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CANTON, OHIO -- Local homemaker and burgeoning entrepreneur
Marnie Bayrehogen sat in her parked 1996 Neon and cried for
a half hour on Wednesday night.
Leaving twin toddlers, Jason and Jeremy, in front of a video
cassette playback of "Pretty Woman," the former
size 16 retreated to her seafoam hatchback for what she is
now calling "some necessary alone time."
Three months ago, Bayrehogen saw herself as just another
overweight, divorced mom with a mortgaged condominium and
an expired real estate license. Today, a look in the TJ Maxx
dressing room mirror sees a much trimmer Marnie, but her Ann
Taylor wardrobe doesn't hide the stinging tears of humiliation.
Like most stories worth telling, hers began with a chance
encounter in a chain restaurant parking lot.
"I was rolling the boys out of Applebee's when I saw
this gentleman struggling with some masking tape," explained
Bayrehogen. "It's not my habit to flirt with the twins
in tow, but I guess the four Electric Blue Margaritas had
kicked in. And that's how I met Todd."
Todd Wendorf, a 43-year-old flight attendant, was tired from
a morning spent hanging signs reading, "I lost 36 pounds
in 30 days," when Ms. Bayrehogen approached him. But
he knew a kindred spirit when he saw one.
Bayrehogen followed Wendorf back to his studio apartment
where three wine coolers and a check for $284 ushered her
into "a whole new world of health and happiness."
But that happiness didn't come without an additional price.
"I used to talk to her on the phone all the time,"
explained neighbor Trudy Holmesby. "But after thirty
seconds of 'wheat-germ-this' and 'seaweed-that' it's 'oh,
I understand... good-bye.' She's a pariah."
Bayrehogen insists that thanks to a 21-day herbal cleansing
program, her Thermojetics Gold diet and plenty of Herbal Aloe
Drink, she went from being the fat girl with the pretty face
to the pretty girl with the pretty face.
"For the record, she's still a little chunky,"
said Faye Tristard of Don Tristard Pontiac. "And she
was never the fat one with the pretty face. That's Barb."
"Marnie would always come to Pictionary night with those
real good peanut butter fudge squares," said pretty-faced
Barb Friedman. "But back in March, she started bringing
these rabbit pellet things and fliers all about low carbs
and whatnot. And that ain't what this fat girl's about."
"She was a real hoot before the herb people got to her,"
interjected Tristard. " Now she just bugs the crap out
of me."
"If they only knew what they're missing," began
Bayrehogen before prattling on about Herbalife's nutrition
products, long distance service, and satellite television
channel that she hopes to afford someday.
"Herbalife's just good folks doing good things for people
with low self-esteem," continued Bayrehogen. "I'm
sure if the head of Herbalife was here, he'd say it much better
than someone like me ever could. See, I never went to college."
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