make you money; they're trying to make themselves money and if you make some for yourself while you're at it then good for you.

Having checked out the website and knowing what I now know about it I wish I could go back and have that conversation with that guy again. I have some very pressing questions for him. But the one I really want to ask and sort of wish I had (to see if it would have stopped the conversation dead in its tracks) is: "So... what you're saying is that you think I'm fat?"