I hadn't seen Cary in over two months.

"Mike, you have lost weight!" Cary exclaimed.

"Nope."

"Yes, I think that you have. You look thinner."

"That's just not possible. I've had these jeans for years and they fit the same as always. I have not lost weight."

Cary and I argue almost every day, although usually via phone. He's the guy who tests the software that I write so we invariably have arguments that go like this:

Cary: Mike, I am thinking that customers will not understand the error message that says, "Null Pointer Exception"

Me: Ok, but you got that error by pressing the F7 key. I doubt that many of our customers even know they have an F7 key.

Cary: How will they know what they did wrong? The error message is not clear. This should be fixed.

Me: You did something the customer will never do! I can't code for that. What if monkeys fall out of the sky and piss themselves out of fear, and the rain of urine causes a short in the customer's computer? Should I write software that anticipates this situation? Should it say, "A shower of monkey piss has been detected. Appropriate countermeasures have been undertaken." Then the computer would simultaneously shoot the monkeys out of the sky while dabbing at the urine with a hanky. Is that what you expect?

Cary: (exasperated) Fine.

I don't think Cary has ever won an argument with me. My debating skills are top-notch, as you can see. (Note, however, that sometimes after the fact, I do go fix the "monkey" problem du jour.)

So, we were in familiar territory while discussing my phantom weight loss.

"Mike, but I can see that you are thinner."

"That just can't be, Cary. I'm still eating like crap. I'm not exercising more. My clothes fit the same. I have not lost weight."

"Your belly is gone."

"I NEVER HAD A BELLY!"

"Ok." Cary sighed, wearily shaking his head with disbelief.

I told my wife about the conversation when we got home. Although she agreed that I never had a belly, she acknowledged that I seemed a bit slimmer.

Weird.

I rarely weigh myself. It's probably been about 4 months since I got on a scale. I dusted it off that night (literally) and let it be the final arbiter in this all-important issue. I was astonished to find that it agreed with Cary. I had lost between 5 and 10 pounds since I last weighed myself.

WEIRD!

So....tapeworm? Elaborate prank between Cary, my wife, and the scale? Horrible wasting-away disease? They're all such good theories.

I'm hoping for tapeworm.